How to be a philosopher, or, How to be almost certain that almost nothing is certain

145 Pages·2010·1.31 MB·English

by  Cox

How to Be a Philosopher
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The Sartre Dictionary
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How to Be a Philosopher
or How to Be Almost Certain
that Almost Nothing is
Certain
Gary Cox
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Gary Cox 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-4478-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group
For Mike
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Contents
Introduction 1
1 What is Philosophy? 11
Philosophy and defining 12
Defining ‘philosophy’ 13
Philosophy and cold, hard logic 18
Philosophy and free speech 24
The father of western philosophy 27
Metaphysics and more Plato 30
Epistemology and more Plato 33
The philosophy of doing the right thing 35
Summary 47
2 How to be a Philosopher – Phase One:
Doubting Everything 49
Philosophizing properly 50
Hallucination and optical illusion 53
Appearance and reality 56
Solipsism – is there anything out there? 62
The father of modern philosophy 68
Descartes and the method of doubt 73
Descartes, ‘I think therefore I am’ and God 79
Descartes’ collapse into solipsism 81
Dispelling these clouds 87
3 How to be a Philosopher – Phase Two:
The Tree Question 89
Family Guy in the forest 89
viii Contents
Ask a stupid question 91
Common sense realism 92
The Vienna Circle and no nonsense logical positivism 94
David Hume and no nonsense logical positivism 97
The verification principle 99
Sound is consciousness of sound 101
Kant and transcendental idealism 103
Sartre on differentiated and undifferentiated being 107
Inconclusive conclusions 109
4 How to Make a Living from Philosophy 112
Bibliography 123
Visual, Musical and Internet Media References 126
Further Reading 127
Index 129
Introduction
Why have you started reading this book? Philosophers should avoid
guessing, but my guess is that you already know a few things about
philosophy and you want to know more. Or, at the very least, you have
come across the word ‘philosophy’ before and you want to know what
it means. Perhaps you already know a fair bit about philosophy – hav-
ing studied it at college or university or in prison – but believe that
knowing about philosophy and being a philosopher are very different
things.
Philosophers, if I am one, should really avoid assuming anything,
but on this occasion, instead of assuming that you, the reader, know
something about philosophy, which you probably do, I’m going to
force myself to assume that you know absolutely nothing about philo-
sophy. You have lived on this earth for however long, you are intelli-
gent enough and have become educated enough to be able to read
this book. More to the point, you want to read this book; a remarkable
thing in itself in an age when ignorance is the new intelligence. None-
theless, the meaning and significance of philosophy totally passed you
by like the proverbial ship in the night. You have heard of psychology
and sociology, even physiology, psychiatry and philately, but philo-
sophy just got overlooked somehow, like a city you’ve never visited
though you are well travelled, like a visitor who called at your door dur-
ing the 5 short minutes you were in the shower.