
Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy!
An Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology
Stephen Hetherington(Author)
Edinburgh University Press
Published on 11. August 2003
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-0-7486-1664-0 (ISBN)
Description
Fundamentally, what are we? And what, if anything, do we know? Minds, bodies; free will; evil; meaningful lives; harmful deaths: do such properties make us whatever we are? Truth; rationality; fallibility; knowledge; observation, reason; sceptical doubts: are these also vital to our being whatever we are? You do not understand yourself and others until you have done battle with those questions. And Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy! shows you how to do that. It can help you to gain a better philosophy of people's lives. Become a better person too. Be surprised at how easily your thinking philosophically about reality and knowledge can lead to your reflecting on life's ethical complications.Features* Offers a new way of approaching metaphysics and epistemology - via links to ethical and social questions.* Readable, clear and engaging.* Encourages discussion and independent thought.* Blends thought-provoking theories with questions applicable to everyday life.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 246 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
390 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7486-1664-0 (9780748616640)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2019
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Stephen Hetherington is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. He has written three books on epistemology - Epistemology's Paradox (1992), Knowledge Puzzles (1996), and Good Knowledge, Bad Knowledge (2001).
Author
Associate Professor of PhilosophyUniversity of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Content
Preface; Using This Book; Acknowledgments; 1.Persons; 1.1 Physicalism; 1.2 Immaterialism; 1.3 Dualism; 1.4 Questions of personal identity; 1.5 'No longer the same person'; 1.6 Conventionalism; 1.7 Descartes on what persons are; 1.8 Locke on personal identity; 1.9 Hume on personal identity; Further reading; 2. Free Will; 2.1 Determinism; 2.2 Fatalism; 2.3 What is free will?; 2.4 Indeterminism; 2.5 Evidence of free will?; 2.6 Moral responsibility; 2.7 Foreknowledge; 2.8 Hume's compatibilism; Further reading; 3. God and Evil; 3.1 The traditional problem of evil; 3.2 The world as a whole; 3.3 The evidence-problem of evil; 3.4 The free will defence; 3.5 Socrates's challenge; 3.6 Evil within people?; Further reading; 4. Life's Meaning; 4.1 Criteria of meaning?; 4.2 The myth of Sisyphus; 4.3 Plato's cave; 4.4 Nozick's machines; 4.5 Living ethically; 4.6 Living philosophically; 4.7 Aristotle on the best way to live; Further reading; 5. Death's Harm; 5.1 Objective harm?; 5.2 Epicurus and Lucretius on being dead; 5.3 Being deprived by being dead?; 5.4 Dying; 5.5 Never dying; 5.6 Brain death; Further reading;; 6. Properties; 6.1 The problem of universals; 6.2 Platonic Forms; 6.3 Label nominalism; 6.4 Class nominalism; 6.5 Resemblance nominalism; 6.6 Individualised properties; 6.7 Essentialism; Further reading; 7. Truth; 7.1 Caring about truth as such; 7.2 Correspondence; 7.3 Coherence; 7.4 Pragmatism; 7.5 Disagreement; 7.6 Claiming truth; 7.7 Social constructivism; 7.8 Social facts; Further reading; 8. Well Supported Views; 8.1 Objective support; 8.2 Fallibilism; 8.3 Reliabilism; 8.4 Popper and testability; 8.5 Intellectual virtue; 8.6 Agreement; 8.7 Epistemic relativism; Further reading; 9. Knowledge; 9.1 Knowledge's objectivity; 9.2 A traditional conception of knowledge; 9.3 Gettier's challenge; 9.4 Avoiding false evidence; 9.5 Knowing luckily; 9.6 Gradualism; 9.7 Fallible knowledge; 9.8 Education; 9.9 Taking knowledge seriously; Further reading; 10. Observational Knowledge; 10.1 Purely observational knowledge; 10.2 Observational limits?; 10.3 Empiricism; 10.4 Representationalism; 10.5 Berkeley's idealism; 10.6 Phenomenalism; 10.7 Perception and reliability; 10.8 Hume on causation; 10.9 Non-inferential knowledge; Further reading; 11. Pure Reason; 11.1 Rationalism; 11.2 A priori knowledge; 11.3 Plato's rationalism; 11.4 Descartes's rationalist method; 11.5 Kant on a priori knowledge; 11.6 Mill's radical empiricism; 11.7 Logical empiricism; 11.8 Fallible a priori knowledge; Further reading; 12. Sceptical Doubts; 12.1 Blended knowledge?; 12.2 Scepticisms; 12.3 Descartes's dreaming argument; 12.4 Descartes's evil genius; 12.5 Hume on induction; 12.6 Other minds; 12.7 Being freely rational; 12.8 Moore and commonsense; 12.9 Knowing fallibly; 12.10 Improved knowledge; 12.11 What you are; Further reading.