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Daniel Stoljar - Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism - 9780198802099 - V9780198802099
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Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism

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Description for Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism Hardback. Daniel Stoljar presents a lucid, persuasive rejection of the widespread view that philosophy makes no progress. He defends a reasonable optimism about philosophical progress, showing that we have correctly answered philosophical questions in the past and may expect to do so in the future. He offers a credible vision of how philosophy works. Num Pages: 192 pages. BIC Classification: HPK. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 216 x 135. .
Many people believe that philosophy makes no progress. Members of the general public often find it amazing that philosophers exist in universities at all, at least in research positions. Academics who are not philosophers often think of philosophy either as a scholarly or interpretative enterprise, or else as a sort of pre-scientific speculation. And - amazingly - many well-known philosophers argue that there is little genuine progress in philosophy. Daniel Stoljar argues that this is all a big mistake. When you think through exactly what philosophical problems are, and what it takes to solve them, the pattern of success and failure in philosophy is similar to that in other fields. In philosophy, as elsewhere, there is a series of overlapping topics that determine what the subject is about. In philosophy, as elsewhere, different people in different historical epochs and different cultures ask different big questions about these topics. And in philosophy, as elsewhere, big questions asked in the past have often been solved: Stoljar provides examples. Philosophical Progress presents a strikingly optimistic picture of philosophy - not a radical optimism that says that there is some key that unlocks all philosophical problems, and not the kind of pessimism that dominates both professional and non-professional thinking about philosophy, but a reasonable optimism that views philosophy as akin to other fields.

Product Details

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2017
Condition
New
Weight
28g
Number of Pages
202
Place of Publication
Oxford, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780198802099
SKU
V9780198802099
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-22

About Daniel Stoljar
Daniel Stoljar is Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University in Canberra, a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the current President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. He is the author of Ignorance and Imagination: The Epistemic Origin of the Problem of Consciousness (OUP 2006) and Physicalism (Routledge 2010).

Reviews for Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism
The book is a model of clarity. I would enthusiastically recommend it not only to self-sceptical philosophers and arrogant scientists, but also to students-as an example of philosophical writing, as well as for its arguments. And it is extremely thorough, addressing a range of objections to its arguments as well as general considerations that might seem to tell against the existence of progress. I still feel occasional doubt about philosophical progress, but Stoljar has convincingly rebutted every reason for such doubt of which I know.
Derek Ball, Australasian Journal of Philosophy

Goodreads reviews for Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism