50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to KnowHave you ever lain awake at night fretting over how we can be sure of the reality of the external world? Perhaps we are in fact disembodied brains, floating in vats at the whim of some deranged master-scientist? If so, you are not alone -- and, what's more, you are in exalted company. For this troubling question and other ones like it -- from the 'other minds problem' to the 'ship of Theseus', from 'Occam's razor' to the 'barber paradox' -- have been the stuff of philosophical rumination from Plato to Putnam. In a series of 50 accessible and lucidly written essays, Ben Dupré introduces and explains the problems of knowledge, consciousness, identity, ethics, belief, justice, language, meaning and aesthetics that have engaged the attention of thinkers from the era of the ancient Greeks to the present day. Demystifying and entertaining, 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know is the perfect introduction to Western philosophy for the uninitiated, from a writer with a real gift for popularizing its often complex and challenging concepts. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
PROBLEMS OF KNOWLEDGE 01 The brain in a vat | 4 |
Platos cave | 8 |
Copyright | |
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according actions animals apparently barber paradox basic behaviour belief brain cashew categorical imperative cause cave century claim Cogito ergo sum concept conclusion condensed idea consequentialist cosmological argument debate Descartes difference principle distinction dualism Ends and means essentially ethical exist experience machine explain fact fallacy false Forms of argument freedom freewill defence gambler's fallacy golden rule human Hume Hume's guillotine induction inference influential instance intentions intuitions justified Kant kill kind king of France knowledge language logic look mathematical matter mental mind mind-body problem moral nature objects Occam's razor ontological argument paradigm particular person philosopher physical physicalist Plato position possible premises prisoner's dilemma problem of evil punishment question rational relativism scepticism scientific sense ship of Theseus similar slippery slope so-called sorites paradox suppose things thought timeline true truth Turing test universe utilitarian virtue Wittgenstein words wrong