The Adventure of Reason

The Adventure of Reason PDF

Author: Paolo Mancosu

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-01-09

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 0191021997

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Paolo Mancosu presents a series of innovative studies in the history and the philosophy of logic and mathematics in the first half of the twentieth century. The Adventure of Reason is divided into five main sections: history of logic (from Russell to Tarski); foundational issues (Hilbert's program, constructivity, Wittgenstein, Gödel); mathematics and phenomenology (Weyl, Becker, Mahnke); nominalism (Quine, Tarski); semantics (Tarski, Carnap, Neurath). Mancosu exploits extensive untapped archival sources to make available a wealth of new material that deepens in significant ways our understanding of these fascinating areas of modern intellectual history. At the same time, the book is a contribution to recent philosophical debates, in particular on the prospects for a successful nominalist reconstruction of mathematics, the nature of finitist intuition, the viability of alternative definitions of logical consequence, and the extent to which phenomenology can hope to account for the exact sciences.

The Age of Reason Begins

The Age of Reason Begins PDF

Author: Will Durant

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-06-07

Total Pages: 838

ISBN-13: 1451647646

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The Story of Civilization, Volume VII: A history of European civilization in the period of Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Rembrandt, Galileo, and Descartes: 1558-1648. This is the seventh volume of the classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning series.

The Adventure of Reason

The Adventure of Reason PDF

Author: H. Rickman

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1983-11-22

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0313238715

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This book is an introduction to the philosophical ideas of Plato, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Immanuel Kant on the role of reason which have contributed to the evolution of sociological thought. Reason, according to Rickman, has a relevance to sociology that has not been explored. Because he is interested in the philosophical reflections which proved influential for understanding the social world, he deals systematically with the four philosophers' central arguments and one or more of their most important and easily available texts. The book's bibliography lists books quoted and referred to in the text and offers suggestions for further reading in the philosophy of the social sciences.

The Outer Limits of Reason

The Outer Limits of Reason PDF

Author: Noson S. Yanofsky

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-11-04

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 026252984X

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This exploration of the scientific limits of knowledge challenges our deep-seated beliefs about our universe, our rationality, and ourselves. “A must-read for anyone studying information science.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and reason have revealed to us, this work studies what science, mathematics, and reason tell us cannot be revealed. In The Outer Limits of Reason, Noson Yanofsky considers what cannot be predicted, described, or known, and what will never be understood. He discusses the limitations of computers, physics, logic, and our own intuitions about the world—including our ideas about space, time, and motion, and the complex relationship between the knower and the known. Yanofsky describes simple tasks that would take computers trillions of centuries to complete and other problems that computers can never solve: • perfectly formed English sentences that make no sense • different levels of infinity • the bizarre world of the quantum • the relevance of relativity theory • the causes of chaos theory • math problems that cannot be solved by normal means • statements that are true but cannot be proven Moving from the concrete to the abstract, from problems of everyday language to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of physics and mathematics, Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes. Exploring the various limitations of our knowledge, he shows that many of these limitations have a similar pattern and that by investigating these patterns, we can better understand the structure and limitations of reason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders of reason to see what, if anything, is out there.

C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea

C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea PDF

Author: Victor Reppert

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2009-09-20

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 9780830874651

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Who ought to hold claim to the more dangerous idea--Charles Darwin or C. S. Lewis? Daniel Dennett argued for Darwin in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Touchstone Books, 1996). In this book Victor Reppert champions C. S. Lewis. Darwinists attempt to use science to show that our world and its inhabitants can be fully explained as the product of a mindless, purposeless system of physics and chemistry. But Lewis claimed in his argument from reason that if such materialism or naturalism were true then scientific reasoning itself could not be trusted. Victor Reppert believes that Lewis's arguments have been too often dismissed. In C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea Reppert offers careful, able development of Lewis's thought and demonstrates that the basic thrust of Lewis's argument from reason can bear up under the weight of the most serious philosophical attacks. Charging dismissive critics, Christian and not, with ad hominem arguments, Reppert also revisits the debate and subsequent interaction between Lewis and the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. And addressing those who might be afflicted with philosophical snobbery, Reppert demonstrates that Lewis's powerful philosophical instincts perhaps ought to place him among those other thinkers who, by contemporary standards, were also amateurs: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke and Hume. But even more than this, Reppert's work exemplifies the truth that the greatness of Lewis's mind is best measured, not by his ability to do our thinking for us, but by his capacity to provide sound direction for taking our own thought further up and further in.

Essays on Mathematical Reasoning

Essays on Mathematical Reasoning PDF

Author: Jerzy Pogonowski

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published:

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 3643913109

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This volume contains four essays which may attract the attention of those readers, who are interested in mathematical cognition The main issues and questions addressed include: How do we achieve understanding of mathematical notions and ideas? What benefits can be obtained from mistakes of great mathematicians? Which mathematical objects are standard and which are pathological? Is it possible characterize the intended models of mathematical theories in a unique way?

Adventure In Everything

Adventure In Everything PDF

Author: Matt Walker

Publisher: Hay House, Inc

Published: 2011-09-15

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1401929613

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Have you ever wondered how others have reached their goals? Have you ever wanted to be more engaged and present? Have you ever wanted your life to be filled with adventure? Most of us have. It's important to note, though, that you don't need to climb Mount Everest, row across the Pacific Ocean, swim the English Channel, or ski to the North Pole to experience a life of adventure. In reality, finding it is a lifestyle choice that reconnects you with your dreams and passions. In Adventure in Everything, you'll learn a framework for making changes guaranteed to weave excitement and a sense of possibility into every single day. Whether it's finding a dream job, discovering a way to turn old responsibilities into new passions, enhancing your most significant relationships, or constructing a completely different way of being in this world, you have the potential for a life infused with exciting possibilities. With Adventure in Everything, you will discover this for yourself.

The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (New Edition)

The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (New Edition) PDF

Author: Anthony Gottlieb

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2016-08-30

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 0393354229

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"His book...supplant[s] all others, even the immensely successful History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell."—A. C. Grayling Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. This landmark study of Western thought takes a fresh look at the writings of the great thinkers of classic philosophy and questions many pieces of conventional wisdom. The book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's monumental History of Western Philosophy, "but Gottlieb's book is less idiosyncratic and based on more recent scholarship" (Colin McGinn, Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book, and a Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2001.