The Philosophers Their Lives and the Nature of Their Thought |
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| Author:
| Scharfstein, Ben-Ami |
| ISBN: | 978-1-280-53334-1 |
| Publication Date: | Jan 1989 |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press
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| Book Format: | Ebook |
| List Price: | USD $22.50 |
Book Description:
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This highly readable volume offers a broad introduction to modern philosophy and philosophers. Ben-Ami Scharfstein contends that personal experience, especially that of childhood, affects philosophies. He bases his argument on biographical studies of twenty great philosophers, beginning with Descartes and ending with Wittgenstein and Sartre. Taken together, these studies provide the beginnings of a psychological history of the philosophy of the period.
Scharfstein first focuses on...
More Description
This highly readable volume offers a broad introduction to modern philosophy and philosophers. Ben-Ami Scharfstein contends that personal experience, especially that of childhood, affects philosophies. He bases his argument on biographical studies of twenty great philosophers, beginning with Descartes and ending with Wittgenstein and Sartre. Taken together, these studies provide the beginnings of a psychological history of the philosophy of the period.
Scharfstein first focuses on the efforts of these philosophers to arrive at the objective truth and to persuade themselves and others of its existence. He then explores both truth and relevance, proposes the broadening of the traditional philosophical conception of relevance, and emphasizes the need of philosophers to create something that both belongs to and transcends them as individuals.