Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Descartes's Method of Doubt PDF full book. Access full book title Descartes's Method of Doubt by Janet Broughton. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Janet Broughton Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400825040 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
Descartes thought that we could achieve absolute certainty by starting with radical doubt. He adopts this strategy in the Meditations on First Philosophy, where he raises sweeping doubts with the famous dream argument and the hypothesis of an evil demon. But why did Descartes think we should take these exaggerated doubts seriously? And if we do take them seriously, how did he think any of our beliefs could ever escape them? Janet Broughton undertakes a close study of Descartes's first three meditations to answer these questions and to present a fresh way of understanding precisely what Descartes was up to. Broughton first contrasts Descartes's doubts with those of the ancient skeptics, arguing that Cartesian doubt has a novel structure and a distinctive relation to the commonsense outlook of everyday life. She then argues that Descartes pursues absolute certainty by uncovering the conditions that make his radical doubt possible. She gives a unified account of how Descartes uses this strategy, first to find certainty about his own existence and then to argue that God exists. Drawing on this analysis, Broughton provides a new way to understand Descartes's insistence that he hasn't argued in a circle, and she measures his ambitions against those of contemporary philosophers who use transcendental arguments in their efforts to defeat skepticism. The book is a powerful contribution both to the history of philosophy and to current debates in epistemology.
Author: Janet Broughton Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400825040 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
Descartes thought that we could achieve absolute certainty by starting with radical doubt. He adopts this strategy in the Meditations on First Philosophy, where he raises sweeping doubts with the famous dream argument and the hypothesis of an evil demon. But why did Descartes think we should take these exaggerated doubts seriously? And if we do take them seriously, how did he think any of our beliefs could ever escape them? Janet Broughton undertakes a close study of Descartes's first three meditations to answer these questions and to present a fresh way of understanding precisely what Descartes was up to. Broughton first contrasts Descartes's doubts with those of the ancient skeptics, arguing that Cartesian doubt has a novel structure and a distinctive relation to the commonsense outlook of everyday life. She then argues that Descartes pursues absolute certainty by uncovering the conditions that make his radical doubt possible. She gives a unified account of how Descartes uses this strategy, first to find certainty about his own existence and then to argue that God exists. Drawing on this analysis, Broughton provides a new way to understand Descartes's insistence that he hasn't argued in a circle, and she measures his ambitions against those of contemporary philosophers who use transcendental arguments in their efforts to defeat skepticism. The book is a powerful contribution both to the history of philosophy and to current debates in epistemology.
Author: Eli Hirsch Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350033871 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 249
Book Description
Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt brings something new to epistemology both in content and style. At the outset we are asked to imagine a person named Vatol who grows up in a world containing numerous people who are brains-in-vats and who hallucinate their entire lives. Would Vatol have reason to doubt whether he himself is in contact with reality? If he does have reason to doubt, would he doubt, or is it impossible for a person to have such doubts? And how do we ourselves compare to Vatol? After reflection, can we plausibly claim that Vatol has reason to doubt, but we don't? These are the questions that provide the novel framework for the debates in this book. Topics that are treated here in significantly new ways include: the view that we ought to doubt only when we philosophize; epistemological “dogmatism”; and connections between radical doubt and “having a self.” The book adopts the innovative form of a “dialogue/play.” The three characters, who are Talmud students as well as philosophers, hardly limit themselves to pure philosophy, but regale each other with Talmudic allusions, reminiscences, jokes, and insults. For them the possibility of doubt emerges as an existential problem with potentially deep emotional significance. Setting complex arguments about radical skepticism within entertaining dialogue, this book can be recommended for both beginners and specialists.
Author: Mady Schutzman Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 131545615X Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 314
Book Description
Radical Doubt investigates ethical play across a spectrum of performances, on and off the stage. In witty, recursive, personal, and propulsive prose, Mady Schutzman elaborates on the Joker System, conceived by Augusto Boal, best known for Theatre of the Oppressed. The Joker System is a collaborative approach to representing social dilemmas through a rare fusion of destabilizing ambiguity and journalistic rigor. Schutzman models the Joker System while expanding well beyond the theatrical. In polyphonic compositions that perform their own philosophy, she uncovers illuminating links between calculus and conjuring, kōans and resistance, humor and witnessing, complexity theory and sorely needed new practices of living in our divisive times. These life practices rely upon crafty and circuitous strategies to deliver their subversive punch. Jok(er)ing matters, Schutzman insists. When communities fragment and identities fixate, enter the trickster! Sonja Kuftinec Theatre Arts and Dance, University of Minnesota
Author: Duncan Pritchard Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691183430 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
Epistemic Angst offers a completely new solution to the ancient philosophical problem of radical skepticism—the challenge of explaining how it is possible to have knowledge of a world external to us. Duncan Pritchard argues that the key to resolving this puzzle is to realize that it is composed of two logically distinct problems, each requiring its own solution. He then puts forward solutions to both problems. To that end, he offers a new reading of Wittgenstein's account of the structure of rational evaluation and demonstrates how this provides an elegant solution to one aspect of the skeptical problem. Pritchard also revisits the epistemological disjunctivist proposal that he developed in previous work and shows how it can effectively handle the other aspect of the problem. Finally, he argues that these two antiskeptical positions, while superficially in tension with each other, are not only compatible but also mutually supporting. The result is a comprehensive and distinctive resolution to the problem of radical skepticism, one that challenges many assumptions in contemporary epistemology.
Author: Garry Wills Publisher: Paulist Press ISBN: 1587681927 Category : Languages : en Pages : 309
Book Description
"The Catholic Church is in disarray. A crisis of authority followed on the false optimism of the Second Vatican Council, just as it did on the empty hopes of President Kennedy's 'Camelot.' In Bare Rusined Choirs, Mr. Wills takes the confusion of the Church as a model of institutional breakdown, not only in religion but in the state."--Page 4 of cover
Author: Jonathan Lear Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674040023 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
Presents the story of Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation. This title contains a philosophical and ethical inquiry into a people faced with the end of their way of life.
Author: Israel Scheffler Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers ISBN: 1625640838 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
About the Contributor(s): Israel Scheffler is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education and Philosophy Emeritus at Harvard University. He taught philosophy at Harvard from 1952 to 1992 and, from 1983 to 2003, was codirector, then director of the Philosophy of Education Research Center there. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a founding member of the National Academy of Education, and a past president of both the Philosophy of Science Association and the Charles S. Peirce Society. Among his previous books are ""The Anatomy of Inquiry""( 1963), ""Four Pragmatists""(1974), ""Of Human Potential""(1985), ""In Praise of the Cognitive Emotions""(1991), and ""Worlds of Truth""(2009). His main interests lie in the philosophical interpretation of language, symbolism, science, and education.
Author: Vilém Flusser Publisher: U of Minnesota Press ISBN: 1937561437 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 67
Book Description
In On Doubt, Vilém Flusser refines Martin Heidegger’s famous declaration that “language is the dwelling of Being.” For Flusser, “the word is the dwelling of being,” because in fact, in the beginning, there was the word. On Doubt is a treatise on the human intellect, its relation to language, and the reality-forming discourses that subsequently emerge. For Flusser, the faith that the modern age places in Cartesian doubt plays a role similar to the one that faith in God played in previous eras—a faith that needs to be challenged. Descartes doubts the world through his proposition cogito ergo sum, but leaves doubt itself untouched as indubitable and imperious. His cogito ergo sum may have proved to the Western intellect that thoughts exist, but it did not prove the existence of that which thinks: one can eliminate thinking and yet continue being. Therefore, should we not doubt doubt itself? Should we not try to go beyond this last step of Cartesian doubt and look for a new faith? The twentieth century has seen many attempts to defeat Cartesian doubt, however, this doubt of doubt has instead generated a complete loss of faith, which the West experiences as existential nihilism. Hence, the emergent emptying of values that results from such extreme doubt. Everything loses its meaning. Can this climate be overcome? Will the West survive the modern age?
Author: Janet Broughton
Author: Janet Broughton
Author: Eli Hirsch
Author: Mady Schutzman
Author: René Descartes
Author: Duncan Pritchard
Author: Garry Wills
Author: Jonathan Lear
Author: Israel Scheffler
Author: Vilém Flusser
Author: Paul S. MacDonald