Truth about Everything - Irreverent History of Philosophy

• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 472
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Throughout history, well-known theories of reality, knowledge, mind, and most particularly the "professional" philosophers who rely on them for their intellectual existence, have sought to isolate universal truths and structure the history of philosophy to distinguish schools and movements that seek a comprehensive understanding of our world. But in this well-intended pursuit of truth, have we lost sight of what philosophy is? Matthew Stewart believes we have.
His rowdy guided tour of the search for truth romps through traditional histories of philosophy using parables, imaginary dialogues, and illustrations to demonstrate that knowing theories, recognizing revered schools, and distinguishing the views of the great philosophers isn't what philosophy should be about. Once removed from the clutches of historicism, the compulsion for universal answers, and the perception that reason is a peculiarly Western possession, the nature of philosophy can be seen as a genuine human disposition to love and respect knowledge coupled with a desire for critical thinking.

✦ Table of Contents

The Ancient Greeks. -- The Presocratics: The Primordial Soup of Philosophy -- The Sophists: The Bad Guys -- Socrates: So This Is the Good Life? -- Plato: The Last Dialogue -- Aristotle: A Day at the Zoo -- The Hellenistic Philosophers: On How to Get By in Life -- Neoplatonism: Twilight of the Pagans -- Eastern Philosophy: Just Say Om -- Medieval Philosophy: Trouble in the Monastery -- Early Modern Philosophy: Avant Garde or Rearguard? -- Descartes: I Drink Therefore I Am -- Spinoza: One is the Happiest Number -- Leibniz: Monads for Sale -- Empiricism: The Poor Man's Dialectic, or How Empiricism Becomes Mysticism and Then Strangely Disappears -- Locke: A Man of Ideas -- Berkeley: The Babbling Bishop -- The Dramas of Mind and Body -- Mind and Bodies (Illustrations) -- Hume: A Man for All Senses -- Odds and Ends from Early Modern Philosophy: Just in Case You Thought That Was All ... -- Meanwhile in France ... : Turning on the Lights -- German Idealism: The Empire of the Air. -- Kant: The Absolutely Critical Philosophy -- Fichte: An I for an I -- Schelling: The Bright Young Thing -- Hegel: Lord of the Philosophers -- Those on the Edge. -- Schopenhauer: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World -- Kierkegaard -- Nietzsche: Vanishing Perspectives -- The Trash Can of the History of Philosophy -- Twentieth-Century Philosophy. -- Continental Philosophy: Unthought -- Husserl: Another Head Case -- Heidegger: Much Ado about Being -- Sartre: Being-in-the-Cafe -- For Continental Junkies -- Foucault: In Need of Discipline and Punishment -- Derrida: De Reader -- Analytic Philosophy: Philosophy without a History. -- The Logical Program -- Frege: A Logical Philosopher -- Moore's the Merrier -- Russell: A Passion for Logic -- Early Wittgenstein: Intractable -- The Logical Positivists: From Sense to Nonsense -- The Language Program -- The Later Wittgenstein: Seriously Intractable -- Ordinary and Extraordinary Language People -- The Mind Program: Mind Fills the Gap -- The Poor Man's Dialectic or Ground-Churning? -- The End of Philosophy. -- The Future of Philosophy -- Matthew: The Last Philosopher -- Proposals