Showing titles in Epistemology

Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain. Some of our beliefs we call theories, and we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them. Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples.

What if numbers are not the building blocks of the universe—but reflections of the human mind? For over two thousand years, the Pythagorean vision has shaped our understanding of the cosmos: a universe ruled by harmony, order, and mathematical law. From the “music of the spheres” to modern physics, the idea that reality can be perfectly described by numbers has guided both science and philosophy. Yet as quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and information theory now suggest, this vision may be an exquisite illusion.

A leading astronomer and gifted teacher takes readers on a wondrous tour of how science confronts the big questions—about the universe’s origins, destiny, and fundamental nature—and how it contends with the limits of our knowledge Humans have learned a lot about the world around us and the...

What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combinationof passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.

For the last four centuries, science has tried to account for everything in terms of atoms and molecules and the physical laws they adhere to. Recently, this effort was extended to try to include the inner world of human beings. Gary Lachman argues that this view of consciousness is misguided and unfounded. He points to another approach to the study and exploration of consciousness that erupted into public awareness in the late 1800s.

The Ancient Wisdom is a book by Anni Besant published in 1897 as per the dedication in the Leader of the undated first pressing. In this book Besant introduces and explains the physical plain, astral plane, mental plain and other planes of existence. This book is intended to place in the hands of the general listener an epitome of Theosophical Teachings, Sufficiently plain to serve the elementary student, and sufficiently full to lay a sound foundation for future knowledge.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is a towering figure of modern Western philosophy, someone whose thought continues to exert an influence across all areas of the discipline. His work is characterized by both breadth and unity: he writes powerfully about mind, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, mathematics, natural science, ethics, politics, aesthetics, education, and more. The Oxford Handbook of Kant provides an up-to-date account of recent scholarship on Kant's philosophy, taking in all areas of his writings.

Research is anchored by assumptions. How do we complete research—and why? This book—The Three Monkeys of Research—explores epistemology, ontology and methodology. Tara Brabazon explores how ideas become knowledge, and how arguments are verified, believed and disseminated to scholars, stakeholders and citizens.

The world's best introduction to epistemology, Understanding Knowledge discusses basic philosophical problems in epistemology.

What we believed were the laws of physics are really the archetypal laws of mind, and the consciousness that created our universe originated from the “monad”. In philosophy, the monad is the single source of all things—the embedded matrix of both our present existence and all possible future incarnations. For theologians, it is the logos—the word of God that created the world. In mathematics, the monad is the root of all the numbers that describe nature. In science, it is the Big Bang explosion of light and information from which our universe sprung forth.

What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples - claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote - and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial.

Perception, memory, truth, and knowledge all play major roles in this dialogue. What is remarkable about Plato's treatment of those ideas is how contemporary are both the questions and the answers he puts in the mouths of his characters. Socrates is adamant in asserting that he does not know the answers but that his function is simply to help formulate and critically examine the doctrines presented by others.

By calling everything into doubt, Descartes laid the foundations of modern philosophy. With the celebrated words "I think therefore I am," his compelling argument swept aside ancient and medieval traditions. He deduced that human beings consist of minds and bodies; that these are totally distinct "substances"; that God exists and that He ensures we can trust the evidence of our senses.

You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has asked that question―many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when things aren't going well...

Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought. Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us.

Published in 1797, the Critique of Pure Reason is considered to be one of the foremost philosophical works ever written. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant explores the foundation of human knowledge and its limits, as well as man's ability to engage in metaphysics.

Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner once wondered about "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in the formulation of the laws of nature. Is God a Mathematician? investigates why mathematics is as powerful as it is. From ancient times to the present, scientists and philosophers have marveled at how such a seemingly abstract discipline could so perfectly explain the natural world. More than that - mathematics has often made predictions, for example, about subatomic particles or cosmic phenomena that were unknown at the time, but later were proven to be true.

How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.

What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in only a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MIT's anti-disciplinarian César Hidalgo, understanding the nature of economic growth demands transcending the social sciences and including the natural sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the growth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth of order.

Have you cringed at the grisly sight of a chopped off right or left hand? Or perhaps you are someone who was taught to believe such actions are sanctioned by God or Allah? If so, where did you get this belief?