Plato At The Googleplex

Download or read book Plato at the Googleplex written by Rebecca Goldstein and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is philosophy obsolete? Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news? The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science. At the origin of Western philosophy stands Plato, who got about as much wrong as one would expect from a thinker who lived 2,400 years ago. But Plato’s role in shaping philosophy was pivotal. On her way to considering the place of philosophy in our ongoing intellectual life, Goldstein tells a new story of its origin, re-envisioning the extraordinary culture that produced the man who produced philosophy. But it is primarily the fate of philosophy that concerns her. Is the discipline no more than a way of biding our time until the scientists arrive on the scene? Have they already arrived? Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation of these conundra. She interweaves her narrative with Plato’s own choice for bringing ideas to life—the dialogue. Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato’s brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowd-sourced rather than reasoned out by experts? With a philosopher’s depth and a novelist’s imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world. (With black-and-white photographs throughout.)

Download or read book Plato and the Body written by Coleen P. Zoller and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an innovative reading of Plato, analyzing his metaphysical, ethical, and political commitments in connection with feminist critiques. For centuries, it has been the prevailing view that in prioritizing the soul, Plato ignores or even abhors the body; however, in Plato and the Body Coleen P. Zoller argues that Plato does value the body and the role it plays in philosophical life, focusing on Plato’s use of Socrates as an exemplar. Zoller reveals a more refined conception of the ascetic lifestyle epitomized by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Republic. Her interpretation illuminates why those who want to be wise and good have reason to be curious about and love the natural world and the bodies in it, and has implications for how we understand Plato’s metaphysical and political commitments. This book shows the relevance of this broader understanding of Plato for work on a variety of relevant contemporary issues, including sexual morality, poverty, wealth inequality, and peace. “Zoller gives us a new way of going forward in Plato studies. Her reading of the Platonic conception of embodiment frees it from the negative associations of the past. Plato and the Body will radically shift the scholarly conversation. The book is truly an exhilarating read.” — Anne-Marie Schultz, author of Plato’s Socrates as Narrator: A Philosophical Muse

Download or read book Plato written by Carol Atack and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2024-11-12 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new reading of Plato’s philosophy that reveals it as deeply shaped by his experiences in Athens. Plato is a key figure from the beginnings of Western philosophy, yet the impact of his lived experience on his thought has rarely been explored. Born during a war that would lead to Athens’ decline, Plato lived in turbulent times. Carol Atack explores how Plato’s life in Athens influenced his thought, how he developed the Socratic dialogue into a powerful philosophical tool, and how he used the institutions of Athenian society to create a compelling imaginative world. Accessibly written, this book shows how Plato made Athens the place where diverse ideas were integrated into a new way of approaching the big questions about our lives, then and now.

Download or read book The Anthropocene and the Humanities written by Carolyn Merchant and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging and original introduction to the Anthropocene that offers fresh, theoretical insights bridging the sciences and the humanities From noted environmental historian Carolyn Merchant, this book focuses on the original concept of the Anthropocene first proposed by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in their foundational 2000 paper. It undertakes a broad investigation into the ways in which science, technology, and the humanities can create a new and compelling awareness of human impacts on the environment. Using history, art, literature, religion, philosophy, ethics, and justice as the focal points, Merchant traces key figures and developments in the humanities throughout the Anthropocene era and explores how these disciplines might influence sustainability in the next century. Wide-ranging and accessible, this book from an eminent scholar in environmental history and philosophy argues for replacing the Age of the Anthropocene with a new Age of Sustainability.

Download or read book Reading Plato's Dialogues to Enhance Learning and Inquiry written by Mason Marshall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scholarly volume proposes protreptic as a radically new way of reading Plato’s dialogues leading to enhanced student engagement in learning and inquiry. Through analysis of Platonic dialogues including Crito, Euthyphro, Meno, and Republic, the text highlights Socrates’ ways of fostering and encouraging self-examination and conscionable reflection. By focusing his work on Socrates’ use of protreptic, Marshall proposes a practical approach to reading Plato, illustrating how his writings can be used to enhance intrinsic motivation amongst students, and help them develop the thinking skills required for democratic and civic engagement. This engaging volume will be of interest to doctoral students, researchers, and scholars concerned with Plato’s dialogues, the philosophy of education, and ancient philosophy more broadly, as well as post-graduate students interested in moral and values education research.

Download or read book Great Dialogues of Plato written by Plato and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 1404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in the form of debates, Great Dialogues of Plato comprises the most influential body of philosophy of the Western world—covering every subject from art and beauty to virtue and the nature of love.

Download or read book The Crisis of Progress written by John C. Caiazza and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the concept of progress, its separate varieties, its current rejection, and how it may be reconsidered from a philosophical and scientific basis. John C. Caiazza's main emphasis is on how science is understood as it has a direct impact on social values as expressed by prominent philosophers. He argues that progress is at a standstill, which presents a crisis for Western civilization.Caiazza presents historical examples, both of scientific inquiry and social and cultural themes, to examine the subject of progress. Beginning with the Whig model and progressive political values exemplified by Bacon and Dewey, he also examines other variations, the Enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, and totalitarianism. Technology, argues Caiazza, also has a stultifying effect on Western culture and to understand the idea of progress, we must take a philosophic rather than a scientific point of view. Modern cosmology has inevitable humanistic and theological implications, and major contemporary philosophers reject social science in favour of ancient concepts of virtue and ethics.In the end, Caiazza writes that time is an agent, not a neutral plain on which scientific and historical events occur. We can expect technology to keep us in stasis or become aware of the possibility of transcendence. This book will be of interest for students of scientific history and philosophy.