Tag: Skepticism

Free Download Stephen R. C. Hicks, "Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault"
English | 2004 | pages: 278 | ISBN: 1549509934, 0983258406 | PDF | 5,9 mb
Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left – the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism – now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy. This Expanded Edition includes two additional essays by Stephen Hicks: *Free Speech and Postmodernism* and *From Modern to Postmodern Art: Why Art Became Ugly*.

Free Download Adam Leite, "How to Take Skepticism Seriously"
English | ISBN: 019769117X | 2024 | 360 pages | EPUB, PDF | 765 KB + 17 MB

Free Download Gyula Klima, "Skepticism, Causality and Skepticism about Causality Volume 10: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaph"
English | ISBN: 144384330X | 2013 | 90 pages | PDF | 841 KB
Skepticism, Causality and Skepticism about Causality studies the interrelated themes of causality and skepticism in contemporary, early modern and medieval philosophy. Thomas Aquinas’ celebrated proofs of the existence of God (the Five Ways of the Summa Theologica) rely in part on an Aristotelian notion of synchronous causality wherein that things exist and persist requires an accounting that ultimately terminates in the ongoing activity of a first mover, as the existence and persistence of an ecosystem is traceable to the sun. By contrast, in David Hume’s early modern account causality consists in the regularity of successive events (a rolling billiard ball’s colliding with a stationary one is always followed by the movement of the latter). Moreover, Newtonian and Einsteinian accounts respectively suggest that motion, once initiated, requires no explanation. In light of these developments, the first set of essays re-evaluates the Aristotelian paradigm and its relation to modern science, contending that in some fields (such as ecology, thermodynamics or information theory) contemporary science still preserves some intuitions about causality that support Aquinas’ deliberations. Hume’s skepticism about causality is heir to late medieval and early modern development that transformed not only the notion of causality in general, but also the idea of the causal connections between our cognitive faculties, God, and the world in particular, giving rise to extreme, solipsistic forms of skepticism, such as Descartes’ Demon skepticism. The second set of essays considers whether Aquinas’ thought would be susceptible in some ways to this form of skepticism and what motivated just a couple of generations later the turn to epistemology already involving this sort of skepticism.

Free Download Daniel Lorca, "Neo-Stoicism and Skepticism in Part One of Don Quijote: Removing the Authority of a Genre"
English | ISBN: 1498522653 | 2016 | 168 pages | EPUB | 1507 KB
This book explains how Cervantes took advantage of neo-stoicism and skepticism to remove the authority of the Romances of Chivalry, which was a popular genre during his time. It also explains why his strategy, which would have been instantly recognizable during the period, is no longer effective: our current moral systems are significantly different from the moral systems that were influential during Cervantes’ time, and consequently, what used to be self-evident is no longer the case. Therefore, this book may be useful to the literary critic interested in the philosophical foundations of Don Quijote, to the moral philosopher interested in the differences between pre-enlightenment virtue-ethics and current moral systems, and also in the field of the history of ideas. Don Quijote offers a unique opportunity to observe changes in moral thinking throughout time because it is a universal book, discussed extensively throughout out the centuries, and therefore the on-going discussion offers strong evidence to discover how morality has changed, and continues to change, through time.

Free Download Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall, "Medieval Skepticism, and the Claim to Metaphysical Knowledge "
English | ISBN: 1443833711 | 2011 | 170 pages | PDF | 1001 KB
Medieval Skepticism, and the Claim to Metaphysical Knowledge presents three sets of essays. The first is an exchange between Antoine Cote and Charles Bolyard over Siger of Brabant s strategy to silence the skeptic by discriminating between nobler and lesser senses and grounding certitude in sense perceptions. Second is another scholarly exchange, between Rondo Keele and Jack Zupko, over what Keele describes as Walter Chatton s attempt to discredit Ockhamist nominalism by means of both an anti-razor , employed by Chatton to prescribe ontological commitment, and an argument strategy based on iteration and infinite regress. The last group of essays explores issues that develop out of the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. Joshua Hochschild defends several key positions of Thomistic metaphysics against Anthony Kenny s criticism that Aquinas s treatment of being is inadequate, incoherent or even sophistic. Similarly, David Twetten, after laying out Aquinas s nine versions of the proof for the Real Distinction between essence and esse, suggests one way in which Aquinas could meet the Aristotelian s formidable Question-Begging Objection . Lastly, Scott M. Williams contends that to preserve God s perfect knowledge of individual material creatures, Aquinas must alter his account of the unintelligibility of prime matter in the individuation of material creatures.

Free Download Theory’s Autoimmunity: Skepticism, Literature, and Philosophy by Zahi Zalloua
English | 2018 | ISBN: 0810137798 | 241 pages | PDF | 1.55 Mb
Engaging scholars from across humanistic fields grappling with the role and value of theory in our times, Theory’s Autoimmunity argues for reclaiming theory’s skepticism as a value. To cultivate theory’s skeptical impulses is to embrace what Jacques Derrida has termed autoimmunity: a condition of openness to the outside-openness of the self, the community, democracy, or other ideals-that allows for change.