The Great Conversation A Historical Introduction to Philosophy Volume II: Descartes through Derrida and Quine

by Melchert, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780195306811
• ISBN10: 0195306813
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Ideal for courses in introductory or modern and contemporary philosophy, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Volume II: Descartes through Derrida and Quine covers the same material as the second half (chapters 12-26) of author Norman Melchert's longer volume, The Great Conversation. Now in its fifth edition, this historically organized introductory text treats philosophy as a dramatic and continuous story--a conversation about humankind's deepest and most persistent concerns. Tracing the exchange of ideas between history's key philosophers, the book demonstrates that while constructing an argument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. It addresses the fundamental questions of human life: Who are we? What can we know? How should we live? and What sort of reality do we inhabit? The fifth edition retains the distinctive feature of previous editions: Melchert provides a generous selection of excerpts from major philosophical works and makes them more easily understandable to students with his own lucid and engaging explanations. Ranging from Descartes to Derrida and Quine, the selections are organized historically and include a translation of Descartes'Meditations on First Philosophy (the complete work). The author's commentary offers a rich intellectual and cultural context for the philosophical ideas conveyed in the excerpts. Extensive cross-referencing shows students how philosophers respond appreciatively or critically to the thoughts of other philosophers. The text is enhanced by two types of exercises--"Basic Questions" and "For Further Thought"--and more than thirty illustrations. New to the Fifth Edition * A new chapter (25) on Simone de Beauvoir and her contributions to philosophy * New profiles of the Buddha and Jean-Jacques Rousseau * Review questions that are now dispersed throughout the chapters (instead of at chapter ends) to follow relevant passages and facilitate classroom discussion * Six new images, including explanatory cartoons that help students understand key concepts * A revised Instructor's Manual and Test Bank containing essential points, teaching suggestions, and multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay exam questions Also available to suit your course needs: The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Fifth Edition (combined volume covering the Pre-Socratics through Derrida and Quine) and The Great Conversation: Volume I: Pre-Socratics through Descartes, Fifth Edition (includes chapters 1-13 of the combined volume).

Table of Contents

A Word to Instructors

A Word to Students

Moving from Medieval to Modern

The World God Made for Us

The Humanists

Reforming the Church

Skeptical Thoughts Revived

Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo: The Great Triple Play

Rene Descartes: Doubting Our Way to Certainty

The Method

Meditations: Commentary and Questions

Meditations on First Philosophy

Meditation I

Meditation II

Meditation III

Meditation IV

Meditation V

Meditation VI

What Has Descartes Done?

A New Ideal for Knowledge

A New Vision of Reality

Problems

The Preeminence of Epistemology

Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley: Materialism and the Beginnings of Empiricism

Thomas Hobbes: Catching Persons in the Net of the New Science

Method

Minds and Motives

Profile: Francis Bacon

The Natural Foundation of Moral Rules

John Locke: Looking to Experience

Origin of Ideas

Idea of Substance

Idea of the Soul

Idea of Personal Identity

Language and Essence

The Extent of Knowledge

Of Representative Government

Of Toleration

George Berkeley: Ideas into Things

Abstract Ideas

Ideas and Things

God

David Hume: Unmasking the Pretensions of Reason

How Newton Did It

To Be the Newton of Human Nature

The Theory of Ideas

The Association of Ideas

Causation: The Very Idea

The Disappearing Self

* Profile: The Buddha

Rescuing Human Freedom

Is It Reasonable to Believe in God?

Understanding Morality

Reason Is Not a Motivator

The Origins of Moral Judgment

Is Hume a Skeptic?

Immanuel Kant: Rehabilitating Reason (within Strict Limits)

Critique

Judgments

Geometry, Mathematics, Space, and Time

Common Sense, Science, and the A Priori Categories

Profile: Baruch Spinoza

Phenomena and Noumena

Profile: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Reasoning and the Ideas of Metaphysics: God, World, and Soul

The Soul

The World and Free Will

God

The Ontological Argument

Reason and Morality

The Good Will

The Moral Law

* Profile: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Autonomy

Freedom

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Taking History Seriously

Historical and Intellectual Context

The French Revolution

The Romantics

Epistemology Internalized

Profile: Arthur Schopenhauer

Self and Others

Stoic and Skeptical Consciousness

Hegel's Analysis of Christianity

Reason and Reality: The Theory of Idealism

Spirit Made Objective: The Social Character of Ethics

History and Freedom

Kierkegaard and Marx: Two Ways to ""Correct"" Hegel

Kierkegaard: On Individual Existence

The Aesthetic

The Ethical

The Religious

The Individual

Marx: Beyond Alienation and Exploitation

Alienation, Exploitation, and Private Property

Communism

The Utilitarians: Moral Rules and the Happiness of All (Including Women)

The Classic Utilitarians

The Rights of Women

Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value of Existence

Pessimism and Tragedy

Good-bye Real World

The Death of God

Revaluation of Values

Master Morality/Slave Morality

Our Morality

The Overman

Affirming Eternal Recurrence

The Pragmatists: Thought and Action

Charles Sanders Peirce

Fixing Belief

Belief and Doubt

Truth and Reality

Meaning

Signs

John Dewey

The Impact of Darwin

Naturalized Epistemology

Profile: William James

Nature and Natural Science

Value Naturalized

Analysis: Logical Atomism and the Logical Positivists

Language and Its Logic

Profile: Bertrand Russell

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Picturing

Thought and Language

Logical Truth

Saying and Showing

Setting the Limit to Thought

Value and the Self

Good and Evil, Happiness and Unhappiness

The Unsayable

Logical Positivism

Ordinary Language: ""This Is Simply What I Do""

The Later Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations

Philosophical Illusion

Language-Games

Ostensive Definitions

Objects

Family Resemblances

The Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought

Our Groundless Certainty

Martin Heidegger: The Meaning of Being

What Is the Question?

The Clue

Phenomenology

Profile: Jean-Paul Sartre

Being-in-the-World

The ""Who"" of Dasein

Modes of Disclosure

Attunement

Understanding

Discourse

Falling-Away

Idle Talk

Curiosity

Ambiguity

Care

Truth

Death

Conscience, Guilt, and Resoluteness

Temporality as the Meaning of Care

The Priority of Being

Simone de Beauvoir: Existentialist, Feminist

Ambiguity

Ethics

Woman

Postmodernism and Physical Realism: Derrida, Rorty, Quine, and Dennett

Postmodernism

Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida

Liberal Ironist: Richard Rorty

Physical Realism

Science, Common Sense, and Metaphysics: Willard van Orman Quine

The Matter of Minds: Daniel Dennett

Afterword

Glossary

Credits

Index

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