Empty Ideas
Title | Empty Ideas PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Unger |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 273 |
Release | 2017 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 019069601X |
During the middle of the twentieth century, philosophers generally agreed that, by contrast with science, philosophy should offer no substantial thoughts about the general nature of concrete reality. Instead, philosophers offered conceptual truths. It is widely assumed that, since 1970, things have changed greatly. This book argues that's an illusion that prevails because of the failure to differentiate between "concretely substantial" and "concretely empty" ideas.
The World Philosophy Made
Title | The World Philosophy Made PDF eBook |
Author | Scott Soames |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Pages | 458 |
Release | 2021-11-16 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 069122918X |
How philosophy transformed human knowledge and the world we live in Philosophical investigation is the root of all human knowledge. Developing new concepts, reinterpreting old truths, and reconceptualizing fundamental questions, philosophy has progressed—and driven human progress—for more than two millennia. In short, we live in a world philosophy made. In this concise history of philosophy's world-shaping impact, Scott Soames demonstrates that the modern world—including its science, technology, and politics—simply would not be possible without the accomplishments of philosophy. Firmly rebutting the misconception of philosophy as ivory-tower thinking, Soames traces its essential contributions to fields as diverse as law and logic, psychology and economics, relativity and rational decision theory. Beginning with the giants of ancient Greek philosophy, The World Philosophy Made chronicles the achievements of the great thinkers, from the medieval and early modern eras to the present. It explores how philosophy has shaped our language, science, mathematics, religion, culture, morality, education, and politics, as well as our understanding of ourselves. Philosophy's idea of rational inquiry as the key to theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom has transformed the world in which we live. From the laws that govern society to the digital technology that permeates modern life, philosophy has opened up new possibilities and set us on more productive paths. The World Philosophy Made explains and illuminates as never before the inexhaustible richness of philosophy and its influence on our individual and collective lives.
Classical Philosophy
Title | Classical Philosophy PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Adamson |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 369 |
Release | 2014-06 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0199674531 |
Readership: Anyone interested in philosophy, the history of ideas, or the ancient Greek world
Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos
Title | Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos PDF eBook |
Author | Jeffrey A. Bell |
Publisher | University of Toronto Press |
Pages | 305 |
Release | 2006-01-01 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0802094090 |
From the early 1960s until his death, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. One of Deleuze's main philosophical projects was a systematic inversion of the traditional relationship between identity and difference. This Deleuzian philosophy of difference is the subject of Jeffrey A. Bell's Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos. Bell argues that Deleuze's efforts to develop a philosophy of difference are best understood by exploring both Deleuze's claim to be a Spinozist, and Nietzsche's claim to have found in Spinoza an important precursor. Beginning with an analysis of these claims, Bell shows how Deleuze extends and transforms concepts at work in Spinoza and Nietzsche to produce a philosophy of difference that promotes and, in fact, exemplifies the notions of dynamic systems and complexity theory. With these concepts at work, Deleuze constructs a philosophical approach that avoids many of the difficulties that linger in other attempts to think about difference. Bell uses close readings of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Whitehead to illustrate how Deleuze's philosophy is successful in this regard and to demonstrate the importance of the historical tradition for Deleuze. Far from being a philosopher who turns his back on what is taken to be a mistaken metaphysical tradition, Bell argues that Deleuze is best understood as a thinker who endeavoured to continue the work of traditional metaphysics and philosophy.
Animal Rights and Wrongs
Title | Animal Rights and Wrongs PDF eBook |
Author | Roger Scruton |
Publisher | A&C Black |
Pages | 226 |
Release | 2006-10-31 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 9780826494047 |
In this acclaimed book, Scruton takes the issues relating to vivisection, hunting, animal testing and BSE and places them in a wider framework of thought and feeling. Now available in paperback
Philosophy for Non-Philosophers
Title | Philosophy for Non-Philosophers PDF eBook |
Author | Louis Althusser |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Pages | 225 |
Release | 2017-02-23 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1472592026 |
In 1980, at the end of the most intensely political period of his work and life, Louis Althusser penned Philosophy for Non-philosophers. Available here for the first time in English, Philosophy for Non-philosophers constitutes a rigorous and engaged attempt to address a wide reading public unfamiliar with Althusser's project. As such, the work is a concentration of the most fundamental theses of Althusser's own ideas, and presents a synthesis of his sprawling and disparate philosophical and political writings. Nowhere else does Althusser push the distinction between philosophy and other disciplines as far, or develop in such detail the concept of 'practice'. Rather than a work of 'popular philosophy', Philosophy for Non-philosophers is a continuation and conglomeration of Althusser's thought; a thought whose radicality is still perceptible in those that have followed since. Philosophy for Non-philosophers thus provides a vivid encapsulation of Althusser's seminal influence on the leading thinkers of today, including Ranciere, Badiou, Balibar, and Žižek.
Philosophy Without Intuitions
Title | Philosophy Without Intuitions PDF eBook |
Author | Herman Cappelen |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 255 |
Release | 2012-03-15 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0199644861 |
The standard view of philosophical methodology is that philosophers rely on intuitions as evidence. Herman Cappelen argues that this claim is false, and reveals how it has encouraged pseudo-problems, presented misguided ideas of what philosophy is, and misled exponents of metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy.