Skip to search
Skip to main content
Catalog
Help
Feedback
Your Account
Library Account
Bookmarks
(
0
)
Search History
Search in
Keyword
Title (keyword)
Author (keyword)
Subject (keyword)
Title starts with
Subject (browse)
Author (browse)
Author (sorted by title)
Call number (browse)
search for
Search
Advanced Search
Bookmarks
(
0
)
Princeton University Library Catalog
Start over
Cite
Send
to
SMS
Email
EndNote
RefWorks
RIS
Printer
Bookmark
Philosophical provocations : 55 short essays / Colin McGinn.
Author
McGinn, Colin, 1950-
[Browse]
Uniform title
Essays.
Selections
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, [2017]
Description
viii, 317 pages ; 24 cm
Availability
Available Online
CogNet Library Books
JSTOR DDA
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
BD41 .M34 2017
Browse related items
Request
Details
Subject(s)
Philosophy
[Browse]
Library of Congress genre(s)
Essays
[Browse]
Getty AAT genre
essays
[Browse]
Summary note
In Philosophical Provocations, Colin McGinn offers a series of short, sharp essays that take on philosophical problems ranging from the concept of mind to paradox, altruism, and the relation between God and the Devil. Avoiding the usual scholarly apparatus and embracing a blunt pithiness, McGinn aims to achieve as much as possible in as short a space as possible while covering as many topics as possible. Much academic philosophical writing today is long, leaden, citation heavy, dense with qualifications, and painful to read. The essays in Philosophical Provocations are short, direct, and engaging, often challenging philosophical orthodoxy as they consider issues in mind, language, knowledge, metaphysics, biology, ethics, and religion. McGinn is looking for new ways to think about old problems. Thus he writes, about consciousness, "I think we have been all wrong," and goes on to suggest that both consciousness and the unconscious are mysteries. Summing up his proposal on altruism, he remarks, "My suggestion can now be stated, somewhat brutally, as follows: human altruism is the result of parasitic manipulation." He takes a moment to reflect: "I really don't know why it is good to be alive, though I am convinced that the standard suggestions don't work." McGinn gets straight to the point and states his position with maximum clarity. These essays offer provocative invitations to think again.-- Provided by Publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
I. Mind. The mystery of the unconscious
Concepts of mind
Knowledge and emotion : an untenable dualism
The second mind
Awareness of time
Mind
brain identity theories
Are there actions?
Actions and reasons
Consciousness and light
Have we already solved the mind
body problem?
The reality of the inner
The thought of language
II. Language. Meaning monism
Against language-games
Meaning without language
For privacy
On the impossibility of a (wholly) public language
Deciding to mean
Truth, verification, and meaning
Meaning and argument
III. Knowledge. Knowledge and truth
Proof of an external world
The simulation came
The riddle of knowledge
Does knowledge imply truth?
Everything is hidden
Light and our knowledge of matter
Seeing the light
IV. Metaphysics. Knowing and necessity
Antirealism refuted
The puzzle of paradox
The secret cement
Analysis and mystery
Explanation and necessity
Against possible worlds
The concept of a person
The question of being
Science as metaphysics
Logic without propositions (or sentences)
V. Biology. Selfish genes and moral parasites
The evolution of color
The language of evolution
Immaterial Darwinism
Trait selection
VI. Ethics. The trouble with consequentialism
Absurd utilitarianism
Why is it good to be alive?
Physical noncognitivism
Child liberation
Modesty and self-knowledge
Is romantic self-love possible?
Against laughter
VII. Religion. A deontological theodicy
God and the devil
A religion of hate.
Show 54 more Contents items
ISBN
9780262036191 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
0262036193 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
LCCN
2016046174
OCLC
978539882
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
Read more...
Other views
Staff view
Ask a Question
Suggest a Correction
Report Harmful Language
Supplementary Information
Other versions
Philosophical provocations : 55 short essays / Colin McGinn.
id
99125158412906421
Philosophical provocations : 55 short essays / Colin McGinn.
id
99104000753506421