The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy

by Melchert, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780767420426
• ISBN10: 076742042X
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education

Summary

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 Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Fifth Edition, demonstrates that while constructing an argument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. The book 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?

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

A Word to Students

Acknowledgements

Maps

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

Thomas Hobbes: Catching Persons in the Net of the New Science / John Locke: Looking to Experience / George Berkeley: Ideas into Things /

15. 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 / Rescuing Human Freedom / Is It Reasonable to Believe in God? / Understanding Morality / Is Hume a Skeptic? /

16. 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 / Reason and Morality /

17. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Taking History Seriously

Historical and Intellectual Context / 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 /

18. Kierkegaard and Marx: Two Ways to “Correct” Hegel

Kierkegaard: On Individual Existence / Marx: Beyond Alienation and Exploitation /

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

The Classic Utilitarians / The Rights of Women /

20. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value of Existence

Pessimism and Tragedy / Good-Bye True World / The Death of God / Revaluation of Values / The Overman / Affirming Eternal Recurrence /

21. The Pragmatists: Thought and Action

Charles Sanders Peirce / John Dewey / Profile: William James /

22. Analysis: Logical Atomism and the Logical Positivists

Language and Its Logic / Profile: Bertrand Russell / Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus / Logical Positivism /

23. Ordinary Language: “This Is Simply What I Do”

The Later Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations /

24. 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 / Falling-Away / Care / Truth / Death / Conscience, Guilt, and Resoluteness / Temporality as the Meaning of Care / The Priority of Being /

25. Postmodernism and Physical Realism: Derrida, Rorty, Quine, 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 /

Glossary

Credits

Index