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Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction is aimed at students of Descartes' Meditations at all these levels of the philosophy curriculum. To address the beginner, it provides historical background and elicits from the text of the Meditations several basic issues of metaphysics and epistemology. For students of the history of modern philosophy, it covers the main themes and arguments of the Meditations and several of the criticisms that they have evoked. For more advanced readers, it discusses recent Descartes scholarship, and it offers the author's own reflections on Cartesian doubt, the cogito, the causal and ontological proofs of God's existence, the Cartesian circle, Cartesian dualism, and Descartes' views about the material world. The book includes, with cross-references, the full text of Meditations I, II, and V, and most of Meditations III and VI.
In George Berkeley's two most important works, the Principles of
Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Bewtween Hylas and Philonous,
he argued that there is no such thing as matter: only minds and
ideas exist, and physical things are nothing but collections of
ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advanced a battery of
challenging arguments purporting to show that the very notion of
matter is self-contradictory or meaningless, and that even if it
were possible for matter to exist, we could not know that it does;
and he then put forward an alternative world-view that purported to
refute both skepticism and atheism.
Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, Georges Dicker
here examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of
Berkeley's thought, against the background of the mainstream views
that he rejected. Dicker's accessible and text-based analysis of
Berkeley's arguments shows that the Priniciples and the Dialogues
dovetail and complement each other in a seamless way, rather than
being self-contained. Dicker's book avoids the incompleteness that
results from studying just one of his two main works; instead, he
treats the whole as a visionary response to the issues of modern
philosophy- such as primary and secondary qualities, external-world
skepticism, the substance-property relation, the causal roles of
human agents and of God. In addition to relating Berkeley's work to
his contemporaries, Dicker discusses work by today's top Berkeley
scholars, and uses notions and distinctions forged by recent and
contemporary analytic philosophers of perception. Berkeley's
Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful
guide for teachers and students.
This book grew out of the lectures that I prepared for my students
in epis temology at SUNY College at Brockport beginning in 1974.
The conception of the problem of perception and the interpretation
of the sense-datum theory and its supporting arguments that are
developed in Chapters One through Four originated in these
lectures. The rest of the manuscript was first written during the
1975-1976 academic year, while I held an NEH Fellowship in
Residence for College Teachers at Brown University, and during the
ensuing summer, under a SUNY Faculty Research Fellowship. I wish to
express my sincere gratitude to the National Endowment for the
Humanities and to the Research Foundation of the State University
of New York for their support of my research. I am grateful to many
former students, colleagues, and friends for their stimulating,
constructive comments and criticisms. Among the former stu dents
whose reactions and objections were most helpful are Richard
Motroni, Donald Callen, Hilary Porter, and Glenn Shaikun. Among my
colleagues at Brockport, I wish to thank Kevin Donaghy and Jack
Glickman for their comments and encouragement. I am indebted to Eli
Hirsch for reading and commenting most helpfully on the entire
manuscript, to Peter M. Brown for a useful correspondence
concerning key arguments in Chapters Five and Seven, to Keith
Lehrer for a criticism of one of my arguments that led me to make
some important revisions, and to Roderick M."
David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding are amongst the most widely-studies texts on
philosophy. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction
presents in a clear, concise and accessible manner the key themes
of these texts. Georges Dicker clarifies Hume's views on meaning,
knowledge, causality, and sense perception step by step and
provides us with a sharp picture of how philosophical thinking has
been influenced by Hume. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume for
the first time, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics is an
indispensible guide to Hume's philosophical thinking.
David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding are amongst the most widely-studies texts on
philosophy. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction
presents in a clear, concise and accessible manner the key themes
of these texts. Georges Dicker clarifies Hume's views on meaning,
knowledge, causality, and sense perception step by step and
provides us with a sharp picture of how philosophical thinking has
been influenced by Hume. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume for
the first time, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics is an
indispensible guide to Hume's philosophical thinking.
This book grew out of the lectures that I prepared for my students
in epis temology at SUNY College at Brockport beginning in 1974.
The conception of the problem of perception and the interpretation
of the sense-datum theory and its supporting arguments that are
developed in Chapters One through Four originated in these
lectures. The rest of the manuscript was first written during the
1975-1976 academic year, while I held an NEH Fellowship in
Residence for College Teachers at Brown University, and during the
ensuing summer, under a SUNY Faculty Research Fellowship. I wish to
express my sincere gratitude to the National Endowment for the
Humanities and to the Research Foundation of the State University
of New York for their support of my research. I am grateful to many
former students, colleagues, and friends for their stimulating,
constructive comments and criticisms. Among the former stu dents
whose reactions and objections were most helpful are Richard
Motroni, Donald Callen, Hilary Porter, and Glenn Shaikun. Among my
colleagues at Brockport, I wish to thank Kevin Donaghy and Jack
Glickman for their comments and encouragement. I am indebted to Eli
Hirsch for reading and commenting most helpfully on the entire
manuscript, to Peter M. Brown for a useful correspondence
concerning key arguments in Chapters Five and Seven, to Keith
Lehrer for a criticism of one of my arguments that led me to make
some important revisions, and to Roderick M."
Georges Dicker here provides a commentary on John Locke's
masterwork, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding-the
foundational work of classical Empiricism. Dicker's commentary is
an accessible guide for students who are reading Locke for the
first time; a useful research tool for upper-level undergraduate
and graduate students; and a contribution to Locke scholarship for
professional scholars. It is designed to be read alongside the
Essay, but does not presuppose familiarity with it. Dicker expounds
and critically discusses the main theses and arguments of each of
the Essay's four books, on the innatism that Locke opposes, the
origin and classification of ideas, language and meaning, and
knowledge, respectively. He analyses Locke's influential
explorations of related topics, including primary and secondary
qualities, substance, identity, personal identity, free will,
nominal and real essences, perception, and external-world
skepticism, among others. Written in an analytical style that
strives for clarity, the book offers careful textual analyses as
well as step-by-step reconstructions of Locke's arguments, and it
references and engages with relevant work of other major
philosophers and Locke commentators.
Georges Dicker here provides a commentary on John Locke's
masterwork, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding-the
foundational work of classical Empiricism. Dicker's commentary is
an accessible guide for students who are reading Locke for the
first time; a useful research tool for upper-level undergraduate
and graduate students; and a contribution to Locke scholarship for
professional scholars. It is designed to be read alongside the
Essay, but does not presuppose familiarity with it. Dicker expounds
and critically discusses the main theses and arguments of each of
the Essay's four books, on the innatism that Locke opposes, the
origin and classification of ideas, language and meaning, and
knowledge, respectively. He analyses Locke's influential
explorations of related topics, including primary and secondary
qualities, substance, identity, personal identity, free will,
nominal and real essences, perception, and external-world
skepticism, among others. Written in an analytical style that
strives for clarity, the book offers careful textual analyses as
well as step-by-step reconstructions of Locke's arguments, and it
references and engages with relevant work of other major
philosophers and Locke commentators.
A solid grasp of the main themes and arguments of the
seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes is essential for
understanding modern thought, and a necessary entree to the work of
the Empiricists and Immanuel Kant. It is also crucial to the study
of contemporary epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind.
This new edition of Georges Dicker's commentary on Descartes's
masterpiece, Meditations on First Philosophy, features a new
chapter on the Fourth Meditation and improved treatments of the
famous cogito ergo sum and the notorious problem of the Cartesian
Circle, among numerous other improvements and updates. Clear and
accessible, it serves as an introduction to Descartes's ideas for
undergraduates and as a sophisticated companion to his Meditations
for advanced readers. The volume provides a thorough discussion of
several basic issues of epistemology and metaphysics elicited from
the main themes and arguments of the Meditations. It also delves
into the work's historical background and critical reception.
Dicker offers his own assessments of the Cartesian Doubt, the
cogito, the causal and ontological proofs of God's existence,
Cartesian freedom and theodicy, Cartesian Dualism, and Descartes's
views about the existence and nature of the material world. The
commentary also incorporates a wealth of recent Descartes
scholarship, and inculcates - but does not presuppose - knowledge
of the methods of contemporary analytic philosophy.
In George Berkeley's two most important works, the Principles of
Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Bewtween Hylas and Philonous,
he argued that there is no such thing as matter: only minds and
ideas exist, and physical things are nothing but collections of
ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advanced a battery of
challenging arguments purporting to show that the very notion of
matter is self-contradictory or meaningless, and that even if it
were possible for matter to exist, we could not know that it does;
and he then put forward an alternative world-view that purported to
refute both skepticism and atheism.
Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, Georges Dicker
here examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of
Berkeley's thought, against the background of the mainstream views
that he rejected. Dicker's accessible and text-based analysis of
Berkeley's arguments shows that the Priniciples and the Dialogues
dovetail and complement each other in a seamless way, rather than
being self-contained. Dicker's book avoids the incompleteness that
results from studying just one of his two main works; instead, he
treats the whole as a visionary response to the issues of modern
philosophy- such as primary and secondary qualities, external-world
skepticism, the substance-property relation, the causal roles of
human agents and of God. In addition to relating Berkeley's work to
his contemporaries, Dicker discusses work by today's top Berkeley
scholars, and uses notions and distinctions forged by recent and
contemporary analytic philosophers of perception. Berkeley's
Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful
guide for teachers and students.
The Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's acknowledged masterpiece, in
which he tackles the question of how we can possibly have knowledge
that does not rest on experience (a priori knowledge). The first
half of the Critique advances a constructive theory of human
cognition and defends the possibility of human knowledge against
the skeptical empiricism of Hume. These sections of the Critique
are difficult for beginners and for advanced students alike. While
there exist many scholarly works discussing the Critique on an
advanced level, this book is explicitly designed to be read
alongside the text by first-time readers of Kant. Dicker makes
Kant's views and arguments as accessible as possible without
oversimplifying them, and synthesizes the views of contemporary
scholars. Kant's Theory of Knowledge will be useful to both
undergraduate and graduate students struggling with this
notoriously difficult yet deeply influential thinker.
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