Why Solipsism Matters

Author : Sami Pihlström
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350126411
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Solipsism Matters written by Sami Pihlström and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solipsism is one of the philosophical thesis or ideas that has generally been regarded as highly implausible, or even crazy. The view that the world is “my world” in the sense that nothing exists independently of my mind, thought, and/or experience is, understandably, frowned up as a genuine philosophical position. For this reason, solipsism might be regarded as an example of a philosophical position that does not “matter” at all. It does not seem to play any role in our serious attempts to understand the world and ourselves. However, by arguing that solipsism does matter, after all, Why Solipsism Matters more generally demonstrates that philosophy, even when dealing with highly counterintuitive and “crazy” ideas, may matter in surprising, unexpected ways. It will be shown that the challenge of solipsism should make us rethink fundamental assumptions concerning subjectivity, objectivity, realism vs. idealism, relativism, as well as key topics such as ethical responsibility – that is, our ethical relations to other human beings – and death and mortality. Why Solipsism Matters is not only an historical review of the origins and development of the concept of solipsism and a exploration of some of its key philosophers (Kant and Wittgenstein to name but a few) but it develops an entirely new account of the idea. One which takes seriously the global, socially networked world in which we live in which the very real ramifications of solipsism - including narcissism - can be felt.

Author : Safak Ural
Publisher : Vernon Press
ISBN 13 : 1622735625
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Solipsism, Physical Things and Personal Perceptual Space written by Safak Ural and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solipsism indicates an epistemological position that denies the existence of ‘others’ by asserting that the ‘self’ is the only thing that can be known to exist. For sophist philosophers, the belief that “we can not know anything, and even if we do so, we cannot communicate it” is central to this theory. However, until now there has been little academic scholarship that has tried to provide answers to the pressing issues raised by solipsism. In Solipsist Ontology: Physical Things and Personal Perceptual Space, Ural aims to redefine solipsism by analyzing and elaborating on traditional philosophical problems, such as empiricism and rationalism, as well as discussing problems of language, communication, and meaning. Ural reveals where solipsism has been previously ignored, pseudo-problems have arisen that disguise the sources of the problems with prejudices that concern the philosophical problems in question. Notably, many current, as well as traditional problems of ontology, epistemology, and language are bound up in discourses of solipsism. Ural argues that discarding solipsism as a philosophical discourse hinders new interpretations of traditional philosophical thought. This book offers a fresh perspective to solipsism by defining it in relation to concepts such as ‘physical things,’ ‘personal perceptual space’ and ‘identity.’ Importantly, Ural proposes that an understanding of ‘identity’ is not necessary in order to redefine solipsism. By building a logical system that fashions communication and solipsism as interrelated, it is possible to reject ‘identity’ as a useless concept and thus overcome the classic solipsist dilemma of “we are not able to communicate.” This original piece of research is an important and timely contribution to the field of philosophy that will be of great interest to teachers, researchers, and students.

Author : Richard A. Watson
Publisher : St. Augustine's Press
ISBN 13 : 9781587315893
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Solipsism written by Richard A. Watson and published by St. Augustine's Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The specter haunting modern philosophy is not the ghost in the machine: it is solipsism."

Author : Rae Langton
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199247064
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sexual Solipsism written by Rae Langton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking and contentious work on pornography and objectification. She shows how women come to be objectified and she argues for the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and women have rights against pornography.

Author : Paolo Diego Bubbio
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110650991
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Philosophy? written by Paolo Diego Bubbio and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we really need philosophy? The present collection of jargon-free essays aims at answering the question of why philosophy matters. Each essay considers the central question (Why Philosophy?) from different angles: the unavoidability of doing philosophy, the practical consequences of philosophy, philosophy as a therapy for the whole person, the benefits of philosophy for improving public policy, etc.

Author : Albert A. Johnstone
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438407998
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rationalized Epistemology written by Albert A. Johnstone and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1991-10-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines skeptical problems originally raised by Descartes and Hume and currently discussed in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology. It answers the basic skeptical questions concerning the existence of what is now unperceived, the reality of what is perceived, and the existence of an external world. Johnstone shows how the recently proposed solutions to these skeptical problems— pragmatic, coherentist, linguistic, and new-Kantian — do not and cannot work, and how only a return to foundational investigation on the terrain of the radical skeptic is adequate to the task. His analyses make for a valuable summary of every significant argument brought against skepticism. In the course of his investigation, Johnstone probes a number of topical issues: knowledge, rationality, the nature of meaning, nonverbal thinking, the bodily nature of the thinking self, parasitism, the role of the tactile-kinesthetic body in feeling and belief, and the necessary role of free will in epistemology.

Author : Jônadas Techio
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110702886
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Threat of Solipsism written by Jônadas Techio and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much attention has been paid to Wittgenstein’s treatment of solipsism and to Cavell’s treatment of skepticism. But comparatively little has been made of the striking connections between the early Wittgenstein’s view on the truth of solipsism and Cavell’s view on the truth of skepticism, and how that relates to the claim that the later Wittgenstein sees privacy as a constant human possibility. This book offers close readings of representative writings by both authors and argues that an adequate understanding of solipsism and skepticism requires taking into account a set of underlying difficulties related to a disappointment with finitude which might ultimately lead to the threat of solipsism. That threat is further interpreted as a wish not to bear the burden of having to constantly negotiate and nurture the fragile connections with the world and others which are the conditions of possibility for finite beings to achieve meaning and community. By presenting Wittgenstein’s and Cavell’s responses in an order which reflects the chronology of their writings, the result is a cohesive articulation of some under-appreciated aspects of their philosophical methodologies which has the potential of reorienting our entire reading of their work.

Author : Thomas Nagel
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199919755
Total Pages : 141 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mind and Cosmos written by Thomas Nagel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

Author : George Santayana
Publisher : Courier Corporation
ISBN 13 : 0486158322
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Scepticism and Animal Faith written by George Santayana and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2013-02-20 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Detailed presentation of American philosopher's pragmatic concept of epistemology, isolation of realms of existents and subsistents. Chapters include "There is No First Principle of Criticism," "Dogma and Doubt," and "The Discovery of Essence."

Author : Charles Taylor
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0674987691
Total Pages : 155 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ethics of Authenticity written by Charles Taylor and published by . This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most of modernity's challenges. "The great merit of Taylor's brief, non-technical, powerful book...is the vigor with which he restates the point which Hegel (and later Dewey) urged against Rousseau and Kant: that we are only individuals in so far as we are social... Being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people... The core of Taylor's argument is a vigorous and entirely successful criticism of two intertwined bad ideas: that you are wonderful just because you are you, and that 'respect for difference' requires you to respect every human being, and every human culture--no matter how vicious or stupid." --Richard Rorty, London Review of Books