"In philosophy," the author writes in his preface, "we have learned to get our satisfaction from showing that the other fellow is mistaken rather than from establishing the truth of our own positive tenets." The impeccably professional work of a mature and distinguished logician and scholar, Skeptical Essays propounds the view that the principal traditional problems of philosophy are genuine intellectual knots; they are intelligible enough, but at the same time the are absolutely insoluble. The problems Mates discusses ...
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"In philosophy," the author writes in his preface, "we have learned to get our satisfaction from showing that the other fellow is mistaken rather than from establishing the truth of our own positive tenets." The impeccably professional work of a mature and distinguished logician and scholar, Skeptical Essays propounds the view that the principal traditional problems of philosophy are genuine intellectual knots; they are intelligible enough, but at the same time the are absolutely insoluble. The problems Mates discusses are: the Liar paradox and Russell's Antinomy of the class of all nonself-membered classes; the problem of determinism and moral responsibility; and the existence of the external world. Clearly written and effectively organized, the book will be an excellent text for advanced students.
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Add this copy of Skeptical Essays to cart. $23.34, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of Skeptical Essays to cart. $63.58, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by University of Chicago Press.
Great introduction to certain issues in Philosophy
Mates does an excellent job introducing the issues he tackles in this slim but dense volume. He covers a lot of the responses that I had always assumed handled these problems and then shows how they have failed. Although this is not an introduction to Skepticism, it is a fine example of how Skeptical thinking is applied to a specific set of issues within Philosophy. I might even recommend it for someone with no background in Philosophy. There are a few really technical areas that might confuse someone with no training, but on the whole, anyone who really wants to understand it can, with patience and access to the various Encyclopedias of Philosophy available on the internet - including Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy and The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - will be able to understand and be enriched by this book.
