Philosophy & this Actual World: An Introduction to Practical Philosophical InquiryIn 1907 William James criticized the divide between academic philosophy and everyday life. Philosophy, he thought, should do more than exercise our powers of intellectual abstraction. It should also make some positive connection with this actual world of finite human lives. If the problem was bad then, it's worse now. Academic philosophy has become so technical and inbred it often fails to connect with the questions and concerns of educated nonspecialists. Philosophy and This Actual World aims to bridge this gap by combining the focus and style of a public philosopher like William James with the technical advances of a philosopher's philosopher like Ludwig Wittgenstein. |
Contents
Language Meaning and Truth | 28 |
Knowledge and Reality | 53 |
Mind and Will | 77 |
Copyright | |
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action anencephalic animals answer background beliefs behavior beliefs and theories brain death capacity Cartesian dualism Cartesian subject causal chapter coherent complex compromise conception conflict consciousness criteria dead death democratic temperament Descartes determined doubt dualism embodied social agents ethics example existence experience freedom G. E. M. Anscombe gene Gerasim human idea identify impersonal individual Insofar irreversible cessation Ivan Ilych Jo Ann Boydston John Dewey knowledge language games Library of America linguistic lives Ludwig Wittgenstein meaning mental mind moral pluralism ourselves Paneloux patients Peirce permanent vegetative philosophical questions Phineas Gage physical possible practical pragmatic pragmatists presupposes problem propositions radical skepticism reality reason reciprocal altruism reflective equilibrium response Richard Rorty Rieux rules and principles scientific spectator standpoint things thought tion tive totally and permanently true truth understanding University Press values and principles vocabulary wide reflective equilibrium William James Wittgenstein words worldview wrong