The Benign Skeptic
The Benign Skeptic

Author: Sharon Taylor

Publisher: FriesenPress

Published: 2023-05-17

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1039160255

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“Think before you believe.” Despite her strict Christian upbringing, skepticism was somehow in Sharon Taylor’s DNA. Perhaps it was a young girl’s innate sense of right and wrong that led her to root out bigots and perverts, question the hypocrisy in her church (and in her own mother’s blind faith), and combat poverty with street savvy. Or maybe it was curiosity and determination, combined with book smarts, that helped Taylor overcome the challenges in her tumultuous childhood, eventually attaining academic honors and a Ph.D. and embarking on an academic career—all while raising four children. The Benign Skeptic: A Memoir is a journey through the author’s long life from her birth at the start of World War II to present day, as the world still copes with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taylor’s candid storytelling starts by reeling the reader back in time, when the girl with the hated Shirley-Temple curls, born in Bend, Oregon, (to her parents “a mixed blessing”), was seemingly always trapped in a battle between her devout Baptist mother and atheist father, which eventually led to their divorce. This family breakdown set off a heartrending and often farcical chain of events with Taylor, her mother, and her paranoid and sometimes violent stepfather changing their identities for a short-lived life on the lam. As an adult, Taylor also overcomes a number of hurdles as a parent and wife, trying to find her way in the world and develop her own identity and values. The Benign Skeptic is a memoir about the complexity of family and romantic love, looking for the good in others, and recognizing that many things in life are more important than money. Along with history as seen through her eyes and nuggets of wisdom from a life well lived, Taylor offers her descendants (present and future) frank advice on everything from sex to control (and when to cede it) to the transformative powers of art and reading.

A Cultivated Reason
A Cultivated Reason

Author: Christopher Williams

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 1998-09-08

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0271076240

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As Plato’s tripartite division of the soul, Descartes’s criterion of clear and distinct ideas, and Kant’s notion of the categorical imperative attest, philosophy has traditionally been wedded to rationalism and its “intellectualist” view of persons. In this book Christopher Williams seeks to wean his fellow philosophers away from an overly rationalistic self-understanding by using resources that are available within the philosophical tradition itself, including some that anticipate strands of Nietzsche’s thought. The book begins by developing Hume’s critique of rationalism, with reference especially to the section of the Treatise that deals with the continuing existence of bodies (an argument that subverts intellectualist criteria by attempting to satisfy them) and to his neglected essay “The Sceptic” where Hume reveals the importance of our embodiment through a comic portrayal of philosophers’ efforts to “correct our sentiments.” Then it moves on to ward off charges of irrationalism by showing that, although our powers of self-correction are more limited than the rationalist thinks they are, a Humean position is able both to sustain a commitment to reflection and to sensitize us to a version of irrationalism, manifest in monotheistic theologies, that is otherwise difficult to detect. The book concludes, more speculatively, with a comparison of persons to artworks in order to show how our aesthetic dimension is the source of some of the normative work previously assigned to rationalist reason. Ranging as it does across subfields from epistemology and history of philosophy to ethics and aesthetics, A Cultivated Reason should appeal to a wide audience of philosophers and to scholars in other fields as well.

Essays in Moral Skepticism
Essays in Moral Skepticism

Author: Richard Joyce

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-01-28

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0191077100

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Moral skepticism is the denial that there is any such thing as moral knowledge. Some moral skeptics deny that moral judgments are beliefs; some allow that moral judgments are beliefs but claim that they are all untrue; others claim that all moral judgments are unjustified. Since the publication of The Myth of Morality in 2001, Richard Joyce has explored the terrain of moral skepticism and, perhaps more than any other living philosopher, has been willing to advocate versions of this radical view. Joyce's attitude toward morality is analogous to an atheist's attitude toward religion: he claims that in making moral judgments speakers attempt to state truths (e.g., that breaking promises is usually wrong) but that the world simply isn't furnished with the properties and relations necessary to render such judgments true. Moral thinking, he argues, probably emerged as a human adaptation, but one whose usefulness derived from its capacity to bolster social cohesion rather than its ability to track truths about the world. This forms the basis of Joyce's 'evolutionary debunking argument,' according to which evidence that a certain kind of judgment can be explained with no reference to its truth may reveal those judgments to lack warrant. Essays in Moral Skepticism gathers together a dozen of Joyce's most significant papers from the last decade, following the developments in his ideas, presenting responses to critics, and charting his exploration of the complex landscape of modern moral skepticism.

Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi
Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi

Author: Paul Kjellberg

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1996-04-11

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1438409214

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The Chinese philosophical text Zhuangzi, written in part by a man named Zhuangzi in late fourth century B.C.E. China, is gaining recognition as one of the classics of world literature. Writing in beautiful prose and poetry, Zhuangzi mixes humor with relentless logic in attacking claims to knowledge about the world, particularly evaluative knowledge of what is good and bad or right and wrong. His arguments seem to admit of no escape. And yet where does that leave us? Zhuangzi himself clearly does not think that our situation is utterly hopeless, since at the very least he must have some reason for thinking we are better off aware of our ignorance. This book addresses the question of how Zhuangzi manages to sustain a positive moral vision in the face of his seemingly sweeping skepticism. Zhuangzi is compared to the Greek philosophers Plato and Sextus Empiricus in order to pinpoint more exactly what he doubts and why. Also examined is Zhuangzi's views on language and the role that language plays in shaping the reality we perceive. The authors test the application of Zhuangzi's ideas to contemporary debates in critical theory and to issues in moral philosophical thought such as the establishment of equal worth and the implications of ethical relativism. They also explore the religious and spiritual dimensions of the text and clarify the relation between Zhuangzi and Buddhism.

Research Handbook on Climate Governance
Research Handbook on Climate Governance

Author: Karin Bäckstrand

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2015-11-27

Total Pages: 633

ISBN-13: 1783470607

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The 2009 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen is often represented as a watershed in global climate politics, when the diplomatic efforts to negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol failed and was replaced by a fragmented and decentralized climate governance order. In the post-Copenhagen landscape the top-down universal approach to climate governance has gradually given way to a more complex, hybrid and dispersed political landscape involving multiple actors, arenas and sites. The Handbook contains contributions from more than 50 internationally leading scholars and explores the latest trends and theoretical developments of the climate governance scholarship.

The Western Canon
The Western Canon

Author: Harold Bloom

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2014-06-17

Total Pages: 751

ISBN-13: 0547546483

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The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller. NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a “heroically brave, formidably learned” defense of the great works of literature that comprise the traditional Western Canon. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the essential writers of the western literary tradition (The New York Times Book Review). Placing William Shakespeare at the “center of the canon,” Bloom examines the literary contributions of Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickenson, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, and many others. Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition and passion. “An impressive work…deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michel Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

A Faith for Skeptics
A Faith for Skeptics

Author: John H. Heidt

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-08-05

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 9781491285947

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Faith For Skeptics is written for believers and unbelievers alike; for all who would like to find or increase their faith. It presents a compelling case for traditional, classical, Christianity, that is all the more powerful for being nuanced and reflective. In doing so, John Heidt explores central dilemmas of the human condition, notably the problem of evil and death, and shows that orthodox, apostolic Christianity holds the key to our fulfillment and redemptive transformation as persons before God. If you believe in God this book will deepen and increase your faith, if you do not, Faith For Skeptics will introduce you to it.

50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True
50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True

Author: Guy P. Harrison

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2012-01-03

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 1616144963

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“What would it take to create a world in which fantasy is not confused for fact and public policy is based on objective reality?" asks Neil deGrasse Tyson, science popularizer and author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. "I don't know for sure. But a good place to start would be for everyone on earth to read this book." Maybe you know someone who swears by the reliability of psychics or who is in regular contact with angels. Or perhaps you're trying to find a nice way of dissuading someone from wasting money on a homeopathy cure. Or you met someone at a party who insisted the Holocaust never happened or that no one ever walked on the moon. How do you find a gently persuasive way of steering people away from unfounded beliefs, bogus cures, conspiracy theories, and the like? This down-to-earth, entertaining exploration of commonly held extraordinary claims will help you set the record straight. The author, a veteran journalist, has not only surveyed a vast body of literature, but has also interviewed leading scientists, explored "the most haunted house in America," frolicked in the inviting waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and even talked to a "contrite Roswell alien." He is not out simply to debunk unfounded beliefs. Wherever possible, he presents alternative scientific explanations, which in most cases are even more fascinating than the wildest speculation. For example, stories about UFOs and alien abductions lack good evidence, but science gives us plenty of reasons to keep exploring outer space for evidence that life exists elsewhere in the vast universe. The proof for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster may be nonexistent, but scientists are regularly discovering new species, some of which are truly stranger than fiction. Stressing the excitement of scientific discovery and the legitimate mysteries and wonder inherent in reality, this book invites readers to share the joys of rational thinking and the skeptical approach to evaluating our extraordinary world.