The Great Conversation A Historical Introduction to Philosophy

by Melchert, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780195175103
• ISBN10: 0195175107
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This historically organized introductory text, which begins with Hesiod and goes up to Derrida and Quine, presents philosophy as an ongoing conversation about humankind's deepest and most persistent concerns. The Great Conversation traces the exchange of ideas between history's key philosophers, demonstrating that while constructing an argument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. The book is also available in two volumes: Volume I covers Hesiod through Descartes (Chapters 1-13); Volume II includes "Moving from Medieval to Modern" (Chapter 12), and coverage of Descartes through Derrida and Quine (Chapters 13-25).

Author Biography

Norman Melchert is Selfridge Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and was Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University

Table of Contents

A Word to Instructors	ix
A Word to Students	xi
Acknowledgments	xv
Before Philosophy: Myth in Hesiod and Homer	1	(9)
Hesiod: War among the Gods	2	(2)
Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Excellence	4	(6)
Philosophy before Socrates	10	(27)
Thales: The One as Water	11	(1)
Anaximander: The One as the Boundless	12	(2)
Xenophanes: The Gods as Fictions	14	(2)
Profile: Pythagoras	16	(3)
Heraclitus: Oneness in the Logos	19	(5)
Parmenides: Only the One	24	(4)
Zeno: The Paradoxes of Common Sense	28	(2)
Atomism: The One and the Many Reconciled	30	(7)
The Key: An Ambiguity	30	(2)
The World	32	(1)
The Soul	33	(2)
How to Live	35	(2)
The Sophists: Rhetoric and Relativism in Athens	37	(22)
Democracy	37	(1)
The Persian Wars	38	(2)
The Sophists	40	(9)
Rhetoric	42	(2)
Relativism	44	(1)
Physis and Nomos	45	(4)
Athens and Sparta at War	49	(5)
Aristophanes and Reaction	54	(5)
Socrates: To Know Oneself	59	(12)
Character	60	(3)
Is Socrates a Sophist?	63	(3)
What Socrates ``Knows''	66	(5)
We Ought to Search for Truth	66	(1)
Human Excellence Is Knowledge	67	(1)
All Wrongdoing Is Due to Ignorance	68	(1)
The Most Important Thing of All Is to Care for Your Soul	69	(2)
The Trial and Death of Socrates	71	(46)
Euthyphro	71	(14)
Translator's Introduction	71	(1)
The Dialogue	72	(8)
Commentary and Questions	80	(5)
Apology	85	(18)
Translator's Introduction	85	(1)
The Dialogue	85	(13)
Commentary and Questions	98	(5)
Crito	103	(10)
Translator's Introduction	103	(1)
The Dialogue	103	(7)
Commentary and Questions	110	(3)
Phaedo (Death Scene)	113	(4)
Translator's Introduction	113	(1)
The Dialogue (Selection)	113	(2)
Commentary and Questions	115	(2)
Plato: Knowing the Real and the Good	117	(40)
Knowledge and Opinion	118	(8)
Making the Distinction	119	(1)
We Do Know Certain Truths	120	(1)
The Objects of Knowledge	121	(3)
The Reality of the Forms	124	(2)
The World and the Forms	126	(8)
How Forms Are Related to the World	126	(3)
Lower and Higher Forms	129	(2)
The Form of the Good	131	(3)
The Love of Wisdom	134	(8)
What Wisdom Is	134	(4)
Love and Wisdom	138	(4)
The Soul	142	(3)
The Immortality of the Soul	142	(2)
The Structure of the Soul	144	(1)
Justice	145	(6)
The State	151	(2)
Problems with the Forms	153	(4)
Aristotle: The Reality of the World	157	(43)
Aristotle and Plato	157	(3)
Otherworldliness	157	(1)
The Objects of Knowledge	158	(1)
Human Nature	158	(1)
Relativism and Skepticism	158	(1)
Ethics	159	(1)
Logic and Knowledge	160	(9)
Terms and Statements	161	(2)
Truth	163	(1)
Reasons Why: The Syllogism	164	(3)
Knowing First Principles	167	(2)
The World	169	(5)
Nature	170	(1)
The Four ``Becauses''	170	(2)
Is There Purpose in Nature?	172	(1)
Teleology	173	(1)
First Philosophy	174	(7)
Not Plato's Forms	175	(1)
What of Mathematics?	176	(1)
Substance and Form	176	(2)
Pure Actualities	178	(1)
God	179	(2)
The Soul	181	(5)
Levels of Soul	181	(1)
Soul and Body	182	(2)
Nous	184	(2)
The Good Life	186	(14)
Happiness	188	(3)
Virtue or Excellence (Arete)	191	(1)
The Role of Reason	192	(3)
Responsibility	195	(1)
The Highest Good	196	(4)
Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics: Happiness for the Many	200	(18)
The Epicureans	201	(5)
The Stoics	206	(5)
The Skeptics	211	(7)
The Christians: Sin, Salvation, and Love	218	(10)
Background	219	(2)
Jesus	221	(4)
The Meaning of Jesus	225	(3)
Augustine: God and the Soul	228	(39)
Wisdom, Happiness, and God	234	(4)
The Interior Teacher	238	(2)
God and the World	240	(8)
The Great Chain of Being	241	(3)
Evil	244	(1)
Time	245	(3)
Human Nature and Its Corruption	248	(6)
Human Nature and Its Restoration	254	(3)
Augustine on Relativism	257	(2)
The Two Cities	259	(3)
Christians and Philosophers	262	(5)
Reason and Authority	262	(1)
Intellect and Will	263	(1)
Augustine on Epicureans and Stoics	263	(4)
Anselm and Aquinas: Existence and Essence in God and the World	267	(32)
Anselm: On That, Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived	267	(5)
Thomas Aquinas: Rethinking Aristotle	272	(21)
Philosophy and Theology	273	(1)
Existence and Essence	274	(2)
From Creation to God	276	(6)
The Nature of God	282	(2)
Humans: Their Souls	284	(2)
Humans: Their Knowledge	286	(2)
Humans: Their Good	288	(5)
Ockham and Skeptical Doubts---Again	293	(6)
Moving from Medieval to Modern	299	(23)
The World God Made for Man	300	(4)
The Humanists	304	(2)
Reforming the Church	306	(5)
Skeptical Thoughts Revived	311	(3)
Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo: The Great Triple Play	314	(8)
Rene Descartes: Doubting Our Way to Certainty	322	(42)
The Method	325	(2)
Meditations: Commentary and Questions	327	(12)
Meditations on First Philosophy	339	(21)
Meditation I	339	(2)
Meditation II	341	(3)
Meditation III	344	(5)
Meditation IV	349	(3)
Meditation V	352	(2)
Meditation VI	354	(6)
What Has Descartes Done?	360	(4)
A New Ideal for Knowledge	360	(1)
A New Vision of Reality	361	(1)
Problems	361	(1)
The Preeminence of Epistemology	362	(2)
Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley: Materialism and the Beginnings of Empiricism	364	(37)
Thomas Hobbes: Catching Persons in the Net of the New Science	364	(11)
Method	365	(1)
Minds and Motives	366	(6)
Profile: Francis Bacon	372	(1)
The Natural Foundation of Moral Rules	373	(2)
John Locke: Looking to Experience	375	(14)
Origin of Ideas	377	(1)
Idea of Substance	378	(1)
Idea of the Soul	379	(1)
Idea of Personal Identity	380	(2)
Language and Essence	382	(2)
The Extent of Knowledge	384	(2)
Of Representative Government	386	(2)
Of Toleration	388	(1)
George Berkeley: Ideas into Things	389	(12)
Abstract Ideas	390	(3)
Ideas and Things	393	(5)
God	398	(3)
David Hume: Unmasking the Pretensions of Reason	401	(30)
How Newton Did It	402	(1)
To Be the Newton of Human Nature	403	(2)
The Theory of Ideas	405	(2)
The Association of Ideas	407	(1)
Causation: The Very Idea	407	(7)
The Disappearing Self	414	(3)
Rescuing Human Freedom	417	(2)
Is It Reasonable to Believe in God?	419	(4)
Understanding Morality	423	(4)
Reason Is Not a Motivator	423	(2)
The Origins of Moral Judgment	425	(2)
Is Hume a Skeptic?	427	(4)
Immanuel Kant: Rehabilitating Reason (within Strict Limits)	431	(37)
Critique	433	(1)
Judgments	434	(2)
Geometry, Mathematics, Space, and Time	436	(3)
Common Sense, Science, and the A Priori Categories	439	(4)
Profile: Baruch Spinoza	443	(1)
Phenomena and Noumena	444	(2)
Profile: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz	446	(1)
Reasoning and the Ideas of Metaphysics: God, World, and Soul	447	(9)
The Soul	449	(1)
The World and the Free Will	450	(3)
God	453	(1)
The Ontological Argument	454	(2)
Reason and Morality	456	(12)
The Good Will	457	(3)
The Moral Law	460	(2)
Autonomy	462	(1)
Freedom	463	(5)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Taking History Seriously	468	(29)
Historical and Intellectual Context	469	(2)
The French Revolution	469	(1)
The Romantics	470	(1)
Epistemology Internalized	471	(1)
Profile: Arthur Schopenhauer	472	(5)
Self and Others	477	(4)
Stoic and Skeptical Consciousness	481	(1)
Hegel's Analysis of Christianity	482	(2)
Reason and Reality: The Theory of Idealism	484	(2)
Spirit Made Objective: The Social Character of Ethics	486	(6)
History and Freedom	492	(5)
Kierkegaard and Marx: Two Ways to ``Correct'' Hegel	497	(27)
Kierkegaard: On Individual Existence	497	(18)
The Aesthetic	498	(3)
The Ethical	501	(3)
The Religious	504	(8)
The Individual	512	(3)
Marx: Beyond Alienation and Exploitation	515	(9)
Alienation, Exploitation, and Private Property	517	(3)
Communism	520	(4)
The Utilitarians: Moral Rules and the Happiness of All (Including Women)	524	(18)
The Classic Utilitarians	524	(10)
The Rights of Women	534	(8)
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value of Existence	542	(35)
Pessimism and Tragedy	543	(5)
Good-bye True World	548	(5)
The Death of God	553	(3)
Revaluation of Values	556	(8)
Master Morality/Slave Morality	557	(3)
Our Morality	560	(4)
The Overman	564	(8)
Affirming Eternal Recurrence	572	(5)
The Pragmatists: Thought and Action	577	(28)
Charles Sanders Peirce	577	(15)
Fixing Belief	578	(2)
Belief and Doubt	580	(2)
Truth and Reality	582	(4)
Meaning	586	(4)
Signs	590	(2)
John Dewey	592	(13)
The Impact of Darwin	592	(2)
Naturalized Epistemology	594	(1)
Profile: William James	595	(2)
Nature and Natural Science	597	(2)
Value Naturalized	599	(6)
Analysis: Logical Atomism and the Logical Positivists	605	(27)
Language and Its Logic	606	(2)
Profile: Bertrand Russell	608	(1)
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus	608	(3)
Picturing	611	(15)
Thought and Language	613	(3)
Logical Truth	616	(1)
Saying and Showing	617	(1)
Setting the Limit to Thought	618	(1)
Value and the Self	619	(3)
Good and Evil, Happiness and Unhappiness	622	(2)
The Unsayable	624	(2)
Logical Positivism	626	(6)
Ordinary Language: ``This Is Simply What I Do''	632	(23)
The Later Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations	633	(11)
Philosophical Illusion	634	(4)
Language-Games	638	(2)
Ostensive Definitions	640	(1)
Objects	641	(1)
Family Resemblances	642	(2)
The Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought	644	(3)
Our Groundless Certainty	647	(8)
Martin Heidegger: The Meaning of Being	655	(47)
What Is the Question?	656	(1)
The Clue	657	(3)
Phenomenology	660	(1)
Profile: Jean-Paul Sartre	661	(1)
Being-in-the-World	662	(6)
The ``Who'' of Dasein	668	(3)
Modes of Disclosure	671	(7)
Attunement	672	(3)
Understanding	675	(2)
Discourse	677	(1)
Falling-Away	678	(3)
Idle Talk	678	(1)
Curiosity	679	(1)
Ambiguity	680	(1)
Care	681	(1)
Truth	682	(2)
Death	684	(2)
Conscience, Guilt, and Resoluteness	686	(3)
Temporality as the Meaning of Care	689	(3)
The Priority of Being	692	(10)
Postmodernism and Physical Realism: Derrida, Rorty, Quine, and Dennett	702	(41)
Postmodernism	702	(21)
Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida	703	(9)
Liberal Ironist: Richard Rorty	712	(11)
Physical Realism	723	(20)
Science, Common Sense, and Metaphysics: Willard van Orman Quine	724	(11)
The Matter of Minds: Daniel Dennett	735	(8)
Afterword	743
Glossary	1	(1)
Credits	1	(1)
Index	1