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Author: Bernard John Warnick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780645370508
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
This book condemns the certainties which pervade Western societies, whether about innate rights, ethics or socially acceptable behavior, because a close examination of our powers of reasoning shows all such certainties to be illusory; and because illusions, like mirages, lead us astray. It asks what constitutes the acts of thinking and reasoning and examines the neurobiology involved, subjectivity - its origins and unavoidability - objectivity and its limited achievability - and the pervasive ambiguity of the language of ideas. It highlights flaws in the concept of truth; shows how deductive logic itself contains the seeds of failure to produce certainty, how inductive logic yields only probabilities and that neither pattern of logic is how we generally reason. The book demonstrates that undue certainty spawns evils which threaten social stability. A new list of what constitutes logical thought emerges. We consider approaches, of which logic is part, but not the entirety - common sense, pragmatism, judgment and wisdom. We ask, to whom might we listen - philosophers, the wise, or ourselves. Finally, the survival instinct is identified as the biological basis of our ideas about morality, political systems and the like. How a secular morality might be constructed and what an ideology-free society might be like, are considered.
Author: Bernard John Warnick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780645370508
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
This book condemns the certainties which pervade Western societies, whether about innate rights, ethics or socially acceptable behavior, because a close examination of our powers of reasoning shows all such certainties to be illusory; and because illusions, like mirages, lead us astray. It asks what constitutes the acts of thinking and reasoning and examines the neurobiology involved, subjectivity - its origins and unavoidability - objectivity and its limited achievability - and the pervasive ambiguity of the language of ideas. It highlights flaws in the concept of truth; shows how deductive logic itself contains the seeds of failure to produce certainty, how inductive logic yields only probabilities and that neither pattern of logic is how we generally reason. The book demonstrates that undue certainty spawns evils which threaten social stability. A new list of what constitutes logical thought emerges. We consider approaches, of which logic is part, but not the entirety - common sense, pragmatism, judgment and wisdom. We ask, to whom might we listen - philosophers, the wise, or ourselves. Finally, the survival instinct is identified as the biological basis of our ideas about morality, political systems and the like. How a secular morality might be constructed and what an ideology-free society might be like, are considered.
Author: Robert Pasnau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192521934
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
No part of philosophy is as disconnected from its history as is epistemology. After Certainty offers a reconstruction of that history, understood as a series of changing expectations about the cognitive ideal that beings such as us might hope to achieve in a world such as this. The story begins with Aristotle and then looks at how his epistemic program was developed through later antiquity and into the Middle Ages, before being dramatically reformulated in the seventeenth century. In watching these debates unfold over the centuries, one sees why epistemology has traditionally been embedded within a much larger sphere of concerns about human nature and the reality of the world we live in. It ultimately becomes clear why epistemology today has become a much narrower and specialized field, concerned with the conditions under which it is true to say, that someone knows something. Based on a series of lectures given at Oxford University, Robert Pasnau's book ranges widely over the history of philosophy, and examines in some detail the rise of science as an autonomous discipline. Ultimately Pasnau argues that we may have no good reasons to suppose ourselves capable of achieving even the most minimal standards for knowledge, and the final chapter concludes with a discussion of faith and hope.
Author: Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 9780471159629
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
"Fascinating and insightful. . . . I cannot recall a book that has made me think more about the nature of thinking." -- Richard C. Lewontin Harvard University Everyone knows that optical illusions trick us because of the way we see. Now scientists have discovered that cognitive illusions, a set of biases deeply embedded in the human mind, can actually distort the way we think. In Inevitable Illusions, distinguished cognitive researcher Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini takes us on a provocative, challenging, and thoroughly entertaining exploration of the games our minds play. He opens the doors onto the newly charted realm of the cognitive unconscious to reveal the full range of illusions, showing how they inhibit our ability to reason--no matter what our educational background or IQ. Inevitable Illusions is stimulating, eye-opening food for thought.
Author: Steven Sloman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399184341
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
“The Knowledge Illusion is filled with insights on how we should deal with our individual ignorance and collective wisdom.” —Steven Pinker We all think we know more than we actually do. Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don’t even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We’re constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact—and usually we don’t even realize we’re doing it. The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individual-oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things. The Knowledge Illusion contends that true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the community around us.
Author: Robert Pasnau
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191501794
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 811
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Book Description
Robert Pasnau traces the developments of metaphysical thinking through four rich but for the most part neglected centuries of philosophy, running from the thirteenth century through to the seventeenth. At no period in the history of philosophy, other than perhaps our own, have metaphysical problems received the sort of sustained attention they received during the later Middle Ages, and never has a whole philosophical tradition come crashing down as quickly and completely as did scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth century. The thirty chapters work through various fundamental metaphysical issues, sometimes focusing more on scholastic thought, sometimes on the seventeenth century. Pasnau begins with the first challenges to the classical scholasticism of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, runs through prominent figures like John Duns Scotus and William Ockham, and ends in the seventeenth century, with the end of the first stage of developments in post-scholastic philosophy: on the continent, with Descartes and Gassendi, and in England, with Boyle and Locke.
Author: Gerd Gigerenzer
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141970111
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
A fascinating, practical guide to making better decisions with our money, health and personal lives from Gerd Gigerenzer, the author of Reckoning with Risk. Risk-taking is essential for innovation, fun, and the courage to face the uncertainties in life. Yet for many important decisions, we're often presented with statistics and probabilities that we don't really understand and we inevitably rely on experts in the relevant fields - policy makers, financial advisors, doctors - to analyse and choose for us. But what if they don't quite understand the way the information is presented either? How do we make sure we're asking doctors the right questions about proposed treatment? Is there a rule of thumb that could help choose the right partner? This entertaining book shows us how to recognize when we don't have all the information and know what to do about it. Gerd Gigerenzer looks at examples from every aspect of life to identify the reasons for our collective misunderstanding of the risks we face. He shows how we can all use simple rules to avoid being manipulated into unrealistic fears or hopes, to make better-informed decisions, and to learn to understand risk and uncertainty in our own lives. 'Gigerenzer is brilliant and his topic is fabulous' Steven Pinker 'Catchily optimistic and slyly funny' Guardian Gerd Gigerenzer is Director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books on heuristics and decision making, including Reckoning with Risk.
Author: Jiddu Krishnamurti
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788120830905
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
Author: Bice Benvenuto
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415912556
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author: Reid Hastie
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412959039
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
In the Second Edition of Rational Choice in an Uncertain World the authors compare the basic principles of rationality with actual behaviour in making decisions. They describe theories and research findings from the field of judgment and decision making in a non-technical manner, using anecdotes as a teaching device. Intended as an introductory textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, the material not only is of scholarly interest but is practical as well. The Second Edition includes: - more coverage on the role of emotions, happiness, and general well-being in decisions - a summary of the new research on the neuroscience of decision processes - more discussion of the adaptive value of (non-rational heuristics) - expansion of the graphics for decision trees, probability trees, and Venn diagrams.
Author: Robert N. Stonehill
Publisher: The Empathy Express
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
Combining the simple wisdom of Epicurus and Eckhart Tolle, and written in the mind-bending style of Alan Watts, this visual thinking manual will help you transform your inner world. Discover how the shapes of empathy can help you think with care and live with purpose. Through awareness of motivations and multiple perspectives, you will learn to connect to the human spirit that lies beyond mere appearance. Begin your journey inward to sharpen your imagination and craft a life of meaning.
