Does the Center Hold? An Introduction to Western Philosophy

Does the Center Hold? An Introduction to Western Philosophy

Donald Palmer

Language: English

Pages: 496

ISBN: 0078038375

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Does the Center Hold? is an entertaining, topically-organized introductory text with more than 500 original illustrations. The ideas and issues typically covered in introductory philosophy courses are presented here in a remarkably accessible and enjoyable manner. Donald Palmer demonstrates that serious philosophical inquiry may be perplexing, but is ultimately liberating, and students will come away from the book with a comprehensive, and often delighted, understanding of philosophy.

Instructors and students can now access their course content through the Connect digital learning platform by purchasing either standalone Connect access or a bundle of print and Connect access. McGraw-Hill Connect® is a subscription-based learning service accessible online through your personal computer or tablet. Choose this option if your instructor will require Connect to be used in the course. Your subscription to Connect includes the following:

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with that approach is that the principle of liberty was meant by Mill to determine criminal law, not the other way around, or the whole process becomes circular. Mill extended his principle of lib- All in favor of expropriating the property of people wearing erty to encompass striped socks, raise your hand. such areas as FIRST NATIONAL BANK freedom of thought, expres- sion, and assem- bly. No govern- ment, not even a pure democracy, can legitimately legislate against these

students!) Sensible Objects Sensible objects are the individual things in the physical world: trees, books, cats. They are more real than images, but they are not absolutely real, both because they are not permanent (trees and cats grow old and die; books fall apart or are burned) and because they are dependent. They are dependent first of all on the sun. (If the sun were closer, everything would burn up; if it were farther away, everything would freeze; if it did not exist, there would be no

deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, 62 Rationalist Epistemology pal35753_ch02_040-074.qxd 12/31/09 4:26 PM Page 63 colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things. (pp. 169–170) This text is one of

a mind), but he certainly hasn’t proved that anyone else does. The observable data are quite compatible with the view that “everyone else” is really just a complicated robot (perhaps a meaty robot, but a robot just the same). Furthermore, the mind that Descartes proved to exist—that is, his own mind—is not located; it is nowhere. The behaviorist asks how much better is a mind that’s nowhere than no mind at all. Hats, Coats, and Automatic Machines All these problems with dualism

Religion, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), p. 29. All subsequent quotes from this book will be cited in the text. 14. Fresno Bee, March 14, 2008. 15. For example, see Carl G. Jung, Answer to Job (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973). 16. Karl Marx, Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis Feuer (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), pp. 244, 262–263. 17. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (New York: Vintage, 1955), p. 66.

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