Philosophy in Practice - Adam Morton

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Résumé :

Thanks xi

Note to Teachers xi

The Contract xii

Part I The Lure of Certainty 1

1 Certainty and Doubt 3

1.1 Patterns of Thought 4

1.2 How Conventional Are Your Beliefs? 7

1.3 Conviction, Opinion, Doubt, and Belief 9

1.4 Trusting Textbooks 11

1.5 Certainty: the Closed-belief Trap 12

1.6 Cheat: a Story about Deception 14

1.7 Tree-worshipers and Flat-earthers 17

1.8 Revising History: 1984 20

1.9 Doubt 21

1.10 Doubting What Someone Says 23

1.11 How Skeptical Are You? 25

1.12 Moral Skepticism 27

1.13 When is a Skeptic a Cynic? 28

1.14 Socratic Skepticism 30

Conclusions 33

Further Reading 33

2 Sources of Conviction 35

2.1 Authority 36

2.2 Faith 39

2.3 Reason 40

2.4 Arguments 42

2.5 Eight Short Arguments 45

2.6 Puzzling Arguments 47

2.7 Arguments within Arguments 48

2.8 Proofs of God 49

2.9 Paradoxes 54

2.10 What to Trust on the Internet 55

2.11 Transforming the Question 57

Conclusions 58

Further Reading 58

3 Rationalism 59

3.1 Optimism about Reason 60

3.2 Individualism 61

3.3 Galileo's Rationalism 63

3.4 Impossible Theories 64

3.5 Descartes' Optimism: Certainty from Doubt 66

3.6 Doubting Anything versus Doubting Everything 70

3.7 Demon Possibilities, Paranoia, and Fantasy 71

3.8 The Matrix 74

3.9 How Doubt Can Increase Belief 76

3.10 Skepticism and Religious Faith 77

3.11 I Think, Therefore I Am 80

3.12 Doubting Even One's Own Existence 81

3.13 Degrees of Certainty 84

Conclusions 86

Further Reading 86

4 Rationalism versus Relativism in Morals 89

4.1 The Appeal of Moral Rationalism 90

4.2 Four Golden Rules 90

4.3 Equality and Justice 92

4.4 Plato's Moral Rationalism 96

4.5 Three Arguments from Plato's Republic 98

4.6 Moral Relativism 102

4.7 For and Against Moral Relativism 104

4.8 The Ik 109

4.9 Law and Morality 110

4.10 Existentialism 113

4.11 What Is Morality About? 115

Conclusions 118

Further Reading 118

5 Induction and Deduction 121

5.1 Simple Induction 122

5.2 Applying Simple Induction 123

5.3 Seeing Patterns in Nature 126

5.4 Deduction 1: Syllogisms 128

5.5 Deduction 2: Validity 131

5.6 Deduction 3: Venn Diagrams and Counterexamples 133

5.7 Induction versus Deduction 136

5.8 The Induction-friendliness of the World 138

5.9 Diagramming Induction-friendliness 141

5.10 Hume's Discovery: Nightmare or Liberation? 142

5.11 Causation and Induction 144

5.12 Choosing the Right Concepts 146

Conclusions 148

Further Reading 148

6 The Retreat from Certainty 149

6.1 Feeble Reason? 150

6.2 Hume on the Power(lessness) of Reason 150

6.3 Four Famous Passages from Hume 153

6.4 Four Kinds of Irrationality 155

6.5 Degrees of Certainty 158

6.6 Valuing Values 158

6.7 How Tolerant Are You? 160

6.8 Mill on Freedom of Expression 163

6.9 Toleration in Science 166

6.10 Making Uncertainty Pay 167

Conclusions 168

Further Reading 169

Postcard History of Philosophy I 170

Part II Life in An Uncertain World 171

7 Utilitarianism 173

7.1 Naive Utilitarianism 174

7.2 Choosing the Utilitarian Action 175

7.3 Pleasure, Pain, and Consequences 177

7.4 Hedonism 178

7.5 Four Styles of Advice 181

7.6 Bentham and Mill 18...

Biographie:

Adam Morton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. He has previously taught at Princeton University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Bristol. His publications include Frames of Mind (1980), Disasters and Dilemmas (Blackwell, 1991), The Importance of being Understood: Folk Psychology as Ethics (2002), A Guide Through the Theory of Knowledge (third edition, Blackwell, 2003), and On Evil (2004)....

Sommaire:
Philosophy in Practice is a completely new kind of introductory philosophy textbook, focusing on philosophy as an activity, rather than as a doctrine.

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• Thoroughly revised edition of a popular introductory philosophy textbook.
  
• Contains new discussions of philosophy of religion, freedom, The Matrix, and the epistemology of the internet.
  
• Offers a wealth of pedagogical features to guide students through the text, including discussion plans at the beginning of each section, questions, chapter summaries, annotated guides to further reading, and a glossary.
  
• Classic passages from the history of philosophy are used throughout, and each part ends with a one-page historical summary.
  
• Includes an on-line teacher's guide with teaching suggestions, tests, and essay topics at: www.blackwellpublishing.com/pip