did-you-know? rent-now

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

did-you-know? rent-now

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

We're the #1 textbook rental company. Let us show you why.

9780078038372

Does the Center Hold? An Introduction to Western Philosophy

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780078038372

  • ISBN10:

    0078038375

  • Edition: 6th
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2013-02-25
  • Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
  • View Upgraded Edition
  • Purchase Benefits
  • Free Shipping Icon Free Shipping On Orders Over $35!
    Your order must be $35 or more to qualify for free economy shipping. Bulk sales, PO's, Marketplace items, eBooks and apparel do not qualify for this offer.
  • eCampus.com Logo Get Rewarded for Ordering Your Textbooks! Enroll Now
List Price: $106.65

Summary

Does the Center Hold?is an entertaining, topically-organized introductory text with more than 500 original illustrations. The ideas and issues typically covered in introductory philosophy courses are presented here in a remarkably accessible and enjoyable manner. Donald Palmer demonstrates that serious philosophical inquiry may be perplexing, but is ultimately liberating, and students will come away from the book with a comprehensive, and often delighted, understanding of philosophy.

Table of Contents

1 What Are We Doing in This Class?

Is Philosophy Possible?

The Origins of Philosophy

Contemporary Branches of Philosophy
Epistemology
Ontology
Ethics
Political and Social Philosophy
Aesthetics
Logic

Contemporary Styles of Philosophy

The Philosophy of Socrates

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

2 Truth Is Beauty; Beauty Is Truth

Rationalist Epistemology

The Philosophy of Plato
Images
Sensible Objects
Concepts
Forms

René Descartes’s Rationalism

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

3 What You See Is What You Get

Empiricist Epistemology

The Empiricism of John Locke
Simple and Complex Ideas
Primary and Secondary Qualities
Substance

Berkeley’s Correction of Locke
Sense Data
The Source of Sense Data

Hume’s Radicalization of Berkeley’s Empiricism

Logical Positivism: The Further Radicalization of Empiricism
Attacks on Logical Positivism’s Notion of Sense Data
Attacks on Logical Positivism’s Language

Kant’s Compromise

Conclusion: Getting Up-to-Date
Quine’s Contribution
Rationalism in the Twenty-First Century

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

4 Who’s on First; What’s on Second?

Ontology

Dualism

Materialistic Monism
Materialism
Behaviorism
The Mind-Brain Identity Theory
Eliminative Materialism
Functionalism and Its Discontents

Pluralism

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

5 Mount Olympus, Mount Moriah, and Other Godly Places

Philosophy of Religion

Theism
The Ontological Argument
The Cosmological Argument
Hume’s Criticism of the Cosmological Proof
The Teleological Argument
Darwin’s and Hume’s Criticisms of the Teleological Proof

Atheism
Feuerbach’s “Religion of Man”
Marx’s Response to Feuerbach
Sigmund Freud: The Psychoanalysis of Religion

Volitional Justifications of Religious Belief

Religious Mysticism

Religious Existentialism

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes 208

6 The Largest Airline in the Free World

Philosophy of Freedom

Determinism: Ancient Greek and Enlightenment Views

Hard Determinism: Modern Views
B. F. Skinner
Sigmund Freud

The Attack on Free Will

Soft Determinism (a.k.a. Compatibilism)

Indeterminism
Libertarianism
Existential Freedom
Perverse Freedom

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

7 Thou Shalt Become Perfected

Ethics

Ancient Greek Moral Philosophers
Justice/Morality
City/Soul

Egoism

Utilitarianism
The Calculus of Felicity
The Quality of Pleasure
Utilitarianism’s Problems

Duty-Oriented Morality: Immanuel Kant
Kant’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Kant’s Third Formulation

Kantianism Today?
Contractualism
Virtue Ethics

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

8 Different Strokes for Different Folks

Critiques of Traditional Ethical Theories

Existentialism

Hume and the Naturalistic Fallacy

Logical Positivism

Cultural Relativism
No Universally Held Moral Values
No Value or Set of Values Recommendable for All People

Ethics and Feminism

Ethics and Deep Ecology

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

9 Let Them Eat Cake

Political and Social Philosophy

Political Philosophy
Plato 327
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Stuart Mill

Social Philosophy
Communism
The Minimal State
Liberalism

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

10 But Is It Art?

Philosophy of Art

Analytic Philosophy of Art
Analysis of Expressionism
Analysis of Formalism
Analysis of the Aesthetic Experience
Analysis of Conventionalism
Analysis of Realism

Wittgenstein
Open Concepts
A Form of Life: The Artworld

Plato, Freud, and Art

Aristotle and Art

Marx and Art

Existentialism and Art

Conclusion

Topics for Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading: Paperback Editions

Notes

Glossary

Credits

Index

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Rewards Program