Philosophical Devices

Author: David Papineau
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191656259
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
This book is designed to explain the technical ideas that are taken for granted in much contemporary philosophical writing. Notions like 'denumerability', 'modal scope distinction', 'Bayesian conditionalization', and 'logical completeness' are usually only elucidated deep within difficult specialist texts. By offering simple explanations that by-pass much irrelevant and boring detail, Philosophical Devices is able to cover a wealth of material that is normally only available to specialists. The book contains four sections, each of three chapters. The first section is about sets and numbers, starting with the membership relation and ending with the generalized continuum hypothesis. The second is about analyticity, a prioricity, and necessity. The third is about probability, outlining the difference between objective and subjective probability and exploring aspects of conditionalization and correlation. The fourth deals with metalogic, focusing on the contrast between syntax and semantics, and finishing with a sketch of Gödel's theorem. Philosophical Devices will be useful for university students who have got past the foothills of philosophy and are starting to read more widely, but it does not assume any prior expertise. All the issues discussed are intrinsically interesting, and often downright fascinating. It can be read with pleasure and profit by anybody who is curious about the technical infrastructure of contemporary philosophy.

Philosophical Devices

Author: David Papineau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199651728
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
Philosophical Devices introduces the technical ideas that are taken for granted in contemporary philosophical writing. It offers simple explanations and covers a wealth of material that is normally available only to specialists. This original, distinctive book will appeal to anyone who is curious about the technical infrastructure of philosophy.

Philosophical Instruments

Author: Daniel Rothbart
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252031369
Category : Experimental design
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
The surprising roles of instruments and experimentation in acquiring knowledge In Philosophical Instruments Daniel Rothbart argues that our tools are not just neutral intermediaries between humans and the natural world, but are devices that demand new ideas about reality. Just as a hunter's new spear can change their knowledge of the environment, so can the development of modern scientific equipment alter our view of the world. Working at the intersections of science, technology, and philosophy, Rothbart examines the revolution in knowledge brought on by recent advances in scientific instruments. Full of examples from historical and contemporary science, including electron scanning microscopes, sixteenth-century philosophical instruments, and diffraction devices used by biochemical researchers, Rothbart explores the ways in which instrumentation advances a philosophical stance about an instrument's power, an experimenter's skills, and a specimen's properties. Through a close reading of engineering of instruments, he introduces a philosophy from (rather than of) design, contending that philosophical ideas are channeled from design plans to models and from model into the use of the devices.

Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life

Author: Albert Borgmann
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022616358X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
Blending social analysis and philosophy, Albert Borgmann maintains that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives. This pattern, discernible even in such an inconspicuous action as switching on a stereo, has global effects: it sharply divides life into labor and leisure, it sustains the industrial democracies, and it fosters the view that the earth itself is a technological device. He argues that technology has served us as well in conquering hunger and disease, but that when we turn to it for richer experiences, it leads instead to a life dominated by effortless and thoughtless consumption. Borgmann does not reject technology but calls for public conversation about the nature of the good life. He counsels us to make room in a technological age for matters of ultimate concern—things and practices that engage us in their own right.

Logic for Philosophy

Author: Theodore Sider
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192658816
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Logic for Philosophy is an introduction to logic for students of contemporary philosophy. It is suitable both for advanced undergraduates and for beginning graduate students in philosophy. It covers (i) basic approaches to logic, including proof theory and especially model theory, (ii) extensions of standard logic that are important in philosophy, and (iii) some elementary philosophy of logic. It emphasizes breadth rather than depth. For example, it discusses modal logic and counterfactuals, but does not prove the central metalogical results for predicate logic (completeness, undecidability, etc.) Its goal is to introduce students to the logic they need to know in order to read contemporary philosophical work. It is very user-friendly for students without an extensive background in mathematics. In short, this book gives you the understanding of logic that you need to do philosophy.

Turning Toward Philosophy

Author: Jill Gordon
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271039770
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Acknowledging the powerful impact that Plato's dialogues have had on readers, Jill Gordon shows how the literary techniques Plato used function philosophically to engage readers in doing philosophy and attracting them toward the philosophical life. The picture of philosophical activity emerging from the dialogues, as thus interpreted, is a complex process involving vision, insight, and emotion basic to the human condition rather than a resort to pure reason as an escape from it. Since the literary features of Plato's writing are what draw the reader into philosophy, the book becomes an argument for the union of philosophy and literature--and against their disciplinary bifurcation--in the dialogues. Gordon construes the relationship of Plato's text to its audience as an analogue of Socrates' relationship with his interlocutors in the dialogues, seeing both as fundamentally dialectic. On this insight she builds her detailed analysis of specific literary devices in chapters on dramatic form, character development, irony, and image-making (which includes myth, metaphor, and analogy). In this way Gordon views Plato as not at all the enemy of the poets and image-makers that previous interpreters have depicted. Rather, Gordon concludes that Plato understands the power of words and images quite well. Since they, and not logico-deductive argumentation, are the appropriate means for engaging human beings, he uses them to great effect and with a sensitive understanding of human psychology, wary of their possible corrupting influences but ultimately willing to harness their power for philosophical ends.

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Author: Rod L. Evans Ph.D.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780399533518
Category : Study Aids
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
When is a "tulip"* not a flower? When it's one of hundreds of mnemonic devices in this comprehensive sourcebook. From remembering the notes on a scale (Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge) to correctly performing geometric equations (Soh-Cah-Toa) to using "HOMES" for conjuring up the Great Lakes (Huron Ontario Michigan Erie Superior), mnemonic devices have helped countless students, teachers, and trivia buffs recall key information in a snap-using anagrams, clever rhymes, and word games. In this comprehensive guide, readers will find a wide spectrum of ingeniously simple mnemonic devices for recalling facts about: - Science - Math - Geography - Religion - Literature - Music - Social Studies - Law - Aviation - Zodiac - Spelling - Mythology - World History - Sports - And more *Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement; Irrestible Grace, and Perserverance of the Saints (The Five Tenets of Calvinism)

The Inessential Indexical

Author: Herman Cappelen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199686742
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
In this book the authors argue that there are no such things as essential indexicality, irreducibly de se attitudes, or self-locating attitudes.

Philosophy in Dialogue

Author: Gary Alan Scott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Traditional Plato scholarship, in the English-speaking world, has assumed that Platonic dialogues are merely collections of arguments. Inevitably, the question arises: If Plato wanted to present collections of arguments, why did he write dialogues instead of treatises? Concerned about this question, some scholars have been experimenting with other, more contextualized ways of reading the dialogues. This anthology is among the first to present these new approaches as pursued by a variety of scholars. As such, it offers new perspectives on Plato as well as a suggestive view of Plato scholarship as something of a laboratory for historians of philosophy generally. The essays gathered here each examine vital aspects of Plato’s many methods, considering his dialogues in relation to Thucydides and Homer, narrative strategies and medical practice, images and metaphors. They offer surprising new research into such much-studied works as The Republic as well as revealing views of lesser-known dialogues like the Cratylus and Philebus. With reference to thinkers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Sartre, the authors place the Platonic dialogues in an illuminating historical context. Together, their essays should reinvigorate the scholarly examination of the way Plato’s dialogues “work”—and should prompt a reconsideration of how the form of Plato’s philosophical writing bears on the Platonic conception of philosophy.

The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing

Author: Jon Stewart
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472513924
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
In The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing, Jon Stewart argues that there is a close relation between content and form in philosophical writing. While this might seem obvious at first glance, it is overlooked in the current climate of Anglophone academic philosophy, which, Stewart contends, accepts only a single genre as proper for philosophical expression. Stewart demonstrates the uniformity of today's philosophical writing by contrasting it with that of the past. Taking specific texts from the history of philosophy and literature as case studies, Stewart shows how the use of genres like dialogues, plays and short stories were an entirely suitable and effective means of presenting and arguing for philosophical positions given the concrete historical and cultural contexts in which they appeared. Now, Stewart argues, the prevailing intolerance means that the same texts are dismissed as unphilosophical merely due to their form, although their content is, in fact, profoundly philosophical. The book's challenge to current conventions of philosophical is provocative and timely, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, literature and history.