Michael Luntley – författare

Michael Luntley provides a lively introduction to the debate over postmodernism. Sympathisers of the postmodernist critique of absolute knowledge have jetisoned concepts of reason,t ruth and self; this abandonment has fuelled their opponents' case against postmodernism. This has led them to ignore the very real problems raised by the postmodernists. Luntley offers a clear and careful exposition of how rational debate survives despite the Enlightenment's failings.Reason, Truth and Self covers many of the key questions of our age:* How rational is science?* Can we really know the truth about ourselves and the world?* What is the nature of the mind?* Can we know the difference between right and wrong?Reason, Truth and Self is ideal for courses in philosophy and the social sciences.

Michael Luntley provides a lively introduction to the debate over postmodernism. Sympathisers of the postmodernist critique of absolute knowledge have jetisoned concepts of reason,t ruth and self; this abandonment has fuelled their opponents' case against postmodernism. This has led them to ignore the very real problems raised by the postmodernists. Luntley offers a clear and careful exposition of how rational debate survives despite the Enlightenment's failings.Reason, Truth and Self covers many of the key questions of our age:* How rational is science?* Can we really know the truth about ourselves and the world?* What is the nature of the mind?* Can we know the difference between right and wrong?Reason, Truth and Self is ideal for courses in philosophy and the social sciences.

This lucid and engaging volume provides an introduction to the essential issues and concepts of contemporary analytic philosophy.

Book jacket/back: Realism is a myth. It is an unnecessary and untenable myth which has overshadowed our grasp of the concepts of objectivity and truth. This book seeks to show why it is an untenable myth and how we can live with the recognition that it is unnecessary.So deeply entrenched is the myth of realism that, until recently, one was hard pressed to characterize the position in any but a metaphorical manner. One would say that realism is the view that the world we take as the object of our cognitive enquiries is an objective world whose existence and constitution is 'independent' of our knowledge of it. Often one hears the point put that it is a world 'out there'! Although the debate about realism has been, and is, a philosophical debate about what I take to be a philosophical myth, it is a debate which reaches beyond strictly philosophical issues, for this myth is infected, and is responsible for, debates in other disciplines concerning the possibility of construing their activities at objective cognitive enquiries. The social sciences are an obvious example, but the myth goes deeper, reaching into widespread nihilism prompted by what is seen as the thwarting of scientific objectivity by what Camus called the "unreasonable silence of the world" ('The Myth of Sisyphus'). If the arguments in this book are correct many of these broader problems can be resolved and we will find that, far from being confronted by an unreasonable silence, we are bombarded with an excess of noise when we come to see our concepts of objectivity and truth aright..."

In this provocatively compelling new book, Michael Luntley offers a revolutionary reading of the opening section of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations Critically engages with the most recent exegetical literature on Wittgenstein and other state-of-the-art philosophical workEncourages the re-incorporation of Wittgenstein studies into the mainstream philosophical conversationHas profound consequences for how we go on to read the rest of Wittgenstein’s major workMakes a significant contribution not only to the literature on Wittgenstein, but also to studies in philosophy of language