We Must Have Certainty

We Must Have Certainty PDF Author: J. Kenneth Van Dover
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 9781575910918
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
We Must Have Certainty surveys the development of the genre of the detective story from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century to its current profile in the early twenty-first century. It locates a principal appeal of the genre in the nature of the world that the detective necessarily inhabits: a world of more or less realistic violence and excitement and, at the same time, a world that always, in the end, makes sense. It suggests that there is a significance to a popular narrative formula that requires that an initial world of suspicion and uncertainty be inevitably transformed by the detective into a world of clarity and order. Though scholarship in the field is acknowledged, the author's citations are most often from detective stories themselves. The essays are written in an accessible style; those who have read a few novels in the genre, as well as those who have read many, will find the book stimulating and provocative.

We Must Have Certainty

We Must Have Certainty PDF Author: J. Kenneth Van Dover
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 9781575910918
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
We Must Have Certainty surveys the development of the genre of the detective story from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century to its current profile in the early twenty-first century. It locates a principal appeal of the genre in the nature of the world that the detective necessarily inhabits: a world of more or less realistic violence and excitement and, at the same time, a world that always, in the end, makes sense. It suggests that there is a significance to a popular narrative formula that requires that an initial world of suspicion and uncertainty be inevitably transformed by the detective into a world of clarity and order. Though scholarship in the field is acknowledged, the author's citations are most often from detective stories themselves. The essays are written in an accessible style; those who have read a few novels in the genre, as well as those who have read many, will find the book stimulating and provocative.

Descartes' Philosophy of Science

Descartes' Philosophy of Science PDF Author: Desmond M. Clarke
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719008689
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description


Incomprehensible Certainty

Incomprehensible Certainty PDF Author: Thomas Pfau
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268202484
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 784

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Book Description
Thomas Pfau's study of images and visual experience is a tour de force linking Platonic metaphysics to modern phenomenology and probing literary, philosophical, and theological accounts of visual experience from Plato to Rilke. Incomprehensible Certainty presents a sustained reflection on the nature of images and the phenomenology of visual experience. Taking the word "image" (eikōn) not only as the essential medium of art and literature but as foundational for the intuitive ways in which we make contact with our "lifeworld," Thomas Pfau draws in equal measure on Platonic metaphysics and modern phenomenology to advance a series of interlocking claims. First, Pfau shows that, beginning with Plato's later dialogues, being and appearance came to be understood as ontologically distinct from (but no longer opposed to) one another. Second, in contrast to the idol that is typically gazed at and visually consumed as an object of desire, this study positions the image (eikōn) as a medium whose intrinsic abundance and excess reveal to us its metaphysical function, namely, as the visible analogue of an invisible, numinous reality. Finally, the interpretations unfolded in this book (from Plato, Plotinus, pseudo-Dionysius, John Damascene via Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Julian of Norwich, and Nicholas of Cusa to modern writers and artists such as Goethe, Ruskin, Turner, Hopkins, Cézanne, and Rilke) affirm the essential complementarity of image and word, visual intuition and hermeneutic practice, in theology, philosophy, and literature. Like Pfau's previous book, Minding the Modern, Incomprehensive Certainty is a major work. With over fifty illustrations, the book will interest students and scholars of philosophy, theology, literature, and art history.

Meditations on First Philosophy

Meditations on First Philosophy PDF Author: René Descartes
Publisher: Academic Resources Corp
ISBN: 9780882061047
Category : First philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Sin of Certainty

The Sin of Certainty PDF Author: Peter Enns
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062272101
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The controversial evangelical Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy. With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of “once for all delivered to the saints.” Enns offers a model of vibrant faith that views skepticism not as a loss of belief, but as an opportunity to deepen religious conviction with courage and confidence. This is not just an intellectual conviction, he contends, but a more profound kind of knowing that only true faith can provide. Combining Enns’ reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.

The Relationship Between Knowledge and Certainty

The Relationship Between Knowledge and Certainty PDF Author: Valery Berthoud
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668839468
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Academic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,3, Humboldt-University of Berlin, course: Wittgenstein’s Über Gewissheit, language: English, abstract: The relationship between knowledge and certainty varies according to conception. I argue that knowledge and certainty are usually equivalent, but there are cases in which certainty is possible without knowledge and knowledge is possible without certainty. The connection between knowledge and certainty does not change much when considering René Descartes’ philosophy because methodological skepticism consists of doubting beliefs that are uncertain. That there exist external objects is uncertain because a malicious demon could be deceiving us by creating the illusion of an external world. Although Descartes suggests that we can doubt all of our beliefs, his conception of science consists of secure insight: “Omnis scientia est cognitio certa et evidens” (Descartes 1907). This means that all science is certain and evident knowledge, or a high degree of certainty. Three centuries later, G. E.Moore had another reasoning when writing “A Defense of Common Sense” and “Proof of an External World.” He suggests that doubting that the world exists is unnecessary; we must trust that the universe exists. He is against George Berkeley’s suggestion that matter does not exist; everything is just ideas of the mind of God, and to be is to perceive. This is similar to propositions from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was an idealist because he claimed that all possible worlds lie in God, and we are substances observing the best alternative (Leibniz 2014, §43-46). Moore suggests that it is irrational to believe such premises. He held intuitions that a person has in everyday life, the common sense philosophy. We cannot be certain yet we claim to know many things. Moore also purports that the external world is real and he tried to prove it (Moore 1993a). His argument goes as follows: P1: Here is one hand. P2: Here is another. C1: There are at least two external objects in the world. C2: Therefore, an external world exists. He argues that he had the experience of observing his hands and reiterates that at least his hands offer the sum of two objects, which at a specified time existed (Ibid.).

After Certainty

After Certainty PDF Author: Robert Pasnau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192521934
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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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.

The Certainty of Uncertainty

The Certainty of Uncertainty PDF Author: Mark Schaefer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532653433
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
The world is full of people who are very certain—in politics, in religion, in all manner of things. In addition, political, religious, and social organizations are marketing certainty as a cure all to all life’s problems. But is such certainty possible? Or even good? The Certainty of Uncertainty explores the question of certainty by looking at the reasons human beings crave certainty and the religious responses we frequently fashion to help meet that need. The book takes an in-depth view of religion, language, our senses, our science, and our world to explore the inescapable uncertainties they reveal. We find that the certainty we crave does not exist. As we reflect on the unavoidable uncertainties in our world, we come to understand that letting go of certainty is not only necessary, it’s beneficial. For, in embracing doubt and uncertainty, we find a more meaningful and courageous religious faith, a deeper encounter with mystery, and a way to build strong relationships across religious and philosophical lines. In The Certainty of Uncertainty, we see that embracing our belief systems with humility and uncertainty can be transformative for ourselves and for our world.

Surpassing Certainty

Surpassing Certainty PDF Author: Janet Mock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501145797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The writer, TV host, and advocate examines her life and career, including the challenges of being trans, a woman, and a person of color.

The Opposite of Certainty

The Opposite of Certainty PDF Author: Janine Urbaniak Reid
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785230610
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
“Brilliant, rich...breathtakingly honest and sometimes very funny.” —Anne Lamott “I loved this book.” ­—Glennon Doyle “Extraordinary.” —Caroline Leavitt “Observant and warm...the finest company.”—Kelly Corrigan “A beautiful sucker punch, like life.“ —Ron Fournier “Subtle, powerful, and hypnotic...” — Martin Cruz Smith What happens when we can no longer pretend that the ground underfoot is bedrock and the sky above predictable? All Janine Urbaniak Reid ever wanted was for everyone she loved to be okay so she might relax and maybe be happy. Her life strategy was simple: do everything right. This included trying to be the perfect mother to her three kids so they would never experience the kind of pain she pretended not to feel growing up. What she didn’t expect was the chaos of an out-of-control life that begins when her young son’s hand begins to shake. The Opposite of Certainty is the story of Janine’s reluctant journey beyond easy answers and platitudes. She searches for a source of strength bigger than her circumstances, only to have her circumstances become even thornier with her own crisis. Drawn deeply and against her will into herself, and into the eternal questions we all ask, she discovers hidden reserves of strength, humor, and a no-matter-what faith that looks nothing like she thought it would. Beautifully written and deeply hopeful, Janine shows us how we can come through impossible times transformed and yet more ourselves than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to be.