Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

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Here at last is a coherent, unintimidating introduction to the challenging and fascinating landscape of Western philosophy. It is not a casual, breezy introduction to philosophy along the lines of Thomas Nagel's What Does It All Mean?

Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy - Simon Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy - Simon

Elizabeth Anscombe introduced the notion of “direction of fit,” which helped distinguish expressivism from a kind of naive subjectivism. The issues he treated in his "Meditations" included most of the central problems for subsequent philosophy. It defends this way of looking at ourselves against competitors, including rational choice theory, modern Kantianism, various applications of evolutionary psychology, views that enchant our natures, and those that disenchant them in the direction of relativism or nihilism. It’s a introduction for anyone who is interested or believes there are big questions out there and wants a framework to approach them.I've always wanted to learn more about philosophy, and gain an understanding of the value of the field. Several of the chapters also seem to make substantial contributions to the relevant discussions, at least judging from the metaethicsy papers that deal with issues I know something about. Antony ("Defending Folk Psychology: The Limits of Coalitions") charts the agreements and disagreements that she has with Blackburn when it comes to understanding folk psychology. For instance, it may offer decent advice in some areas while being repetitive or unremarkable in others.

Passions and Projections: Themes from the Philosophy of Simon Passions and Projections: Themes from the Philosophy of Simon

A quasi-realist doesn't deny the existence of mind-independent facts about reasons, and she may appeal to such facts in explaining other normative facts. The flow of information seems perfect with one argument leading seamlessly into another with just the right amount of commentary in between. There are a wide range of topics that including motivation, scepticism, the self, mind and body as well as ethics and arguments surrounding the existence of God.This book reads like a supplementary textbook for an introductory philosophy class, in that it's not detailed or deep enough to be a primary textbook but also not casual or light enough to be a popular introduction to philosophy. The author, Simon Blackburn (I'll refer to him as SB for the rest of this review) also has this annoying tendency to mention technical terms in passing without really explaining what they mean; he expects us to infer what they mean by the preceding or following discussion.

Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy - Simon

A committed realist won't be persuaded, but Horgan and Timmons suggest that this is quite alright, as their account gives us everything that ordinary ought-thought asks for. On Blackburn's view, to think this is to endorse a certain kind of movement of (Sally's) mind: her intending to desist upon her learning of Molly's distress. If you decide that life is predetermined/fatalistic, does that mean we let the serial rapist keep going on the street because he's " compelled to do so" or do we take action to protect the innocent women "destined" to be his victims by taking him away? He develops his empiricist epistemology in An Essay Concerning Human understanding, which greatly influenced later empiricists such as George Berkeley and David Hume. Drawing on all-too-familiar examples from history, politics, religion and everyday personal experience, he shows how cynicism and self-consciousness can paralyze us into considering ethics a hopeless pursuit.

Leibniz thought that if we had a sufficiently logical notation, dispute and confusion would cease, and men would sit together and resolve their disputes by calculation. If we look closely at a flower through a microscope its colour will be different from how it looks to the naked eye. Like most of the main questions in epistemology, the classical problem of induction arises from doubts about a mode of inference used to justify some of our most familiar and pervasive beliefs. This is reminiscent of Blackburn's (1993) own appeal to the idea of 'program explanation' -- which is something that Jenkins doesn't mention. On one side are those who believe in plain, unvarnished facts, rock-solid truths that can be found through reason and objectivity--that science leads to truth, for instance.