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Fear of Knowledge (Paperback)
[Buy it!] | Paul Boghossian | USD 32.64
(Fri Jun 7 07:25:39 2024) | AbebooksUK | CitiRetail | ISBN10: 0199230412, ISBN13: 9780199230419, [publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford] Softcover Paperback. The academic world has been plagued in recent years by scepticism about truth and knowledge. Paul Boghossian, in his long-awaited first book, sweeps away relativist claims that there is no such thing as objective truth or knowledge, but only truth or knowledge from a particular perspective. He demonstrates clearly that such claims don't even make sense. Boghossian focuses on three different ways of reading the claim that knowledge is sociallyconstructed - one as a thesis about truth and two about justification. And he rejects all three. The intuitive, common-sense view is that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion,and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reasonable, binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant evidence regardless of their social or cultural perspective. Difficult as these notions may be, it is a mistake to think that recent philosophy has uncovered powerful reasons for rejecting them. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; itwill prove provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond. The idea that science is just one more way of knowing the world and that there are other, radically different, yet equally valid ways, has taken deep root in academia. In Fear of Knowledge, Paul Boghossian tears these relativist theories of knowledge to shreds. He argues forcefully for the intuitive, common-sense view—that the world exists independent of human opinion and that there is a way to arrive at beliefs about the world that are objectively reasonable and binding on anyone capable to appreciating the relevant evidence, regardless of their social or cultural perspective. "This is a book that can be read in an afternoon and thought about for a lifetime. His analysis is something of a tour de force: subtle and original enough to attract the attention of professional philosophers but accessible enough to be read by anyone with an interest in the subject. The result is one of the most readable works in philosophy in recent years." —Wall Street Journal Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.
[Stevenage, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2007]
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