After Parmenides: Idealism, Realism, and Epistemic ConstructivismEngages with one of the oldest philosophical problems—the relationship between thought and being—and offers a fresh perspective with which to approach the long history of this puzzle. In After Parmenides, Tom Rockmore takes us all the way back to the beginning of Western philosophy, when Parmenides asserted that thought and being are the same. This idea created a division between what the mind constructs as knowable entities and the idea that there is also a mind-independent real, which we can know or fail to know. Rockmore argues that we need to give up on the idea of knowing the real as it is, and instead focus on the objects of cognition that our mind constructs. Though we cannot know mind-independent objects as they “really” are, we can and do know objects as they appear to us. After Parmenides charts the continual engagement with these ideas of the real and the knowable throughout philosophical history from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, and others. This ambitious book shows how new connections can be made in the history of philosophy when it is reread through a new lens. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 On Reading Parmenides in the TwentyFirst Century | 9 |
2 Some Ancient Greek Reactions to Parmenides | 19 |
3 Cartesian Rationalism and the Way of Ideas | 35 |
4 Locke Empiricism and the Way of Ideas | 49 |
5 Idealism Epistemic Constructivism and Realism | 63 |
6 Kant on Causality and Epistemic Constructivism | 83 |
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According active ancient appearance approach argues argument Aristotle beginning Berkeley called Cartesian causal cause century claims cognitive Complete conception concern construction Copernican critical critical philosophy Critique debate demonstrate denies depends Descartes describes discussion distinction early effort empiricism epistemic constructivism existence experience fails Fichte follows forms formulated further geometry German German idealism grasp Greek Hegel hence human Hume idealism idealist ideas important independent inference influenced instance interested interpretation Kant Kant’s Kantian kinds knowledge known later least Locke logical Marx Marxism materialism mathematics means metaphysical mind nature never object observers Parmenidean Parmenides Peirce perhaps philosophy Plato position possible pragmatism principle priori problem Pure qualities realism reality reason refers rejects relation relies representation scientific seems sense suggests takes term theory thesis things thinkers thinks thought tradition true truth turn understand understood University Press Vico writes York