This is one of the many books about philosophy as a whole without a clear point to it. Besides illustrating how philosophy is hypothetically useful to create a better society overall. Which is an unproven claim he is making. So it does start on a false premise unfortunately. But following that premise he does go into some interesting quotes from old philosophers that make you think. But... He was one of 55 public figures to sign an open letter published in The Guardian in September 2010, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK, [9] and has argued that "religionists" should have less influence in political affairs. [8] Before continuing with a more detailed description of the book's contents, let me warn those of you who want to read this book passively, consuming its contents like the superficial plot of a bad work of fiction: This will simply not do. There is a reason the book's title is "Think". You really have to! Cambridge academics elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences". cam.ac.uk. 30 April 2008 . Retrieved 10 February 2018. Being an infidel, that is, just having no faith, I do not have to prove anything. I have no faith in the Loch Ness Monster, but do not go about trying to prove that it does not exist, although there are certainly overwhelming arguments that it does not. [8]

that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For it could be, that were I totally to Written with exemplary concision and with conviction that philosophy needn't be an ethereal subject, alienated from practical concerns."-- Booklist What's the point of a philosophy book presenting complicated subjects if the author can't even explain them well or in a simple way? He was one of 240 academics to sign a letter to the Equality and Human Rights Commission opposing 'radical gender orthodoxy', published in The Sunday Times. [10]Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly The existence of god is the topic of the next chapter, in which all the standard arguments for god are shown and evaluated: ontological, cosmological, first cause and design. The issue of god - being all-caring - not being compatible with a world full of suffering is raised. Hume's most ingenious argument rejecting testimony of miracles is presented: He simply says that it is always more probably that someone made up the story than that the miracle happened. Problem solved. Pascal's argument for believing in god is described, namely that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. First and foremost, I have to state what this book is not. It is not a casual, breezy introduction to philosophy along the lines of Thomas Nagel's What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. It is also not an abridged history of western philosophy tracing the most significant arguments put forth by the great philosophical thinkers of yore. This is very much a book about doing philosophy; it tries to teach you how to think logically and systematically about some of the big questions that are central to our existence by showing you how some of the great philosophers of the past have done it. Your experience with this book will depend on what you bring to it much more than it will on the contents of the book itself. It expects you to actively engage with the material as you go along much like you would with a textbook. With that out of the way, let me begin with a discussion of this book's flaws and then move onto its strengths which, for me, redeemed this book from a 2 star rating. In philosophy, he is best known as the proponent of quasi-realism in meta-ethics [6] and as a defender of neo- Humean views on a variety of topics. "The quasi-realist is someone who endorses an anti-realist metaphysical stance but who seeks, through philosophical maneuvering, to earn the right for moral discourse to enjoy all the trappings of realist talk." [6] I'm not sure this is the type of book that'd garner a second listen from most readers unless there was something you didn't quite understand, but that's just my opinion and I can't speak for anyone else.

He retired as the professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 2011, but remains a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaching every fall semester. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a member of the professoriate of New College of the Humanities. [2] He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and has also taught full-time at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is a former president of the Aristotelian Society, having served the 2009–2010 term. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 [3] and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008. [4] Gibbard ("Improving Sensibilities") argues that an expressivist cannot do everything in terms of sentiments, only, but needs to appeal to stances of agreeing and disagreeing with sentiments. SB, to his credit, has managed to keep the reader sufficiently engaged by keeping the difficulty of the content just out of reach. This can be frustrating for casual readers but if you're interested in the subject, it pushes you to actively think about what you are reading even though you don't quite get it eight times out of ten.

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My favorite part of this book has to be the chapter on God. I found it brilliant and rewarding. It has none of the faults that plague the other chapters. The flow of information seems perfect with one argument leading seamlessly into another with just the right amount of commentary in between. It also has some real gems from Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that are sure to delight the skeptics and non-believers amongst you. This brilliant observation by Wittgenstein takes the cake, however: "A nothing works just as well as a something about which nothing could be said." Although SB tries to be objective, he is quite clearly not sold on theology and its claims, so you religious folks have been warned. Essays in Quasi-realism (1993). – a defence of quasi-realism as applied to ethicsISBN 0-19-508041-6 and ISBN 0-19-508224-9. a b "Moral Anti-Realism > Projectivism and Quasi-realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)". Archived from the original on 1 May 2020 . Retrieved 27 October 2019. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy ([1994] 2015), 3rd ed. – compiled whole-handedly. ISBN 0-19-211694-0. I retain my 3-star rating because well-read philosophiles won't find anything new or challenging while neophytes will need a supportive reading environment (instructor/classmates). In short, it might be a bit too "hard" for an introduction but not hard enough for more advanced students.

Who am I? What is the world? Does god exist? Do I have a free will? These are questions every single one of us has asked himself in the course of his life: some only to consider them as unimportant and forget about them, others countless times, dwelling on possible answers and becoming more and more fascinated with them. If you are one of the latter - and I certainly am - this is a book for you. He is a patron of Humanists UK (formerly the British Humanist Association), and when asked to define his atheism, he said he prefers the label infidel over atheist: Think is by far the best introduction to philosophy that I know. Compact but hugely readable, this delightful book would be an excellent basis for an introductory course, as a text or as preliminary reading. You could also give it to family and friends, and all those annoying people who ask you what philosophers do. If Think doesn't explain it to them, nothing will!"--Huw Price, author of Time's Arrow and Archimedes Point Lust (2004) – one of an Oxford University Press series covering the Seven Deadly Sins. ISBN 0-19-516200-5. What do we really know? -The Big Questions of Philosophy" – (2009) from Quercus. ISBN 978-1-78087-587-3.

Finally finished Think. It’s a book to read a bit about a theme or question and then ponder what on it. The book covers the big questions in life over 8 chapters: knowledge, Mind, Free Will, The Self, God, Reasoning, The World ld and What to do. Topics covered include the ontological argument, the cosmological argument and the design argument. To read the book is to sit down with an engaging, highly learned conversationalist; readers new to the subject could very well be captivated. Highly recommended for academic and public library collections."-- Library Journal Philosophy is often dismissed as a purely academic discipline with no relation to the "real" world non philosophers are compelled to inhabit. Think dispels this myth and offers a springboard for all those who want to learn how the basic techniques of thinking shape our virtually every aspect of our existence. Thinking? At last I have discovered it -- thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am, I exist --

Truth (1999) (edited with Keith Simmons) – from Oxford Readings in Philosophy series. ISBN 0-19-875250-4. proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my The chapter on free will discusses the possibility of a predetermined fate like voiced in countless religious texts: Do we have a choice in what we do or is it only the result of cultural conditioning? Can we really blame a murderer for killing someone if he had a depression? In this chapter I first encountered the belief that reducing people to predetermined and conditioned factors objectivies them, taking away their humanity. The narrator did a spectacular job but something a lot of people could probably look past but I couldn't was that he kept over-pronouncing(idk if this is a real word) the letter 'h' in 'wh' words. He'd almost blow out a little of his breathe every time he'd say what, or why during the introduction where both those words are frequently used. Here at last is a coherent, unintimidating introduction to the challenging and fascinating landscape of Western philosophy. Written expressly for "anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how toOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries