Mind, Value, and Reality


Book Description

This book collects some of McDowell’s most influential papers of the last two decades. The essays deal with themes such as the interpretation of Aristotle’s and Plato’s ethical writings, questions in moral philosophy that arise out of the Greek tradition, Wittengensteinian ideas about reason in action, and issues central to philosophy of mind.




Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality


Book Description

Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? This book synthesizes ideas borrowed from philosophy, religion, and science. Topics range widely from brain imagining of thought processes to quantum mechanics and the essential role of information in brains and physical systems.




Theory and Reality


Book Description

How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.




Representation and Reality


Book Description

The author, one of the first philosophers to advance the notion that the computer is an apt model for the mind, takes a radical view of his own theory of functionalism in this book.




Thoughts Create Reality


Book Description

This is a short book on how thoughts have created reality throughout history and throughout your life. You will learn some very important concepts that upon further research will open your life up to new and wonderful directions to make your life all that it can be and all that you desrie.




Thought and Reality


Book Description

In this short, lucid, rich book Michael Dummett sets out his views about some of the deepest questions in philosophy. The fundamental question of metaphysics is: what does reality consist of? To answer this, Dummett holds, it is necessary to say what kinds of fact obtain, and what constitutes their holding good. Facts correspond with true propositions, or true thoughts: when we know which propositions, or thoughts, in general, are true, we shall know what facts there are in general. Dummett considers the relation between metaphysics, our conception of the constitution of reality, and semantics, the theory that explains how statements are determined as true or as false in terms of their composition out of their constituent expressions. He investigates the two concepts on which the bridge that connects semantics to metaphysics rests, meaning and truth, and the role of justification in a theory of meaning. He then examines the special semantic and metaphysical issues that arise with relation to time and tense. On this basis Dummett puts forward his controversial view of reality as indeterminate: there may be no fact of the matter about whether an object does or does not have a given property. We have to relinquish our deep-held realist understanding of language, the illusion that we know what it is for any proposition that we can frame to be true independently of our having any means of recognizing its truth, and accept that truth depends on our capacity to apprehend it. Dummett concludes with a chapter about God.




Captive Audience


Book Description

An intimate portrait of a marriage intertwined with a meditation on reality TV that reveals surprising connections and the meaning of an authentic life. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL. In Lucas Mann's trademark vein--fiercely intelligent, self-deprecating, brilliantly observed, idiosyncratic, personal, funny, and infuriating--Captive Audience is an appreciation of reality television wrapped inside a love letter to his wife, with whom he shares the guilty pleasure of watching "real" people bare their souls in search of celebrity. Captive Audience resides at the intersection of popular culture with the personal; the exhibitionist impulse, with the schadenfreude of the vicarious, and in confronting some of our most suspect impulses achieves a heightened sense of what it means to live an authentic life and what it means to love a person.




Mind And Reality: The Space-time Window


Book Description

The relationship between mind and reality is usually perceived as an event that takes place in reality and producing simultaneously an internal image in the mind. So it takes place twice, so to speak, and there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two events. Within this conception, matter is embedded in space and time, and can be designated as “container-principle”. This monograph emphasizes that the well-known philosopher Immanuel Kant denied this principle and he stated that reality is principally not recognizable to a human being, and modern biological evolution seems to lead exactly to Kant's point of view. Within the theory of evolution, man's image about reality in mind does not have to be complete and true in the sense of a precise reproduction, and it is relatively easy to recognize that even space and time should not be elements of reality outside. Within this conception, only a certain part of reality, which the human being needs for mastering life, is projected onto space and time, and we come to the so-called “projection principle”. Then, spacetime defines the window to reality, leading to a number of exciting and essential questions, some of which are discussed in this monograph.As is known, current physics is mainly based on the container-principle. But this monograph proposes that the projection principle is obviously more suitable and could help to solve open-ended questions as, for example, in connection with the nature of time, the particle-wave duality, the cosmological constant, etc. Regarding the statistical behavior of matter, Einstein's statement “God does not play dice” has to be seen in a new light, but also Feynman's general viewpoint on quantum theory that it cannot be understood by man. However, conventional quantum theory is obviously not a consistent framework as per the projection principle. The term “world equation” is critically probed in this monograph.




Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy


Book Description

A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.




Refractions of Reality: Philosophy and the Moving Image


Book Description

This is the first book to explore all central issues surrounding the relationship between the film-image and philosophy. It tackles the work of particular philosophers of film (Žižek, Deleuze and Cavell) as well as general philosophical positions (Cognitivist and Culturalist), and analyses the ability of film to teach and create philosophy.