What Is Philosophy for?
Book Details
- Publisher : Bloomsbury
- Published : September 2018
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 232
- Category :
Culture and Psychoanalysis - Catalogue No : 98371
- ISBN 13 : 9781350051072
- ISBN 10 : 1350051071
Also by Mary Midgley
The Myths We Live By
Price £17.99
save £2.20
Free UK Delivery over £25
There are currently no reviews
Be the first to review
Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives?
"Engaging and accessible, this vigorous swansong exemplifies many of Midgley's virtues, and revisits many of her favourite themes." - The Tablet
In her last published work, Mary Midgley addresses provocative questions, interrogating the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and the life of the mind.
This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value.
Reviews and Endorsements
Her final answer to the question “What is philosophy for?” is that its aim is not at all like that of the sciences. Scientists are specialists who study parts of the world, but philosophy concerns everybody. It tries to bring together aspects of life that have previously been unconnected in order to make a more coherent world-picture, which is not a private luxury but something essential for human life.
Philosophy Now
[This] is a book that not only illuminates the dangers and shortfalls of contemporary unrestrained faith in scientific and technological supremacy, it also accentuates the integrating qualities of philosophy which are necessary to achieve a more exhaustive view of the world and its complexities.
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
Engaging and accessible, this vigorous swansong exemplifies many of Midgley's virtues, and revisits many of her favourite themes ... [it helps] us to see that many of our problems arise from trying to fit everything into a single explanatory template, rather than realising that one and the same reality can be understood from irreducibly different points of view.
The Tablet
Table of Contents
Part I - The Search for Signposts
1. Directions
2. Do Ideas Get Out Of Date?
3. What is Research?
4. Clashes of Method
5. What is Matter?
6. Quantum Queries
7. What is Progress?
8. Perspectives and Paradoxes: Rousseau And His Intellectual Explosives
9. Mill And The Different Kinds Of Freedom
10. Making Sense Of Toleration
Part II - Tempting Visions of Science
11. The Force of World-Pictures
12. The Past Does Not Die
13. Scientism; The New Sedative
Part III - Mindlessness and Machine Worship
14. The Power-Struggle
15. Missing Persons
16. Oracles
Part IV - Singularities and the Cosmos
17. What Kind of Singularity?
18. Can Intelligence be Measured?
19. What is Materialism?
20. The Cult of Impersonality
21. Matter and Reality
22. The Mystique of Scientism
23. The Strange World-Picture
Conclusion: One World but Many Window
About the Author(s)
Mary Midgley (1919-2018) was a moral philosopher and the author of many books.
Customer Reviews
Our customers have not yet reviewed this title. Be the first add your own review for this title.
You may also like
