Reviews (1)

A Good Introduction
This book combines readability with good content, being one of the most often selected introductions to logic and critical thinking on the university level, it obviously holds a great deal of merit. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Critical thinking    2. Criticism    3. Logic    4. Philosophy    5. Philosophy / Criticism   

Reviews (2)

Not a fan, but still very good.
Yeah, so, I'm going to avoid the part where i think that a couple of important things in this book are stated too vaguely for a responsible philosopher, or where i mention that he seems to make one or two blatant errors of omission.I'm going to avoid these things for the dual reasons that a) they aren't really relevant to whether you should read this or not, and b) i allow for the possibility that i'm imagining these gaps because i haven't understood him, in which case i'm the stupid one.Given my presistent commitment to Legends of the Hidden Temple, that's a distinct possibility. A Superb Collection of Articles...
Searle has collected a large and important variety of articles in this text, which spans several years of thinking on issues such as: the nature of consciousness, free will, the mind-body problem, rationality, and collective action.Only one article on Kripke's meaning skepticism has been not previously published.Read more

Subjects:  1. Consciousness    2. Criticism    3. Intentionality (Philosophy)    4. Language and languages    5. Mind & Body    6. Philosophy    7. Biography & Autobiography    8. Epistemology, theory of knowledge    9. Philosophy / General    10. Philosophy of language    11. Western philosophy, from c 1900 -   

Reviews (3)

Fall into the Gap
_The Parallax View_, which the ever-prolific Slavoj Zizek has declared the "magnum opus" of his substantial _oeuvre_, is a generally rewarding, if uneven, work.
Provocative yet awkwardly unsatisfying
(Again, I feel guilty for such a short review, but aside from lack of time, who am I to say "what the text is saying"?)
Ride the Cyclone with a Bag on Your Head
For some overeducated in philosophy, like myself, particularly from the left (which I am not) Zizek is pure pleasure. It is inconceivable that Zizek's readers get all of his references, explicit or implicit, but that is part of the experience. And reading Zizek is an experience: his primary point is that human beings, try they may, cannot fully understand the world in an intellectual sense. You either get it or you don't, and either way, you won't get it all, but hopefully you'll get just enough to enjoy the first drop that leaves you wanting more. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Mind & Body    3. Modern Philosophy    4. Philosophy    5. Philosophy / Criticism    6. Western philosophy, from c 1900 -   

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Education    3. Philosophy    4. Psychology    5. Students & Student Life    6. Study Skills    7. Education / Study Skills   

Reviews (2)

Persuasion Theory and Practice
Includes 34 social science and communication journal style articles on persuasion theory and persuasion research methods from a communication worldview. Multiple chapter authors are all well published. Too dense for undergraduates unless specific readings are guided by an instructor. A graduate student in a school of communication could launch a whole career with this handbook as a starting point. If you can obsorb these chapter readings, no one in this field will be out ahead of you for several years. Applicable to political campaign managers, advertising gurus, and health care practitioners alike.

a MUST HAVE book !!!
This very comprehensive handbook is something that every researcher in consumer psychology, attitude research, and the related fields must have or read. It is one of those books like Chaiken & Eagly's "Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology", or "The Psychology of attitudes". Lots of information on the most recent developments in the subfield/theory of innoculation theory and affective attitudes, which i find most important about it. EXCELLENT. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Communication    2. Criticism    3. Interpersonal Relations    4. Persuasion (Psychology)    5. Persuasion (Rhetoric)    6. Philosophy    7. Psychology    8. Social Psychology    9. Social aspects    10. Business & Management    11. Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication    12. Sociology, Social Studies   

Reviews (1)

Finally.The monster can be tamed.
This book is very hard to review. There are many reasons for this. One is that I may be biased: I think this may be the most important book written about consciousness in the last couple of decades. Then there is the fact that the book is enormous in scope, (and not far in size either- it is 650 pages long), brilliantly written and argued, and succeeds in doing something few other related books do. Reading this book makes you feel that consciousness has been explained. It makes you feel that the monster has been tamed, that progress can be made, that those who believe there can be no sensible exxplanation for consicousness are just wrong. Now in reality, it is not obvious that consciousness HAS been explained. But one feels like it has. And this is why I think this book is superior to Daniel Dennetts �Consicousness explained�, arguably the book regarded as the most significant and influential philosophical contribution in the field. After reading Dennett, few believed consicousness had been explaied. Even few felt like it had. This book is unique, and I believe it is a matter of time until its impact is made apparent.
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Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. General    3. Medical    4. Metaphysics    5. Neuroscience    6. Philosophy    7. Medical / Neuroscience    8. Philosophy of mind   

Reviews (14)

Heroic Attempt by Scruton
This is an heroic attempt by Scruton to summarize the entire philosophy of one the most important thinkers of all time.Unfortunately, Kant was also one of the worst writers of all time and needlessly made his own great insights almost incomprehensible to the casual reader.Scruton does a wonderful job of making Kant clear.

Excellent introduction to Kant
This book offers a clear and concise introduction to one of the most difficult philosophers. This book, and others in the series, are excellent preparation for an undergraduate class. Scruton is a little conservative in his analysis of Kant's work. The reader should be aware that he is definitely of the analytic strain.

Good synopsis, tough introduction
There is no question that Scruton knows his Kant, and this book is a 5-star synopsis of Kant's major ideas, including some of the background and controversies surrounding them.
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Subjects:  1. 1724-1804    2. Criticism    3. History & Surveys - 17th/18th Century    4. Kant, Immanuel,    5. Philosophy    6. Philosophy Of The 18th Century    7. Ethics & moral philosophy    8. Kant, Immanuel    9. Philosophy / Modern    10. Philosophy | History | Modern    11. Social & political philosophy    12. Western philosophy, c 1600 to c 1800   

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. History & Surveys - Modern    3. Kant, Immanuel    4. Philosophy    5. Philosophy / History, Criticism, Surveys    6. Western philosophy, c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (43)

Poor Critical Thinking Skills
This book can be savaged by the very critical thinking skills it proposes to teach.The authors insist that a proposition be accurately defined.But rarely attempt to accurately define the concepts they use as examples.They devote a great deal of space to explaining the weakness of individual perception and memory, then insist that reality can only be that which one percieves.One of my greatest criticisms is regular reference to the work of Hyman.Any good skeptic is skeptical of the work of a professional debunker.Hyman is well known for debunking any scientific effort for one might wish to discredit.Thus their regular dependence on Hyman damages their already questionable veracity.
Sound concepts in an easy to read package
I never stop enjoying this book.I pick it up every few months just for a tune-up.It presents a variety of related concepts, many of which are in their most basic form, in an easy to read format.Some elaboration here and there for the sake of clarity would have been beneficial, but the basics are covered well.I get a sense that Schick and Vaughn had fun with this one.

Pass
I enjoy books on skepticism and I was looking forward to reading this one.
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Subjects:  1. Controversial Knowledge    2. Critical thinking    3. Criticism    4. Curiosities and wonders    5. Logic    6. New Age / Body, Mind & Spirit    7. New Thought    8. Parapsychology - General    9. Philosophy    10. Reasoning    11. Philosophy / Criticism   

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Philosophy    3. Logic    4. Philosophy / Criticism   

Reviews (19)

Watch your Step
This book is most useful if one wishes to study Walter Kaufmann.This book is a waste of time if you wish to study the writers Kaufmann presents to us.Kaufmann warps the texts to suit his own agenda.If you share his agenda you will likely not even notice that he has an agenda.
Choppy and Academic, Intimidating and Complex...
"The stone is given its existence; it need not fight for being what it is---a stone in the field.Man has to be himself in spite of unfavorable circumstances; that means he has to make his own existence at every single moment.He is given the abstract possibility of existing, but not the reality.This he has to conquer hour after hour.Man must earn his life, not only economically but metaphysically."--Ortega
A thought- provoking anthology
Literature, Philosophy and Religion all have their parts in this anthology compiled by Walter Kaufmann. Kaufman was of course more expert on certain matters ( Neitzsche ) than on others(Kierkegaard) but he here provides a variety of texts that enable the reader to know and think for himself about the major ' existensial writers and thinkers'. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Existentialism    2. Existentialism in literature    3. History & Surveys - Modern    4. Movements - Existentialism    5. Philosophy    6. Phenomenology & Existentialism    7. Philosophy / Existentialism   

Reviews (7)

Poor Instructional Material...If You Are An Instructor, DO NOT UseThis Book In Your Classes
This book is next to useless in helping students to understand fallacies and identify them.It is probably the poorest instructional material I have encountered in all of my years in college. Humor was incorporated into this text in an effort to help students better understand the material, however, that effort is a big failure when it comes to this student, and probably also for many others.
Critically Thinking, Critically Funny,Critically Astute!!
What an awesome textbook!As a critical reasoning, reading, and writing instructor for twelve years, I have used this textbook, off and on, and I always return to it.There is no other textbook like it, but there are a lot of imitators.It infuses humor, pertinent political events, and very clear critical thinking concepts (like claims, fallacies, credibility, etc.)and presents those ideas in ways that make it a pleasure to read and learn from this book.

Rhetorical tricks exposed
This is a college textbook that I purchased because I was searching for a book that would review all the rhetorical tricks being used by politicians and special interest groups.For the past six years I've been simultaneously impressed and distressed with the increased sophistication being used to dodge discussing core issues and deceiving people.I believed I needed to further develop my awareness of when someone was using a rhetorical trick to avoid an issue or deceive the public, including myself.Once again excellent reader reviews helped me navigate to and choose this book and I was not disappointed!This book confronted many of the tricks being used by those in the media and using the media to get their message across while avoiding the truth.
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Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Education    3. Philosophy    4. Students & Student Life    5. Education / Students & Student Life   

Reviews (25)

Between the immediate and the theoretical
Nothing is more exhausting than the search for meaning. Every question has a thousand answers, each claiming to be correct. And each can be challenged by a thousand objections. Evermore we come out the same door as in we went, and return to -- ourselves.We alone are unavoidably the final arbiters of our personal beliefs and values.Occasionally we have the good fortune to find a guide through the jungle of perplexing philosophical questions who can explain issues clearly, distinctly, and quietly, without forcing his personal conclusions on us.But how do we know the guide is reliable?Before we have heard what he has to say, we don't.And if we chose to believe that he is reliable, that is our choice.
Perfect introduction to existentialism
A wonderful introduction to the major tenets and founders of existentialism. Concise, easy to read, easy to understand. Barrett's book allows the reader to build a formidable groundwork of existential understanding -- an understanding just as necessary to humanity today as it was 40+ years ago when Barrett wrote it.

Excellent introduction and review
This book was written fifty years ago, when Existentialism was a vibrant, new, and novel philosophy, which impacted both the student and the professors' lounges. This book is a clearly-written, colloquial, intelligent review of Ex. from its proto-twitchings through its early postbellum course. Sartre died years after this book was published; the improvement would be a revised edition which comments upon later Sartre, and throws light on the subsequent meanderings of structuralism and post-structualism, and the lunatic malicious gibberish of Derrida-ism. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Existentialism    2. History & Surveys - Modern    3. Movements - Existentialism    4. Philosophy    5. Philosophy / Existentialism   

Reviews (3)

Aesthetics, Teleology, and Kant
This book, the 'Critique of Judgement', is the third volume in Immanuel Kant's Critique project, which began with 'Critique of Pure Reason' and continued in 'Critique of Practical Reason'. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is considered one of the giants of philosophy, of his age or any other. It is largely this book that provides the foundation of this assessment. Whether one loves Kant or hates him (philosophically, that is), one cannot really ignore him; even when one isn't directly dealing with Kantian ideas, chances are great that Kant is made an impact.
Novalis
The editors list as one of their principles for rendering Kant's difficult German into English:"Our translators try to avoid sacrificing literalness to readability."Their notion of literalness is simply this:if one of Kant's sentences has five subordinate clauses, the English version should have five subordinate clauses.They obtusely fail to consider that German has grammatical markers that English does not have (e.g., gender of nouns and pronouns).Hence while Kant's German sentence might have a pronoun separated from its noun by some distance, gender will indicate the appropriate reference.In English, the referent for a pronoun is usally the noun most proximate--thus their introduction of great ambiguity into the English that does not exist in the German.The translators also presume that the only way to preserve Kant's argumentative structure is by adhering to his complex surface structure.But the logical grammar of Kant's arguments is obscured in English by the sacrifice of readability to their notion of literalness.Werner Pluhar has a better translation.

A fine edition
The placement of the First Introduction at the beginning of the book is very useful, providing a different feel as to the nature of the work as a whole.The relative of lack of [bracketed] comments compared to the Pluhar edition is also a plus. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Epistemology    3. Philosophy    4. Epistemology, theory of knowledge    5. History    6. Judgment (Logic)--Early works to 1800    7. Literary theory    8. Philosophy / General   

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Ethics & Moral Philosophy    3. History & Surveys - General    4. Philosophy    5. Romanticism    6. Philosophy / General    7. Topics in philosophy   

Reviews (3)

Justwhat it says it is! After consideration.
I first used Sarup's guide in my early days at university and, at the time, thought this a concise, lucid and accessible introductory text. Later, after coming to grips with the seminal works of the thinkers in Sarup's guide, I realised just how much was taken and used from their texts without any direct references or acknowledgement! I also feel however that sometimes Sarup's prejudices showed, in that certain thinkers and "thought" were given less attention than others according to his own discretion of who was siginificant and important in the academic hierarchy! His reading of Derrida is suspect, here it would be better to get your hands on "Deconstruction" by Christopher Norris as a primer to this essential thinker. Another gripe is the section on Michel Foucault! This is just not good enough. The ramifications of Foucault's work (especially with regard to feminisms, such as the works of Judith Butler and Susan Bordo, and David Halperin's text on Foucault and queer theory,"Saint Foucault"), are still being felt, as his genealogical and archaelogical investigations of power and knowledge, subvert and undermine hegemonies and discourses as we know them. This said, and all-in-all, Sarup offers a fairly comprehensive guide, albeit "very" introductory, of most of the thinkers and thought synonomous with postmodernism and post-structuralism.

An excellent introduction to a deep topic
The field of cultural criticism can be difficult to approach.Madan Sarup's book provides exactly what the title states, an excellent introduction to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism.His coverage of the critics and philosophers who espouse these schools of thought serve as a solid foundation for further studies.His comparisons of the theories of different authors was especially helpful, as was his treatment of the feminist critics, who seem to be often overlooked.

A necessity for understanding our culture
Sarup's book gives an excellent comprehensive introduction to two of the most prevelant theories/philosophies of literary and cultural criticism.Poststructuralism and Postmodernism are not easy concepts to get a grip on,but Sarup's book will help anyone interested.It is a necessity for anyonewho wants to better understand the culture that we all participate in everyday.The book outlines the key concepts of the major thinkers ofpoststructuralism (Derrida, Barthes, Lacan, Foucault) and postmodernism(Lyotard, Baudrillard, Jameson).It deals with concepts such asdeconstruction, psychoanalysis, the relationship between power and history,hyperreality, etc.I recommend it for any student of literature as well asanyone interested in the increasingly popular field of cultural criticism. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Criticism    3. History & Surveys - General    4. Philosophy    5. Philosophy, Modern    6. Postmodernism    7. Poststructuralism    8. Western philosophy   

Reviews (7)

The Black Book of Western Philosophy
The dialectic of Enlightenment is a history of appearances and false totalities that end up in totalitarianism. It is history presented as instrument of dominion. The false totalities of myth and rationality hides the primordial lie in which the law of identity appears in the world. By this logic, everything must be the same. Appearance is mythical in the sense that promise something that can never be fulfilled. The central argument of this wonderful book is that myth is already enlightenment because it tries to explain the world and gain utility from it; and enlightenment is already myth for it tries to exorcise everything different from it. As Adorno & Horkheimer puts it: "Enlightenment has a mythical horror to myth." The impulse for which Enlightenment tries to free itself from myth goes against itself in the form of saturating technical, formal rationality that will end up in the horror of ethnic genocide. This is the black book of Western philosophy.

This Amazon Page is a Disaster!!
This Amazon page is a disaster.The sample pages are from the earlier, terrible translation published by Continuum.One of the reader reviews is (as it notes) actually a review of the earlier translation.What is it doing here??In fact, all of the reviews predate the publication of the new translation.
Culture as a new barbarism
"Dialectic of Enlightenment", one of the most celebrated texts of the Frankfurt School, endeavours to answer why modernity, instead of fulfilling the promises of the Enlightenment (e.g. progress, reason, order) has sunk into a new barbarism. Drawing on their own work on the "culture industry", as well as the ideas of the key thinkers of the Enlightenment project, (Descartes, Newton, Kant) Horkheimer and Adorno explain how the Enlightenment's orientation towards rational calculability and man's domination of a disenchanted nature evinces a reversion to myth, and is responsible for the reified structures of modern administered society, which has grown to resemble a new enslavement. Furthermore, Horkheimer's and Adorno's treatise was one of the most ambitious attempts to synthesise Marxist economic analysis with Freudian psychoanalysis, and is developed with much complexity and skill. Their philosophical and psychological critique of the Enlightenment concepts of reason and nature (which they identify as the loci of domination) spans almost the entire history of Western thought up until recent times, from Homer to Nietzsche. The book was written in 1944, during a phase of the war when the threat of Fascist victory still hung ominously over Europe, and when Horkheimer and Adorno themselves had to flee Germany to America. "Dialectic of Enlightenment" thus represents one of the most pessimistic strands of Marxist thought, giving up all expectations of a people's revolution in Western Europe. This was, in addition to the outbreak of the Second World War, due to the meteoric rise of extremely right-wing reactionary parties in the twenties, and their subsequent popularity, which ruled out by fiat any chance of a popular support for the left. The proletariat, instead of embracing the cause of the people's revolution, opted to give their vote to the Fascists. In their psychoanalytic investigation of this phenomena, Horkheimer and Adorno identify the rise of Fascism with the return of the repressed. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. Garden Design    3. General    4. History & Surveys - Modern    5. Philosophy    6. Sociology    7. Political science & theory   

Reviews (7)

Semantics Relativized
The title of this book is a figurative expression of one of the fundamental theses of the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of language - the thesis of the contextually relativized determination of meaning.An example is any ordinary unilanguage dictionary, which displays our most tenaciously held beliefs with each term defined in relation to other terms that are as it were nodes in the "web" that constitutes the dictionary.But beyond the dictionary we also hold many additional beliefs, such as in current school textbooks, which make our semantics much richer and more complex than the simple dictionary meaning.More generally all of our shared and conventional beliefs taken together are in effect a dictionary that glues our language together.
Very much worth the challenge
Williard V. Quine (1908-2000), a brilliant mathematician and philosopher from Akron, Ohio and Joseph S. Ullian (1930-), currently a professor of philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, composed The Web of Belief for "freshmen courses in English" (p. v) in 1970. The small book contains 145 pages divided into ten chapters that look promising but quickly become intimidating.
Approached as a textbook, this work shines
Approached as a textbook, this work by Quine and that other guy stands out as an unusual piece that does just enough to interest the reader in the field, without being tedious and overwhelming.
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Subjects:  1. Belief and doubt    2. Computer Books: General    3. Criticism    4. Epistemology    5. Logic    6. Philosophy    7. Reasoning    8. Philosophy / Criticism    9. Psychology   

Reviews (1)

Really good introduction to Kant
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in getting an introduction to Kant that doesn't require an advanced background in philosophy.Guyer's writing is clear and comprehensible for all of us non-specialists out there.I highly recommend this title! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Criticism    2. General    3. History & Surveys - 17th/18th Century    4. History & Surveys - General    5. Philosophy    6. Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present    7. Philosophy / General   

Reviews (22)

Doomsday is coming unless we change
Only 199 pages yet I wanted to underline every word.So many wise assessments on the human race and its avariciousness, stupidity and recklessness during the miniscule time it has occupied planet Earth.The synopsis of John Gray's book is that if we continue with our ego-centric attitude and destructive acts on this planet there will be only one survivor, and it won't be the human race.The planet has its protective mechanism and we will go the way of the dinosaurs.

The enemy of my enemy?
Forget "Mere Christianity". This is the single greatest apologetic work of our time. John Gray ruthlessly demolishes the myth of progress and secular humanism without a religious foundation. Atheists think that they can reject God and the Christian heritage and still find meaning in their lives and the pursuit of truth through science. Think again. Truth, as John Gray argues, is divine. Once you give God up, to be consistent and to avoid cognitive dissonance you have to give up EVERYTHING associated with the idea, including truth, freedom, happiness, love, justice and all the rest. This is what the world looks like without God, folks. Stop fooling yourselves.

We cannot make the world to be for us.
It is over a hundred years since Darwin revealed to us our animal lineage, and yet the human primate is still having difficulty coming to terms with its animal origins.All bar creationists may indeed now accept that we are descended from apes, but most of us still cling to the belief that we have somehow become different to the rest of the animal kingdom.Our ability to use language and reason, to see ourselves as selves, selves that move forward in time and, with other selves, progress by building a culture based on moral rules and a technology that seems to give us ever increasing control over our environment.Surely this is enough to set us apart from the rest of nature?No. Thankfully, a British philosopher who lives and breathes today but who speaks with the depth and clarity of a modern day Schopenhauer is here to rid you of this delusion.