Curing the Philosopher&#039;s Disease

Richard H. Jones

doi:10.5771/9780761848110

Summary

Curing the Philosopher's Disease is a philosophical examination of the mysteries surrounding the foundations of science, philosophy, and religion. Much of Western philosophy and science is discussed in order to see our epistemological and metaphysical situation. The love/hate relation philosophers have with mystery is explored, as are the contributions of reductionists and antireductionists, postmodern relativists and critical realists, naturalists and the religious, and theologians and mystics. The thrust of the arguments affirms that there are limits to what philosophy, science, religion, and mystical experiences can tell us about reality. By acknowledging that some questions may be unanswerable and understanding the importance of that fact even as the answers remain ambiguous, our true situation in the world is revealed. Mystery should be reinstated as a basic feature when we reflect upon the nature of what we know and who we are. Mystery frames all of our claims to fundamental knowledge, and we must accept that it will remain a permanent fixture. Thus, the importance of mystery needs to be reaffirmed today, during an era when the fullness of reality is often ignored.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2009
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7618-4810-3
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7618-4811-0
Publisher: Hamilton Books, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 299
Product type: Book Titles

1. Table of Contents No access
1. Puzzles versus Mysteries No access
2. Modern Philosophy and Mystery No access
3. Types of Mysteries No access
4. Mystery and Explanation No access
5. Affirming Mystery No access
1. Skepticism No access
2. Words and Reality No access
3. Modernity No access
4. Immanuel Kant's Transcendental Realism No access
5. The Twentieth Century No access
6. Metaphysics No access
7. Beingness No access
8. Consciousness No access
9. The Philosopher's Disease No access
1. Postmodernism No access
2. Postmodernism and Mystery No access
3. Critical Realism No access
4. Problems for Postmodernists No access
5. The Problem for Realists No access
6. The Case for Realism No access
7. Where do we Stand? No access
1. Science, Wonder, and Mystery No access
2. Types of Scientific Mysteries No access
3. The Metaphysics of Science No access
4. Causation and Determinism No access
5. Naturalism No access
6. An Ordered Cosmos No access
7. Objectivity No access
8. Why does Science Work? No access
9. Laws and Theories No access
10. Models No access
11. What is Matter? No access
12. The Smallest Scale of Things No access
13. The Largest Scale of Things No access
14. Theories of Everything No access
15. Complexity No access
16. Emergence No access
17. Life No access
18. Conscious Beings No access
19. Biological Evolution No access
20. The Limits of Science No access
1. "Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?" No access
2. The Cosmological Argument No access
3. Limitations of the Cosmological Argument No access
4. The Unconvinced Naturalists No access
5. The Problem of Infinite Regress No access
6. "Self-Existence" No access
7. The Principle of Sufficient Reason No access
8. The Natural Universe No access
9. A Sustainer No access
10. Can the Dispute be Resolved? No access
11. The Intractable Why-Mystery Remains No access
12. The Teleological Argument No access
13. The Anthropic Principle No access
14. The Naturalists' Response No access
15. Evolution No access
16. Natural Suffering No access
17. Is there Fine-Tuning? No access
18. Multiple Words No access
19. The Alternatives: Multiple Worlds or a Designer No access
20. The Problems for Theists No access
21. The Mystery of the Order of Things No access
22. "The Mind of God" No access
23. The Problem with any Ultimate Explanation No access
1. Transcendental Realities No access
2. The Naturalists' Response No access
3. Science and Meaning No access
4. Religion and Mystery No access
5. The Question of Creation No access
6. Suffering and Death No access
7. History No access
8. Morality No access
9. Is there a "Meaning of Life"? No access
10. The Transcendent and Language No access
11. Is Knowledge of the Transcendent Possible? No access
12. Theology and Mystery No access
13. The Demise of Mystery Today No access
14. Problems of a Transcendental Mystery No access
15. Between Mystery and Religion No access
1. Types of Religious Experiences No access
2. Revelations No access
3. Mysticism No access
4. Mindfulness and the Depth-Mystical Experience No access
5. Reality No access
6. Depth-Mystical Knowledge No access
7. Constructivism and the Claim to Mystical Knowledge No access
8. Is there Mystical Knowledge? No access
9. Mindfulness and Language No access
10. The Depth-Mystical Experience and Language No access
11. Paradox No access
12. Mysticism and Mystery No access
13. Conflicting Claims and the Limits of Conceptions No access
14. The Thrust against Mystery No access
1. The Centrality of Mystery No access
2. Philosophy's Role No access
3. Living without Answers No access
4. How much Skepticism? No access
5. Humility No access
Selected Bibliography No access Pages 285 - 292
Index No access Pages 293 - 299