What is reality? Is there free will? Is war ever justified? These are questions that philosophers have spent centuries contemplating. In Philosophy, an international team of scholars offer intriguing answers to these and many other key issues that have long puzzled humanity. Vividly written and beautifully designed, this stimulating volume takes readers on an informative, thoughtful tour of philosophy. The book examines six major topics--The World, Mind and Body, Knowledge, Faith, Ethics and Aesthetics, and Society--and under these headings, it considers such subjects as Time and Space, Feelings and Emotions, Induction and Deduction, the Afterlife, Love and Friendship, and Crime and Punishment. Indeed, the contributors discuss all of the most important issues in the history of philosophy, shedding light on what the great thinkers have written about them. There are special sections on some of the most important philosophers who ever lived--Aristotle and Descartes, Locke and Hume, Spinoza and Pascal, Schopenhauer and Sartre, Foucault and Rawls--along with portraits or photographs of each. In addition, the book includes special features on major philosophical works, such as Descartes' Meditations or Plato's Symposium, and on interesting philosophical concepts, such as "the Gambler's Fallacy" or Sartre's example of the waiter and the loss of individuality. A perfect starting point for the exploration of philosophical thought, Philosophy offers life-changing perspectives on some of the great questions, from the nature of the mind to the morality of cloning and stem-cell research.

Philosophy

Politics & Social Sciences

Papineau, David

Oxford University Press

What are the materials of conscious perceptual experience? What is going on when we are consciously aware of a visual scene, or hear sounds, or otherwise enjoy sensory experience? In this book David Papineau exposes the flaws in contemporary answers to this central philosophical question anddefends a new alternative.Contemporary theories of perceptual experience all hold that conscious experiences reach out into the world beyond the mind. According to naive realism, experiences literally incorporate perceived facts, while representationalism holds that experiences contain ordinary properties of the kindpossessed by physical objects. These ideas might seem attractive at first sight, however Papineau shows that they do not stand up to examination. Instead, he argues for a purely qualitative account of sensory experience. Conscious sensory experiences are intrinsic states with no essential connectionto external circumstances or represented properties. This might run counter to initial intuition, yet Papineau develops this qualitative theory in detail and illustrates how it can accommodate the rich structure of sensory experience.Papineau's qualitative account has respectable antecedents in the history of philosophy. By placing the qualitative theory on a firm footing, he shows that those curious about experience need not be restricted to the options in contemporary philosophical discourse.

The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience

The relation between subjective consciousness and the physical brain is widely regarded as the last mystery facing science. Papineau argues that consciousness seems mysterious not because of any hidden essence, but only because we think about it in a special way. He exposes the resulting potential for confusion, and shows that much scientific study of consciousness is misconceived.

Thinking about Consciousness (Oxford Readings in Philosophy (Hardcover))

Clarendon Press

The Roots of Reason: Philosophical Essays on Rationality, Evolution, and Probability

David Papineau presents a controversial view of human reason, portraying it as a normal part of the natural world, and drawing on the empirical sciences to illuminate its workings. In these six interconnected essays he discusses both theoretical and practical rationality, and shows how evolutionary theory, decision theory, and quantum mechanics offer fresh approaches to some long-standing problems.

Thinking about Consciousness

David Papineau presents a controversial view of human reason, portraying it as a normal part of the natural world, and drawing on the empirical sciences to illuminate its workings. In these six interconnected essays he discusses both theoretical and practical rationality, and shows how evolutionary theory, decision theory, and quantum mechanics offer fresh approaches to some long-standing problems.

Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets

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 Godel'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.

For science in the social sciences

Macmillan

In Knowing the Score, philosopher David Papineau uses sports to illuminate some of modern philosophy's most perplexing questions. As Papineau demonstrates, the study of sports clarifies, challenges, and sometimes confuses crucial issues in philosophy. The tactics of road bicycle racing shed new light on questions of altruism, while sporting family dynasties reorient the nature v. nurture debate. Why do sports competitors choke? Why do fans think God will favor their team over their rivals? How can it be moral to deceive the umpire by framing a pitch? From all of these questions, and many more, philosophy has a great deal to learn. An entertaining and erudite book that ranges far and wide through the sporting world, Knowing the Score is perfect reading for armchair philosophers and Monday morning quarterbacks alike.

Knowing the Score: What Sports Can Teach Us About Philosophy (And What Philosophy Can Teach Us About Sports)

Basic Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Papineau, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Papineau, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Papineau, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Philosophy

The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience

Thinking about Consciousness (Oxford Readings in Philosophy (Hardcover))

The Roots of Reason: Philosophical Essays on Rationality, Evolution, and Probability

Thinking about Consciousness

The Roots of Reason: Philosophical Essays on Rationality, Evolution, and Probability

Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets

Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets

For science in the social sciences

Knowing the Score: What Sports Can Teach Us About Philosophy (And What Philosophy Can Teach Us About Sports)