The Nature of Philosophical Problems

The Nature of Philosophical Problems PDF Author: John Kekes
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191040908
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
We must all make choices about how we want to live. We evaluate our possibilities by relying on historical, moral, personal, political, religious, and scientific modes of evaluations, but the values and reasons that follow from them conflict. Philosophical problems are forced on us when we try to cope with such conflicts. There are reasons for and against all proposed ways of coping with the conflicts, but none of them has been generally accepted by reasonable thinkers. The constructive aim of The Nature of Philosophical Problems is to propose a way of understanding the nature of such philosophical problems, explain why they occur, why they are perennial, and propose a pluralist approach as the most reasonable way of coping with them. This approach is practical, context-dependent, and particular. It follows from it that the recurrence of philosophical problems is not a defect, but a welcome consequence of the richness of our modes of understanding that enlarges the range of possibilities by which we might choose to live. The critical aim of the book is to give reasons against both the absolutist attempt to find an overriding value or principle for resolving philosophical problems and of the relativist claim that reasons unavoidably come to an end and how we want to live is ultimately a matter of personal preference, not of reasons.

The Nature of Philosophical Problems

The Nature of Philosophical Problems PDF Author: John Kekes
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191040908
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
We must all make choices about how we want to live. We evaluate our possibilities by relying on historical, moral, personal, political, religious, and scientific modes of evaluations, but the values and reasons that follow from them conflict. Philosophical problems are forced on us when we try to cope with such conflicts. There are reasons for and against all proposed ways of coping with the conflicts, but none of them has been generally accepted by reasonable thinkers. The constructive aim of The Nature of Philosophical Problems is to propose a way of understanding the nature of such philosophical problems, explain why they occur, why they are perennial, and propose a pluralist approach as the most reasonable way of coping with them. This approach is practical, context-dependent, and particular. It follows from it that the recurrence of philosophical problems is not a defect, but a welcome consequence of the richness of our modes of understanding that enlarges the range of possibilities by which we might choose to live. The critical aim of the book is to give reasons against both the absolutist attempt to find an overriding value or principle for resolving philosophical problems and of the relativist claim that reasons unavoidably come to an end and how we want to live is ultimately a matter of personal preference, not of reasons.

Philosophical Problems

Philosophical Problems PDF Author: Peter Alward
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1554812852
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

Book Description
Peter Alward’s rigorous introductory text functions as a roadmap for students, laying out the key issues, positions, and arguments of academic philosophy. The book covers central topics in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. An introductory chapter presents the foundations of philosophical discourse and offers a primer on the basics of logic. Those argumentative tools are then employed to address classic philosophical issues such as the relationship between body and mind, skepticism, the possibility of free will, and the existence of God. Later chapters engage issues of morality, justice, and liberty, as well as moral questions concerning abortion and the practice of punishment. Throughout, Alward aims for clarity, providing summaries, diagrams, and reflective questions to assist the student reader.

Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External Worlds

Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External Worlds PDF Author: John Earman
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970341
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 641

Get Book Here

Book Description
The inaugural volume of the Pittsburgh-Konstanz series, devoted to the work of philosopher Adolf GrŸnbaum, encompasses the philosophical problems of space, time, and cosmology, the nature of scientific methodology, and the foundations of psychoanalysis.

The Problems of Philosophy

The Problems of Philosophy PDF Author: Bertrand Russell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0192854232
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book Here

Book Description
This classic work, first published in 1912, has never been supplanted as an approachable introduction to the theory of philosophical enquiry. It gives Russell's views on such subjects as the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence and nature of matter, idealism, knowledge by acquaintance and by description, induction, truth and falsehood, the distinction between knowledge, error and probable opinion, and the limits and value of philosophical knowledge.

Philosophical Problems of Space and Time

Philosophical Problems of Space and Time PDF Author: Adolf Grünbaum
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940102622X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 903

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is ten years since Adolf Griinbaum published the first edition of this book. It was promptly recognized to be one of the few major works in the philosophy of the natural sciences of this generation. In part, this is so because Griinbaum has chosen a problem basic both to philosophy and to the natural sciences - the nature of space and time; and in part, this is so because he so admirably exemplifies that Aristotelian devotion to the intimate and mutual dependence of actual science and philosophical understanding. More than this, however, the quality of his work derives from his achievement in combining detail with scope. The problems of space and time have been among the most difficult in contemporary and classical thought, and Griinbaum has been responsible to the full depth and complexity of these difficulties. This revised and enlarged second edition is a work in progress, in the tradition of reflective analysis of modern science of such figures as Ehrenfest and Reichenbach. In publishing this work among the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, we hope to contribute to and encourage that broad tradition of natural philosophy which is marked by the close collaboration of philoso phers and scientists. To this end, we have published the proceedings of our Colloquia, of meetings and conferences here and abroad, as well as the works of single authors.

The Nature of Philosophical Problems

The Nature of Philosophical Problems PDF Author: John Kekes
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198712758
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
We must all make choices about how we want to live. We evaluate our possibilities by relying on historical, moral, personal, political, religious, and scientific modes of evaluations, but the values and reasons that follow from them conflict. Philosophical problems are forced on us when we try to cope with such conflicts. There are reasons for and against all proposed ways of coping with the conflicts, but none of them has been generally accepted by reasonable thinkers. The constructive aim of The Nature of Philosophical Problems is to propose a way of understanding the nature of such philosophical problems, explain why they occur, why they are perennial, and propose a pluralist approach as the most reasonable way of coping with them. This approach is practical, context-dependent, and particular. It follows from it that the recurrence of philosophical problems is not a defect, but a welcome consequence of the richness of our modes of understanding that enlarges the range of possibilities by which we might choose to live. The critical aim of the book is to give reasons against both the absolutist attempt to find an overriding value or principle for resolving philosophical problems and of the relativist claim that reasons unavoidably come to an end and how we want to live is ultimately a matter of personal preference, not of reasons.

Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy

Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy PDF Author: Paul Horwich
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 019966112X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Get Book Here

Book Description
Paul Horwich presents a bold new interpretation of Wittgenstein's later work. He argues that it is Wittgenstein's radically anti-theoretical metaphilosophy - and not his identification of the meaning of a word with its use - that underpins his discussions of specific issues concerning language, the mind, mathematics, knowledge, art, and religion.

Problems of Knowledge

Problems of Knowledge PDF Author: Michael Williams
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192892560
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this introduction to epistemology, Michael Williams explains and criticises traditional philosophical theories of the nature, limits, methods, possibility, and value of knowing.

The Nature of Consciousness

The Nature of Consciousness PDF Author: Ned Block
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262522106
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 884

Get Book Here

Book Description
Intended for anyone attempting to find their way through the large and confusingly interwoven philosophical literature on consciousness, this reader brings together most of the principal texts in philosophy (and a small set of related key works in neuropsychology) on consciousness through 1997, and includes some forthcoming articles. Its extensive coverage strikes a balance between seminal works of the past few decades and the leading edge of philosophical research on consciousness.As no other anthology currently does, The Nature of Consciousness provides a substantial introduction to the field, and imposes structure on a vast and complicated literature, with sections covering stream of consciousness, theoretical issues, consciousness and representation, the function of consciousness, subjectivity and the explanatory gap, the knowledge argument, qualia, and monitoring conceptions of consciousness. Of the 49 contributions, 18 are either new or have been adapted from a previous publication.

Philosophical Problems in Logic

Philosophical Problems in Logic PDF Author: K. Lambert
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401032726
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays in this volume are based on addresses presented during a colloquium on free logic, modal logic and related areas held at the University of California at Irvine, in May of 1968. With the single exception of Dagfinn F011esdal, whose revised address is included in a recent issue of Synthese honoring W. V. Quine, all of the speakers at the Irvine colloquium are contributors to this volume. Thanks are due to Professor A. I. Melden, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Irvine, for his enthusiastic support of the colloquium, and to Drs. Gordon Brittan and Daniel Dennett for their help in the administration of the colloquium. Finally. I should also like to thank Professor Ralph W. Gerard, Dean of the Graduate Division of the University of California at Irvine, for the financial support which made the colloquium possible. KAREL LAMBERT Laguna Beach, California, 1969 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V KAREL LAMBERT and BAS C. VAN FRAASSEN/ Meaning Relations, Possible Objects, and Possible Worlds 1 JAAKKO HINTIKKA / Existential Presuppositions and Uniqueness Presuppositions 20 RICHMOND H. THOMASON / Some Completeness Results for Modal Predicate Calculi 56 H. LEBLANC and R. K. MEYER / Truth-Value Semantics for the Theory of Types 77 J. M. VICKERS / Probability and Non Standard Logics 102 PETER W. WOODRUFF / Logic and Truth Value Gaps 121 DANA SCOTT / Advice on Modal Logic 143 INDEX OF NAMES 175 KAREL LAMBER T AND BAS C.