Stefan Storrie - Böcker

This is the first volume of essays devoted to Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, a classic of early modern philosophy. Leading experts examine all the central issues in Berkeley's work. The Three Dialogues is a dramatization of Berkeley's philosophy in which the two protagonists Hylas and Philonous debate the full range of Berkeleyan themes: the rejection of material substance, the nature of perception and reality, the limits of human knowledge, and his approach to the perceived threats of skepticism, atheism and immorality. When Berkeley presented his first statement of his immaterialist philosophy in the Principles of Human Knowledge three years earlier he was met with incredulity - how could a sane person deny the existence of matter? Berkeley felt that a new approach was needed in order to bring people over to his novel point of view. This new effort was the Three Dialogues. In the preface to the Three Dialogues Berkeley stated that its aim was to "treat more clearly and fully of certain principles laid down" in the Principles. Esteem for Berkeley's work has increased significantly in recent decades, and this volume will be the starting-point for future research.

Although the year 1984 is hurtling back into the distant past, Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four continues to have a huge readership and to help shape the world of 2084. Sales of Orwell’s terrifying tale have recently spiked because of current worries about alternate facts, post-truth, and fake news.1984 and Philosophy brings together brand new, up-to-the-minute thinking by philosophers about Nineteen Eighty-Four as it relates to today’s culture, politics, and everyday life. Some of the thinking amounts to thoughtcrime, but we managed to sneak it past the agents of the Ministry of Truth, so this is a book to be read quickly before the words on the page mysteriously transform into something different.Who’s controlling our lives and are they getting even more levers to control us? Is truth objective or just made up? What did Orwell get right—and did he get some things wrong? Are social media opportunities for liberation or instruments of oppression? How can we fight back against totalitarian control? Can Big Brother compel us to love him? How does the language we use affect the way we think? Do we really need the unifying power of hate? Why did Orwell make Nineteen Eighty-Four so desperately hopeless? Can science be protected from poisonous ideology? Can we really believe two contradictory things at once? Who surveils the surveilors?

The Routledge Guidebook to Berkeley’s Three Dialogues is an engaging introduction to the last of a trio of works that cemented Berkeley’s position as one of the truly great philosophers of the western canon. Berkeley’s distinctive idealist philosophy has been a challenge and inspiration for thinkers ever since. Written for readers approaching this seminal work for the first time, this book: provides the philosophical context in which Three Dialogues was written; critically discusses the arguments in each of the Three Dialogues; and examines some of the principal disputes concerning the interpretation of his work. The Routledge Guidebook to Berkeley’s Three Dialogues offers a clear and comprehensive guide to this ground-breaking volume and includes further reading sections at the end of each chapter. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this influential work.