Uncommon Sense (eBook)

The Strangest Ideas from the Smartest Philosophers

Andrew Pessin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2012
234 Seiten
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (Verlag)
978-1-4422-1610-5 (ISBN)

Infos

In eighteen lively chapters, Andrew Pessin examines the most unusual ideas from the ancient Greeks and contemporary thinkers, how they have influenced the course of Western thought, and why, despite being so odd, they just might be correct.Time is an illusion.Your thoughts do not exist inside your head.There is no physical worldAnd more!

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In Uncommon Sense, Andrew Pessin leads us on an entertaining tour of philosophy, explaining the pivotal moments when the greatest minds solved some of the knottiest conundrumsby asserting some very strange things. But the great philosophers don't merely make unusual claims, they offer powerful arguments for those claims that you can't easily dismiss. And these arguments suggest that the world is much stranger than you could have imagined:You neither will, nor wont, do certain things in the future, like wear your blue shirt tomorrow. But your blue shirt isnt really blue, because colors don't exist in physical objects; they're only in your mind. Time is an illusion.Your thoughts are not inside your head.Everything you believe about morality is false.Animals don't have minds. There is no physical world at all.In eighteen lively, intelligent chapters, spanning the ancient Greeks and contemporary thinkers, Pessin examines the most unusual ideas, how they have influenced the course of Western thought, and why, despite being so odd, they just might be correct. Here is popular philosophy at its finest, sure to entertain as it enlightens.

Autor

Andrew Pessin is professor of philosophy at Connecticut College, although he is perhaps best known for his appearances as The Genius on the Late Show with David Letterman. He is the author of The God Question: What Famous Thinkers From Plato To Dawkins Have Said About the Divine and The 60-Second Philosopher: Expand Your Mind on a Minute or so a Day!.

Inhalt

Introduction: “Stop Making Sense”Chapter 1: Plato / More Than What Meets the EyeChapter 2: Aristotle / Neither You Will Nor You Won’tChapter 3: Augustine / Forced to Be FreeChapter 4: Anselm / God is Not Just a Good IdeaChapter 5: Maimonides / Keeps Going, and Going, and Going … Or Not?Chapter 6: Thomas Aquinas / God Has Not Been on Vacation Since the Original CreationChapter 7: René Descartes / “A Monstrous Thesis”Chapter 8: John Locke / True ColorsChapter 9: Nicolas Malebranche / On Honoring Leeks and VegetablesChapter 10: G. W. Leibniz / SynchronicityChapter 11: George Berkeley / To Be Is to Perceive, or Be PerceivedChapter 12: David Hume / Stercus AcciditChapter 13: Friedrich Nietzsche / Philosopher, Psychologist—Antichrist?Chapter 14: John McTaggart / Time Does Not Fly Even When You’re Having FunChapter 15: Ludwig Wittgenstein / The Voice In My Head is Speaking NonsenseChapter 16: Hilary Putnam / Thinking Outside the (Cranial) BoxChapter 17: David Lewis / The Incredulous StareChapter 18: Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers / Mind and Matter, Together Again at Last (Sort of)!

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.6.2012
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie Altertum / Antike
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie des Mittelalters
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• ISBN-10: 1-4422-1610-7 / 1442216107
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4422-1610-5 / 9781442216105