Showing titles in Epistemology

In Rules, historian Lorraine Daston traces their development in the Western tradition and shows how rules have evolved from ancient to modern times. Drawing on a rich trove of examples, including legal treatises, cookbooks, military manuals, traffic regulations, and game handbooks, Daston demonstrates that while the content of rules is dazzlingly diverse, the forms that they take are surprisingly few and long-lived.

A compelling investigation into one of our most coveted and cherished ideals, and the efforts of modern science to penetrate the mysterious nature of this timeless virtue. We all recognize wisdom, but defining it is more elusive. In this fascinating journey from philosophy to science, Stephen S. Hall gives us a dramatic history of wisdom, from its sudden emergence in four different locations (Greece, China, Israel, and India) in the fifth century B.C. to its modern manifestations.

Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe - and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion - whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers - fail miserably.

What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combinationof passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.

Do we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket universe embedded in a larger structure about which we know virtually nothing? Is consciousness a purely physical matter, or might it require something extra, something nonphysical? According to the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, it’s hard to say. In The Weirdness of the World, Schwitzgebel argues that the answers to these fundamental questions lie beyond our powers of comprehension. We can be certain only that the truth—whatever it is—is weird.

In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam's Portuguese-Jewish community for "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds", the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family's import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza's views has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity's most urgent questions....

With his feet firmly on the ground, he challenged the speculative ideas of David Hume and George Berkeley who regarded ideas in the mind as a basis for the external world. Instead, the pugnacious but lively Reid took a much more ‘common sense’ view in basing his ideas of reality on sensus communis. Starting from a Ciceronian, stoical platform, he developed his views on more rational attitudes towards reality - ‘direct realism’.

Why is the genome of a salamander 40 times larger than that of a human? Why does the avocado tree produce a million flowers and only a hundred fruits? Why, in short, is there so much waste in nature? In this lively and wide-ranging meditation on the curious accidents and unexpected detours on the path of life, Daniel Milo argues that we ask these questions because we’ve embraced a faulty conception of how evolution - and human society - really works.

Ignorance, whether passive or active, conscious or unconscious, has always been a part of the human condition, Renata Salecl argues. What has changed in our post-truth, postindustrial world is that we often feel overwhelmed by the constant flood of information and misinformation. It sometimes seems impossible to differentiate between truth and falsehood and, as a result, there has been a backlash against the idea of expertise, and a rise in the number of people actively choosing not to know.

¿Qué es la ciencia? ¿Cuál es el método de la ciencia? La claridad del autor para exponer y argumentar se unen a su vasta experiencia y a algo que, por encima del rigor y los conocimientos que demuestra, es lisa y llanamente sabiduría. La ciencia. Su método y su filosofía como un libro calve y una invitación al conocimiento.

Throughout history philosophers have sought to define, understand, and delineate concepts important to human well-being. One such concept is "knowledge." Many philosophers believed that absolute, certain knowledge, is possible—that the physical world and ideas formulated about it could be given solid foundation unaffected by the varieties of mere opinion.

L'inizio del nuovo millennio coincide con l'espansione della galassia di pratiche e studi psicologici: sempre meno psicanalisi, sempre più indirizzi psicoterapeutici. E le neuroscienze, pur avendo conosciuto un incredibile sviluppo, continuano a adottare un atteggiamento funzionalista che si rivela ineffi cace nell'affrontare il disagio esistenziale e psicologico, mai come oggi così diffuso e capillare.

Eine fesselnde Geschichte der Philosophie, die Kenny mit so klaren Worten zu erklären vermag, wie sonst kaum ein Philosoph - ideal für jeden Einsteiger. Das 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. war das der großen Philosophen. Nachdem Sokrates starb, wurde kurz darauf Aristoteles geboren. Bereits im Jugendalter verließ der Makedonier seine Heimat und ging nach Athen, um von Platon unterrichtet zu werden. Der Hörer wird hineingezogen in eine antike Welt, geprägt von geistiger Stärke und philosophischen Theorien.

Ein spannendes Hörbuch, welches das Leben Wittgensteins thematisiert und den Hörer motiviert, sich auch nach dieser Einführung weitergehend mit dessen philosophischen Denkweise auseinanderzusetzen. Ludwig Wittgenstein gehört zu den bedeutendsten Philosophen seiner Zeit. Er befasste sich viel mit der analytischen Philosophie und verstrickte sich in Denkmuster, die auch für Philosophen teilweise kaum noch überschaubar sind.

Qui es-tu? d'où viens-tu? que fais-tu? que deviendras-tu? Qu'est-ce que la liberté ? Vous me demandez à quoi bon tout ce sermon si l'homme n'est pas libre? D'abord je ne vous ai point dit que l'homme n'est pas libre; je vous ai dit : 1 que sa liberté consiste dans son pouvoir d'agir, et non pas dans le pouvoir chimérique de vouloir vouloir.

This collection brings together history, science, philosophy and comedy to explore our age-old search for meaning. We live in an age of self-improvement and self-examination - lifehacking, wellbeing, self-care, mindfulness retreats - but this seemingly very modern phenomenon is a pursuit that dates back for millennia.

Do you believe God exists? This bold audio series invites you to join some of the world’s leading thinkers in taking on this profound question. In 13 riveting episodes, your host, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, tackles this topic in one-on-one interviews with leading figures across fields. Addressing issues ranging from the problem of evil to how the discovery of alien life might affect our belief systems, this series will engage your mind and heart in some of the universe’s biggest questions.

El Discurso del método, cuyo título completo es Discurso del método para conducir bien la propia razón y buscar la verdad en las ciencias es la principal obra escrita por René Descartes y una obra fundamental de la filosofía occidental con implicaciones para el desarrollo de la filosofía y de la ciencia. Se publicó de forma anónima en Leiden (Holanda) en el año 1637. Constituía, en realidad, el prólogo a tres ensayos: Dióptrica, Meteoros y Geometría; agrupados bajo el título conjunto de Ensayos filosóficos.

The New Organon is the second part of Bacon's philosophical work, The Great Instauration on the renewal of the sciences, which was published in 1620. The title refers to Aristotle's work Organon - meaning “trumpeter” - a treatise on logic and syllogism. Bacon’s work offers a new method of investigating nature, named “the Interpretation of Nature”.

L'uomo è un essere intelligente. Nel dizionario di Oxford l'intelligenza viene definita come "la capacità di acquisire e applicare conoscenze e competenze complesse". Se prendiamo per buona questa definizione, possiamo essere certi che l'essere umano, per come lo conosciamo, verrà presto superato dagli algoritmi di intelligenza artificiale. Le nostre forme sociali camminano al di fuori dell'ordine dell'intelligenza possibile all'uomo.