Stroud, Barry - Understanding Human Knowledge: Philosophical Essays

Scepticism in recent and current philosophy represents a certain threat or challenge in the theory of knowledge. What is that threat? How serious is it? How, if at all, can it be met? What are the consequences if it cannot be met?

Moore, A.W. - Points of View

Is it ever possible to think about the world with complete detachment?

I shall argue in Chapter Four that it is. Before that, I want to use this chapter to clarify the question, Chapter Two to consider its importance, and Chapter Three to dispel a certain illusion associated with it.

Reck, Erich H. (ed.) - From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy

Ludwig Wittgenstein is, no doubt, one of the most original and independent philosophers of the twentieth century. Yet even he developed his ideas not in complete isolation, but as influenced by, or in response to, other thinkers. His relation to Bertrand Russell, his early teacher and mentor in Cambridge, has been documented in detail.¹

Floyd, Juliet & Shieh, Sanford (Eds.) - Future Pasts: The Analytic Tradition in Twentieth Century Philosophy

Among contemporary philosophers there is a growing interest in recounting the history of philosophy in the twentieth century. The essays in this volume are meant to be contributions, from a variety of perspectives, to this growing historical consciousness. But they are intended to be more than that. Our decision to group together these particular contributions has been determined by our own conception of present difficulties facing a historical perspective on philosophy of the last hundred years. We intend the present volume to provoke discussion of the underlying outlooks and sensibilities that may—and do—inform current work on the history of recent philosophy.

Rice, Hugh - God and Goodness

My main aim in this book is rather a modest one; it is to argue that a belief in God is reasonable. It is modest in the sense that I shall not argue that it is unreasonable not to believe in God. I shall not argue that there is something wrong with someone who does not believe in God; rather, more defensively, I shall argue that there is nothing wrong with someone who does—that such a belief is intellectually respectable. My aim is also limited. Naturally I shall not be arguing that any old belief in God is reasonable; but nor will I be arguing for the reasonableness of a belief as detailed as, say, that expressed in the Apostles' creed. What I shall be arguing for is the reasonableness of a belief in God conceived in an abstract way, but a belief which, nonetheless, corresponds to the central core of many people's beliefs; something that can be understood in fairly simple terms, whose exposition does not involve the invocation of mystery. Not, indeed, something immune from doubt; but something, at least, whose content is sufficiently clear for one to know what one is doubting; and something that it is natural for an ordinary, reasonable person to believe.

Fogelin, Robert J. - Philosophical Interpretations

The essays that make up this volume - with only a few exceptions - offer readings of philosophical texts that depart, sometimes radically, from standard readings. Yet the principles of interpretation that underlie these essays are not themselves radical. Nothing is deconstructed. Nowhere have I argued that a philosopher's words should not be taken at face value. My principle of interpretation is just the reverse of this: granting the possibility of inadvertent slips, misleading modes of expression, and the like, I hold that there is a very strong presumption in favor of the claims that philosophers meant to say precisely what they did say and that what they did say means precisely what it seems to mean.

DeLancey, Craig - Passionate Engines: What Emotions Reveal about the Mind and Artificial Intelligence

There probably is no scientifically appropriate class of things referred to by our term emotion. Such disparate phenomena—fear, guilt, shame, melancholy, and so on—are grouped under this term that it is dubious that they share anything but a family resemblance. But particular emotions are another matter altogether. There is good reason to believe that different sciences can make quite compelling sense of a more fine-grained differentiation of affects. My task in this book is to reveal some of the important and neglected lessons of some of the emotions for the philosophy and sciences of mind, and this task can be accomplished with just a working characterization of a few of these. More important, there is a compelling theory of some emotions that has far-reaching implications for the philosophy and sciences of mind. This is the affect program theory. Using a version of this theory as a guide to what phenomena we will be concerned with and to the nature of these phenomena will allow us to avoid fundamental confusions and to provide richer results.