Uncommon Sense

Andrew Pessin

doi:10.5771/9781442216105

Summary

In Uncommon Sense, Andrew Pessin leads us on an entertaining tour of philosophy, explaining the pivotal moments when the greatest minds solved some of the knottiest conundrums—by asserting some very strange things. But the great philosophers don’t merely make unusual claims, they offer powerful arguments for those claims that you can’t easily dismiss. And these arguments suggest that the world is much stranger than you could have imagined:

You neither will, nor won't, do certain things in the future, like wear your blue shirt tomorrow.
But your blue shirt isn't really blue, because colors don’t exist in physical objects; they’re only in your mind.
Time is an illusion.
Your thoughts are not inside your head.
Everything you believe about morality is false.
Animals don’t have minds.
There is no physical world at all.

In eighteen lively, intelligent chapters, spanning the ancient Greeks and contemporary thinkers, Pessin examines the most unusual ideas, how they have influenced the course of Western thought, and why, despite being so odd, they just might be correct. Here is popular philosophy at its finest, sure to entertain as it enlightens.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2012
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-1608-2
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-1610-5
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 224
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
Introduction: “Stop Making Sense” No access Pages 1 - 6
Chapter 1. Plato: MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE No access Pages 7 - 18
Chapter 2. Aristotle: NEITHER YOU WILL NOR YOU WON’T No access Pages 19 - 30
Chapter 3. Augustine: FORCED TO BE FREE No access Pages 31 - 42
Chapter 4. Anselm: GOD IS NOT JUST A GOOD IDEA No access Pages 43 - 54
Chapter 5. Maimonides: KEEPS GOING, AND GOING, AND GOING . . . OR NOT? No access Pages 55 - 66
Chapter 6. Thomas Aquinas: GOD HAS NOT BEEN ON VACATION SINCE THE ORIGINAL CREATION No access Pages 67 - 78
Chapter 7. René Descartes: “A MONSTROUS THESIS” No access Pages 79 - 90
Chapter 8. John Locke: TRUE COLORS No access Pages 91 - 102
Chapter 9. Nicolas Malebranche: ON HONORING LEEKS AND ONIONS No access Pages 103 - 112
Chapter 10. G. W. Leibniz: SYNCHRONICITY No access Pages 113 - 122
Chapter 11. George Berkeley: TO BE IS TO PERCEIVE OR BE PERCEIVED No access Pages 123 - 134
Chapter 12. David Hume: STERCUS ACCIDIT No access Pages 135 - 146
Chapter 13. Friedrich Nietzsche: PHILOSOPHER, PSYCHOLOGIST—ANTICHRIST? No access Pages 147 - 158
Chapter 14. John McTaggart: TIME DOES NOT FLY EVEN WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN No access Pages 159 - 170
Chapter 15. Ludwig Wittgenstein: THE VOICE IN MY HEAD IS SPEAKING NONSENSE No access Pages 171 - 182
Chapter 16. Hilary Putnam: THINKING OUTSIDE THE (CRANIAL) BOX No access Pages 183 - 194
Chapter 17. David Lewis: THE INCREDULOUS STARE No access Pages 195 - 206
Chapter 18. Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers: MIND AND MATTER, TOGETHER AGAIN AT LAST (SORT OF)! No access Pages 207 - 218
Index No access Pages 219 - 222
About the Author No access Pages 223 - 224