The many faces of philosophy : reflections from Plato to Arendt

Author:Amélie Rorty

Summary:Philosophy is a dangerous profession, risking censorship, prison, even death. And no wonder: philosophers have questioned traditional pieties and threatened the established political order. Some claimed to know what was thought unknowable; others doubted what was believed to be certain. Some attacked religion in the name of science; others attacked science in the name of mystical poetry; some served tyrants; others were radical revolutionaries. This historically-based collection reveals their hopes and hesitations, their triumphs and struggles, their deepest doubts and convictions. These pieces discuss not only philosophy, but personal travails, struggles with daily life, personal relationships, as well as insights into philosophy itself and the nature of humanity. Together they reveal philosophy's true face: obsessive, curious, lonely and wise

eBook, English, 2003

Edition:View all formats and editions

Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003

Physical Description:1 online resource (xxix, 512 pages)

ISBN:

9780199729203, 9781423787006, 9781280473098, 9786610473090, 9780195134025, 0199729204, 1423787005, 1280473096, 6610473099, 0195134028

OCLC Number / Unique Identifier:70705061

Subjects:

Additional Physical Form Entry:

Print version:

Many faces of philosophy.

50339489

Contents:

Introduction : Witnessing philosophers

I. From Plato to Maimonides. Plato : a philosopher educates a tyrant

Seneca : philosophy as a guide to life

Augustine : two cities : two roads to knowledge

Al Ghazali : my life

Abelard and Eloise : calamities and credos

Moses Maimonides : why I write ... and how I write

II. From Bacon to Hume. Francis Bacon : how to think well

René Descartes : moving toward clarity and Adrien Baillet : Descartes' dream

Blaise Pascal : the limits of thought

Thomas Hobbes : "Justice I teach and reverence justice" and John Aubrey : "The life of Hobbes"

Baruch Spinoza : wisdom and the improvement of the understanding

John Locke : the origins of philosophical ideas

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz : God, mind, and logic

George Berkeley : philosophy does not need abstract ideas

David Hume : my life and Adam Smith : "Mr. David Hume. III. From Vico to Schopenhauer. Giambattista Vico : imagination, language, and the inventions of philosophy

Voltaire : good sense and nonsense

Jean-Jacques Rousseau : meditations on my troubled heart

Denis Diderot : clarity against dogmatic superstition

Immanuel Kant : the tasks of philosophy

Johann Gottfried Herder : culture and the stages of the imagination

Johann Gottlieb Fichte : idealism and self-reflection

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel : the new science of philosophy

Arthur Schopenhauer : vitality and the tasks of life

IV. From Bentham to Russell. Jeremy Bentham : accounting for rationality

John Stuart Mill : education and social progress

Karl Marx : philosophy as political critique and Friedrich Engels : speech at the graveside of Marx

Søren Kierkegaard : the many faces of an author