Journey Into Philosophy

The overriding rationale behind this book is a desire to enrich the lives of college students by introducing them to the practice of philosophical thought in an accessible and engaging manner. The text has over one hundred classical and contemporary readings that facilitate studying each philosophical issue from a variety of perspectives, giving instructors the opportunity to choose a set of readings that matches the individual needs of each class. It includes many selections by philosophers whose works are often ignored or underrepresented in other introductory texts. The initial reading, "The Role of Philosophy," is a relevant, clear, and absorbing introduction to the discipline of philosophy. It uses everyday life situations to give students a solid foothold before they journey into specific philosophical topics. In addition, every section of the book has its own special introduction that connects each topic to students’ personal lives. The surrounding narrative is designed to be conversational and comprehensible. Special features include a section on the role of logic, and writing a philosophy paper, two useful tools for approaching and analyzing philosophical writing for students who are new to philosophy. The book is accompanied by a companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/Baronett), with many helpful features, including (for students) review questions for all readings in the book, videos, and 66 related entries taken from the student-friendly Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and (for instructors) 2,500 questions and answers."

Nicholas Rescher presents the first comprehensive chronology of philosophical anecdotes, spanning from antiquity to the current era. He introduces us to the major thinkers, texts, and historical periods of Western philosophy, recounting many of the stories philosophers have used over time to engage with issues of philosophical concern: questions of meaning, truth, knowledge, value, action, and ethics. Rescher’s anecdotes touch on a wide range of themes—from logic to epistemology, ethics to metaphysics—and offer much insight into the breadth and depth of philosophical inquiry. This book illustrates the various ways philosophers throughout history have viewed the issues in their field, and how anecdotes can work to inform and encourage philosophical thought.

An accessible Christian survey of the history of philosophy, tracing the journey of human thought about God, the world, and humanity's relation to both.

In this infectiously exciting book, Bryan Magee tells the story of his own discovery of philosophy and not only makes it come alive but shows its relevance to daily life. Magee is the Carl Sagan of philosophy, the great popularizer of the subject, and author of a major new introductory history, The Story of Philosophy. Confessions follows the course of Magee's life, exploring philosophers and ideas as he himself encountered them, introducing all the great figures and their ideas, from the pre-Socratics to Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, including Wittgenstein, Kant, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, rationalism, utilitarianism, empiricism, and existentialism.

Hao Wang (1921-1995) was one of the few confidants of the great mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel. A Logical Journey is a continuation of Wang's Reflections on Gödel and also elaborates on discussions contained in From Mathematics to Philosophy. A decade in preparation, it contains important and unfamiliar insights into Gödel's views on a wide range of issues, from Platonism and the nature of logic, to minds and machines, the existence of God, and positivism and phenomenology. The impact of Gödel's theorem on twentieth-century thought is on par with that of Einstein's theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, or Keynesian economics. These previously unpublished intimate and informal conversations, however, bring to light and amplify Gödel's other major contributions to logic and philosophy. They reveal that there is much more in Gödel's philosophy of mathematics than is commonly believed, and more in his philosophy than his philosophy of mathematics. Wang writes that "it is even possible that his quite informal and loosely structured conversations with me, which I am freely using in this book, will turn out to be the fullest existing expression of the diverse components of his inadequately articulated general philosophy." The first two chapters are devoted to Gödel's life and mental development. In the chapters that follow, Wang illustrates the quest for overarching solutions and grand unifications of knowledge and action in Gödel's written speculations on God and an afterlife. He gives the background and a chronological summary of the conversations, considers Gödel's comments on philosophies and philosophers (his support of Husserl's phenomenology and his digressions on Kant and Wittgenstein), and his attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the mind's power over brains and machines. Three chapters are tied together by what Wang perceives to be Gödel's governing ideal of philosophy: an exact theory in which mathematics and Newtonian physics serve as a model for philosophy or metaphysics. Finally, in an epilog Wang sketches his own approach to philosophy in contrast to his interpretation of Gödel's outlook.

The overriding rationale behind this book is a desire to enrich the lives of college students by introducing them to the practice of philosophical thought in an accessible and engaging manner. The text has over one hundred classical and contemporary readings that facilitate studying each philosophical issue from a variety of perspectives, giving instructors the opportunity to choose a set of readings that matches the individual needs of each class. It includes many selections by philosophers whose works are often ignored or underrepresented in other introductory texts. The initial reading, "The Role of Philosophy," is a relevant, clear, and absorbing introduction to the discipline of philosophy. It uses everyday life situations to give students a solid foothold before they journey into specific philosophical topics. In addition, every section of the book has its own special introduction that connects each topic to students’ personal lives. The surrounding narrative is designed to be conversational and comprehensible. Special features include a section on the role of logic, and writing a philosophy paper, two useful tools for approaching and analyzing philosophical writing for students who are new to philosophy. The book is accompanied by a companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/Baronett), with many helpful features, including (for students) review questions for all readings in the book, videos, and 66 related entries taken from the student-friendly Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and (for instructors) 2,500 questions and answers."

This book takes an in-depth look at the integration of fashion and philosophy. It challenges the deeply rooted prejudice or misconception that fashion is a field limited to body-oriented and appearance-related themes and practices. It also reveals that fashion is intermeshed with distinctively modern issues that belong to the realm of the mind as well as the body. In doing so, it refashions philosophy and philosophizes fashion, which ultimately amount to the same thing. The book argues that while the philosophization of fashion can give a clearer understanding of some esoteric areas of philosophy and fashion’s close connection to modern societies and politics, it also shows that philosophy can assist in redeeming fashion from the objective, bodily world, positioning it as an indispensable part of the humanities. This is because fashion manifests critical aspects of human culture in our time, and is an expression of the zeitgeist, which is interwoven with the unfolding of history. This book will be highly relevant to students and researchers in fashion studies who are looking for the theoretical underpinnings and insights for their own work. It will also be of keen interest to scholars in the field of philosophy who are seeking to apply philosophical concepts to both everyday life and our empirical world.

While nothing can equal or replace the adventure in reading ; Tolkienಙs masterwork, The Lord of the ; Rings, Peter Kreeft says that the journey into its ; underlying philosophy can be another exhilarating ; adventure. Thus, Kreeft takes the reader on a voyage ; of discovery into the philosophical bones of Middle earth. ; He organizes the philosophical themes in The Lord of the ; Rings into 50 categories, accompanied by over 1,000 ; references to the text of Lord.Since many of the great ; questions of philosophy are included in the 50-theme ; outline, this book can also be read as an engaging ; introduction to philosophy. For each of the philosophical ; topics in Lord, Kreeft presents tools by which they can be ; understood. Illustrated.