What Is Philosophy for?

by Mary Midgley

Overview

Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives?


Mary Midgley addresses these provocative questions in her most up-to-date statement on the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and the life of the mind.

This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350051089
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/20/2018
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Mary Midgley is Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Philosophy, Newcastle University, UK. One of the leading moral philosophers of the 20th century, Midgley has written extensively on human nature, science, ethics, animals, and the environment. Her books include Beast and Man, Heart and Mind, Animals and Why They Matter, Are You an Illusion? and Wickedness.

Table of Contents

Part 1. The Search for Signposts

Chapter 1. Directions
Chapter 2. Do Ideas Get Out Of Date?
Chapter 3. What is Research?
Chapter 4. Clashes of Method
Chapter 5. What is Matter?
Chapter 6. Quantum Queries
Chapter 7. What is Progress?
Chapter 8. Perspectives and Paradoxes: Rousseau And His Intellectual Explosives
Chapter 9. Mill And The Different Kinds Of Freedom
Chapter 10. Making Sense Of Toleration

PART 2. Tempting Visions of Science

Chapter 11. The Force of World-Pictures
Chapter 12. The Past Does Not Die
Chapter 13. Scientism; The New Sedative

PART 3. Mindlessness and Machine Worship

Chapter 14. The Power-Struggle
Chapter 15. Missing Persons
Chapter 16. Oracles

PART 4. Singularities and the Cosmos

Chapter 17. What Kind of Singularity?
Chapter 18. Can Intelligence be Measured?
Chapter 19. What is Materialism?
Chapter 20. The Cult of Impersonality
Chapter 21. Matter and Reality
Chapter 22. The Mystique of Scientism
Chapter 23. The Strange World-Picture


Conclusion: One World but Many Window

Editorial Reviews

Engaging and accessible, this vigorous swansong exemplifies many of Midgley's virtues, and revisits many of her favourite themes ... [it helps] us to see that many of our problems arise from trying to fit everything into a single explanatory template, rather than realising that one and the same reality can be understood from irreducibly different points of view.” —The Tablet

“Her final answer to the question “What is philosophy for?” is that its aim is not at all like that of the sciences. Scientists are specialists who study parts of the world, but philosophy concerns everybody. It tries to bring together aspects of life that have previously been unconnected in order to make a more coherent world-picture, which is not a private luxury but something essential for human life.” —Philosophy Now

“[This] is a book that not only illuminates the dangers and shortfalls of contemporary unrestrained faith in scientific and technological supremacy, it also accentuates the integrating qualities of philosophy which are necessary to achieve a more exhaustive view of the world and its complexities.” —Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

From the Publisher