|
Search
Amazon
Search
Powell's
|
|
Find Philosophy
Surveys at Powell's Books.
Page 1 -- Page
2 -- Page 3
|
Interested in
American philosophy?
American Philosophies is an
ambitious book full of the contradictory
and clashing voices that have shaped
American thought. Rather than force too
much unanimity, the editors have opted to
feature a wide array of American writers,
from freed slaves to founding fathers to
scholars. Because the book does not
include many 20th-century pieces, it
functions primarily as a history of
American philosophy.
|
|
|
The Dream
of Reason: A History of Philosophy from
the Greeks to the
Renaissance
Writing a history of more than 2,000
years of philosophy is no mean feat, and
writing it in fewer than 500 pages of
intelligent but graceful prose is more
difficult still. Yet this is just what
Anthony Gottlieb accomplishes in "The
Dream of Reason," which guides the reader
from the earliest Greek philosophers to
the pre-Cartesian Renaissance. Gottlieb's
project is undeniably ambitious, and by
necessity it is big-picture philosophy.
But it is exactly this big-picture context
that is often lamentably absent from other
works of this sort. Gottlieb's skill at
rendering historical context makes his
account both unusually engaging and
surprisingly illuminating.
Gottlieb is an admirable guide through
the little-understood pre-Socratic
philosophers of ancient Greece, giving
fair measure to philosophers who are too
often simplified or lampooned. His account
of Plato and Aristotle is good too, as is
his treatment of the later Hellenistic
schools, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and
Skepticism. Gottlieb's treatment of
medieval philosophy, particularly Thomist
and Arabic philosophy, is lean, as the
author chooses to focus more heavily on
antiquity and the modern era (to be
continued in a second volume), and the
narrative history that bridges the
two.
|
|
|
Confessions
of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey
Through Western Philosphy from Plato to
Popper
Confessions is a somewhat
misleading term in this context: you won't
find any lurid tales between these covers.
Bryan Magee's memoirs-cum-histories of
philosophy aren't even "confessions" in
the self-flagellating tradition of St.
Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. So
what is "Confessions of a Philosopher,"
then? It's a fascinating excursion through
2,000 years of wondering about the basic
nature of existence and reality. As a
20th-century philosopher, Magee has a lot
to say about his peers, and he spares no
feelings. The "Oxford philosophers," who
decided that philosophy was not about the
nature of existence but about the nature
of language, yet refused to give any
consideration to fiction, are particular
targets of Magee's intellectual scorn,
while the late Karl Popper, a personal
acquaintance of the author, is celebrated
as a man who persevered in philosophy's
true duties in the face of widespread
academic frippery.
If you've ever wondered why we exist,
you have what it takes to be a
philosopher... or at least to understand
one. Bryan Magee's "Confessions" are
thoroughly engaging proof that you don't
need a degree to be a deep thinker.
|
|
|
The
Cambridge Quintet: A Work of Scientific
Speculation
It was a dark and stormy night. Four
great minds, at the behest of a fifth,
convened at Cambridge in 1949 to discuss
artificial intelligence over a five-course
dinner. Had geneticist J.B.S. Haldane,
physicist Erwin Schrodinger, mathematician
Alan Turing, and philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein actually met that night in
the rooms of Britain's science adviser
C.P. Snow, they may have enacted the drama
revealed in "The Cambridge Quintet." This
work of "scientific fiction" presents what
could have been the dawn of the
still-raging debate over the nature of
intelligence and its reproduction in
"metal, glass, and plastic." John L.
Casti's characterizations allow the reader
to savor the meal and pleasantries as well
as the often-heated arguments. His
impatient, arrogant Wittgenstein betrays a
frenzied frustration with the subject,
sporadically attacking the very notion of
artificial intelligence as impossible.
Turing, quieter and yet more forceful,
explains his then-new ideas with the
certainty of a prophet waiting for the
world to catch up with him. Haldane,
Schrodinger, and Snow play the two off one
another while bringing their own
considerable intellects to the subject for
the first time. Discussion ranges from the
nature of thought to the role of language
in the brain, and the arguments are
sophisticated but informal. Casti takes
some anachronistic liberties, but these
serve to remind us that, had they not both
died in 1951, Wittgenstein and Turing
would have made contributions that would
have greatly enriched artificial
intelligence theory. As the men finish
their dinner, they have reached no
conclusion or agreement. Like a fine meal,
the satisfaction found in this book comes
from its consumption, not its
digestion.
|
|
|
From Dawn
to Decadence - 500 Years of Western
Cultural Life, 1500 to
Present
Cultural critic and historian Jacques
Barzun examines a variety of revolutions
that have swept the Western world over the
past 500 years in From Dawn to Decadence.
Whether examining the scientific
revolution or religious experimentation,
Barzun succeeds in revealing how the
events of the past are reflected in the
present.
|
|
Page 1 --
Page 2 -- Page
3
|
