A New History of Philosophy: Ancient & Medieval

Politics & Social Sciences

Matson, Wallace

Philosophy

Harcourt College Pub.

A New History of Philosophy

After a Darwinian-type account of what beliefs are and how they arose in animals acting to cope with their environments--"low beliefs," virtually all of which are true--Wallace Matson here shows how the invention of language led to imagination and thence to beliefs formed in other ways ("high beliefs"), not true though thought to be, which could be consolidated into mythologies, the first Grand Unified Theories of Everything. Science began when Thales of Miletus produced a Grand Theory based on low ("everyday") beliefs. Matson traces the course of science and philosophy through seven centuries to their sudden and violent displacement by Christianity with its Grand Theory of the old type. Against the widespread opinion that modern philosophy has slowly but completely emancipated itself from bondage to theology, he shows how remnants from the medieval 'interlude' still lurk unnoticed in the purportedly neutral notions of logical possibility, possible worlds, and laws as commands, to the detriment of the natural harmony between science and philosophy, including ethics. Accessibly written, this is a book for all who are interested in the foundations of 21st century thought and who wonder where the cracks might be.

Grand Theories and Everyday Beliefs: Science, Philosophy, and their Histories

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Oxford University Press

The Existence of God

Religion & Spirituality

Cornell University Press

These incisive, witty, and completely accessible essays on a wide range of topics by historian of philosophy Wallace Matson admirably demonstrate that philosophy can still be based on careful reasoning and presented with clarity of expression. Against fashionable contemporary views, Matson asserts that philosophy is "the most important subject in the college curriculum," because it is the investigation into what rationality is. Getting the answer wrong to the question "What does it mean to be reasonable?" is the most catastrophic of errors. The motivation for most of the essays in this collection is his perception that this error is being widely committed and that received opinion on many topics is dead wrong.Accordingly, he takes issue with the following beliefs: bodily resurrection is possible; zombies are logically possible (as David Chalmers claims); John Rawls wrote a book on justice; religion is an aid to morality; Zeno and Parmenides tried to prove that nothing really moves; the actual world is only one out of an infinity of possible worlds; and much more. Also included are two essays on Matson's distinctions between high and low beliefs, four essays on Spinoza, and, in conclusion, "The Study of Philosophy as a Prophylactic against Bullshit."

Uncorrected Papers: Diverse Philosophical Dissents

Humanities Press

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