Download or read book Evil in Modern Thought written by Susan Neiman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.
Download or read book Elbow Room new edition written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-08-07 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark book in the debate over free will that makes the case for compatibilism. In this landmark 1984 work on free will, Daniel Dennett makes a case for compatibilism. His aim, as he writes in the preface to this new edition, was a cleanup job, “saving everything that mattered about the everyday concept of free will, while jettisoning the impediments.” In Elbow Room, Dennett argues that the varieties of free will worth wanting—those that underwrite moral and artistic responsibility—are not threatened by advances in science but distinguished, explained, and justified in detail. Dennett tackles the question of free will in a highly original and witty manner, drawing on the theories and concepts of fields that range from physics and evolutionary biology to engineering, automata theory, and artificial intelligence. He shows how the classical formulations of the problem in philosophy depend on misuses of imagination, and he disentangles the philosophical problems of real interest from the “family of anxieties” in which they are often enmeshed—imaginary agents and bogeymen, including the Peremptory Puppeteer, the Nefarious Neurosurgeon, and the Cosmic Child Whose Dolls We Are. Putting sociobiology in its rightful place, he concludes that we can have free will and science too. He explores reason, control and self-control, the meaning of “can” and “could have done otherwise,” responsibility and punishment, and why we would want free will in the first place. A fresh reading of Dennett's book shows how much it can still contribute to current discussions of free will. This edition includes as its afterword Dennett's 2012 Erasmus Prize essay.
Download or read book Free Will written by Joseph Keim Campbell and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is free will? Why is it important? Can the same act be both free and determined? Is free will necessary for moral responsibility? Does anyone have free will, and if not, how is creativity possible and how can anyone be praised or blamed for anything? These are just some of the questions considered by Joseph Keim Campbell in this lively and accessible introduction to the concept of free will. Using a range of engaging examples the book introduces the problems, arguments, and theories surrounding free will. Beginning with a discussion of fatalism and causal determinism, the book goes on to focus on the metaphysics of moral responsibility, free will skepticism, and skepticism about moral responsibility. Campbell shows that no matter how we look at it, free will is problematic. Thankfully there are a plethora of solutions on offer and the best of these are considered in full in the final chapter on contemporary theories of free will. This includes a rigorous account of libertarianism, compatabilism, and naturalism. Free Will is the ideal introduction to the topic and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand the importance and relevance of the concept for contemporary philosophy.
Download or read book The Limits of Free Will written by Paul Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a selection of papers concerning free will and moral responsibility. Among the topics covered, as they relate to these problems, are the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation; practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of agency; and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and pessimism.
Download or read book Studies in Philosophy and Psychology written by Charles Edward Garman and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Free Will written by Michael McKenna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an advanced introduction to the challenging topic of free will, this book is designed for upper-level undergraduates interested in a comprehensive first-stop into the field’s issues and debates. It is written by two of the leading participants in those debates—a compatibilist on the issue of free will and determinism (Michael McKenna) and an incompatibilist (Derk Pereboom). These two authors achieve an admirable objectivity and clarity while still illuminating the field’s complexity and key advances. Each chapter is structured to work as one week’s primary reading in a course on free will, while more advanced courses can dip into the annotated further readings, suggested at the end of each chapter. A comprehensive bibliography as well as detailed subject and author indexes are included at the back of the book.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Free Will written by Paul Russell and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides a selection of the most essential contributions to the contemporary free will debate. Among the issues discussed and debated are skepticism and naturalism, alternate possibilities, the consequence argument, libertarian metaphysics, illusionism and revisionism, optimism and pessimism, neuroscience and free will, and experimental philosophy.
Download or read book Free Will written by Michael McKenna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an advanced introduction to the challenging topic of free will, this book is designed for upper-level undergraduates interested in a comprehensive first-stop into the field’s issues and debates. It is written by two of the leading participants in those debates—a compatibilist on the issue of free will and determinism (Michael McKenna) and an incompatibilist (Derk Pereboom). These two authors achieve an admirable objectivity and clarity while still illuminating the field’s complexity and key advances. Each chapter is structured to work as one week’s primary reading in a course on free will, while more advanced courses can dip into the annotated further readings, suggested at the end of each chapter. A comprehensive bibliography as well as detailed subject and author indexes are included at the back of the book.
Download or read book Classical Modern Philosophy written by Jeffrey Tlumak and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classical Modern Philosophy introduces students to the key philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and explores their most important works. Jeffrey Tlumak takes the reader on a chronological journey from Descartes to Kant, tracing the themes that run through the period and their interrelations. The main texts covered are: Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy Spinoza's Ethics Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics and Monadology Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Classical Modern Philosophy is the ideal textbook to accompany a course in the history of modern philosophy, but each chapter can also be studied alone as an introduction to the featured philosopher or work. Jeffrey Tlumak outlines and assesses prominent interpretations of the texts, and surveys the legacy of each great thinker.
Download or read book The Soul of Classical American Philosophy written by Richard P. Mullin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soul of Classical American Philosophy is an introduction to the thought of William James, Josiah Royce, and Charles Sanders Peirce, particularly in terms of the ethical and the spiritual. Writing for the nonspecialist in a straightforward style, Richard P. Mullin brings together the central ideas of these three key figures of classical American Pragmatism and explores their engagement with issues of truth, the meaning of self, free will, moral values, community, scientific thinking, and the relationship with the transcendent. He also addresses the growing international interest in American philosophy and sheds light on a defining movement in its history.
Download or read book Free Will written by Joseph Keim Campbell and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is free will? Why is it important? Can the same act be both free and determined? Is free will necessary for moral responsibility? Does anyone have free will, and if not, how is creativity possible and how can anyone be praised or blamed for anything? These are just some of the questions considered by Joseph Keim Campbell in this lively and accessible introduction to the concept of free will. Using a range of engaging examples the book introduces the problems, arguments, and theories surrounding free will. Beginning with a discussion of fatalism and causal determinism, the book goes on to focus on the metaphysics of moral responsibility, free will skepticism, and skepticism about moral responsibility. Campbell shows that no matter how we look at it, free will is problematic. Thankfully there are a plethora of solutions on offer and the best of these are considered in full in the final chapter on contemporary theories of free will. This includes a rigorous account of libertarianism, compatabilism, and naturalism. Free Will is the ideal introduction to the topic and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand the importance and relevance of the concept for contemporary philosophy.
Download or read book Free Will written by Mark Balaguer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-02-14 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosopher considers whether the scientific and philosophical arguments against free will are reason enough to give up our belief in it. In our daily life, it really seems as though we have free will, that what we do from moment to moment is determined by conscious decisions that we freely make. You get up from the couch, you go for a walk, you eat chocolate ice cream. It seems that we're in control of actions like these; if we are, then we have free will. But in recent years, some have argued that free will is an illusion. The neuroscientist (and best-selling author) Sam Harris and the late Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner, for example, claim that certain scientific findings disprove free will. In this engaging and accessible volume in the Essential Knowledge series, the philosopher Mark Balaguer examines the various arguments and experiments that have been cited to support the claim that human beings don't have free will. He finds them to be overstated and misguided. Balaguer discusses determinism, the view that every physical event is predetermined, or completely caused by prior events. He describes several philosophical and scientific arguments against free will, including one based on Benjamin Libet's famous neuroscientific experiments, which allegedly show that our conscious decisions are caused by neural events that occur before we choose. He considers various religious and philosophical views, including the philosophical pro-free-will view known as compatibilism. Balaguer concludes that the anti-free-will arguments put forward by philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists simply don't work. They don't provide any good reason to doubt the existence of free will. But, he cautions, this doesn't necessarily mean that we have free will. The question of whether we have free will remains an open one; we simply don't know enough about the brain to answer it definitively.
Download or read book Philosophy and the City written by Sharon M. Meagher and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2008-01-10 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive source book on philosophy and the city. Using philosophical works from ancient Greece to contemporary times, Philosophy and the City demonstrates both why philosophy matters to the city and how cities matter to philosophy. The collection addresses questions that remain central to urban planning and everyday urban life, such as, What is a city? What does it mean to be a good citizen? By bringing various perspectives together, Sharon M. Meagher provides readers the opportunity to better understand key philosophical debates concerning not only social and political philosophy but also place and identity formation, aesthetics, philosophy of race and diversity, and environmental philosophy. Sharon M. Meagher is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Women?s Studies at the University of Scranton. She is the coeditor (with Patrice DiQuinzio) of Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Public Policy, also published by SUNY Press.
Download or read book The Elements of Ethics written by John Henry Muirhead and published by . This book was released on 1892 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book Free Will and Consciousness written by Gregg D. Caruso and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, with advances in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences, the idea that patterns of human behavior may ultimately be due to factors beyond our conscious control has increasingly gained traction and renewed interest in the age-old problem of free will. In this book, Gregg D. Caruso examines both the traditional philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will, as well as recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to consciousness and human agency. He argues that our best scientific theories indeed have the consequence that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform and that because of this we do not possess the kind of free will required for genuine or ultimate responsibility. It is further argued that the strong and pervasive belief in free will, which the author considers an illusion, can be accounted for through a careful analysis of our phenomenology and a proper theoretical understanding of consciousness. Indeed, the primary goal of this book is to argue that our subjective feeling of freedom, as reflected in the first-person phenomenology of agentive experience, is an illusion created by certain aspects of our consciousness.
Download or read book Ten Essential Texts in the Philosophy of Religion written by Steven M. Cahn and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes selections from Plato, Boethius, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Kierkegaard, William James, Anthony Flew, accompanied by modern essays.
