Metaphors of knowledge

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Richard H. Popkin, José R. Maia Neto

"Skepticism: An Anthology offers selections from many of the major Western philosophers who have grappled with the two main questions of epistemology: What can we know? and How do we know it? The skeptical tradition questioned the veracity of many knowledge claims and the means by which that knowledge was supposedly obtained in order to reach the core of what could truly be known. This volume contains the principal texts of the skeptical tradition from its origins in antiquity to contemporary philosophy. Selections include the writings of both well-known philosophers of the Western tradition - such as Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, James, Wittgenstein, Feyerabend, and Fogelin - and lesser-known but influential philosophers including Hervet, Charron, Sanchez, Gassendi, Crousaz, Schulze, and Shestov - who either advanced skeptical views or dealt with skeptical issues in order to confront some specific problems in philosophy or religion. The editors' introduction to the origins, kinds, and significance of philosophical skepticism places the readings in their appropriate historical contexts. Richard H. Popkin and Jose R. Maia Neto have also added brief discussions about each philosopher and the selections included in the anthology, plus a selected bibliography, which lists the main secondary literature on ancient, modern, and contemporary skepticism." "This collection is an introduction to an enduring and profoundly influential school of thought as well as stimulating reading for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of humankind's unending desire to learn more about itself and the world."--Jacket.

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G. E. M. Anscombe

Posthumously published work by Wittgenstein, in which he came to overthrow some number of his earlier ideas as published in the Tractatus.

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Eli Friedlander

"At the heart of Eli Friedlander's interpretation is the internal relation between the logical and the ethical in the Tractatus, a relation that emerges in the work of drawing the limits of language. To show how the Tractatus, far from separating the ethical and the logical into distinct domains, instead brings out their essential affinity, Friedlander focuses on Wittgenstein's use of the term "form," particularly his characterization of the form of objects. In this reading, the concept of form points to a threefold distinction in the text among the problematics of facts, objects, and the world. Most important, it provides a key to understanding how Wittgenstein's work opens a perspective on the world through the recognition of the form of objects rather than through the grasping of facts - thus revealing the dimensions of subjectivity involved in having a world, or in assuming that form of experience apart from systematic logic.". "Bearing on the question of the divide between analytic and Continental philosophy, this interpretation views Wittgenstein's work as a possible mediation between these two central philosophical traditions of the modern age. It will be of interest not only to Wittgenstein scholars but to anyone concerned with twentieth-century philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.

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Stephen J. McKenna

"In this volume, Stephen J. McKenna provides the first book-length treatment of Adam Smith's rhetorical theory, focusing on his theory of rhetorical propriety - the means by which effective communication is adapted to the variables of subject, audience, speaker or writer, purpose, and moment - and the centrality of this concept to his thought."--BOOK JACKET.