The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century PhilosophyPart memoir, part study, The Making of a Philosopher is the self–portrait of a deeply intelligent mind as it develops over a life on both sides of the Atlantic. The Making of a Philosopher follows Colin McGinn from his early years in England reading Descartes and Anselm, to his years in the states, first in Los Angeles, then New York. McGinn presents a contemporary academic take on the great philosophical figures of the twentieth century, including Bertrand Russell, Jean–Paul Sartre, and Noam Chomsky, alongside stories of the teachers who informed his ideas and often became friends and mentors, especially the colorful A.J. Ayer at Oxford. McGinn's prose is always elegant and probing; students of contemporary philosophy and the general reader alike will absorb every page. |
From inside the book
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... sense-data, impressions, experiences, representations. Perception is not a faculty that unlocks the ways of the physical world outside of our minds; rather, it is confined to a purely inner array of mental items. The only reality we ...
... sense-data in the ordinary veridical case too? When you “see” a real dagger you see a sense-datum of a dagger; it is just that there is an actual dagger there that matches your directly experienced daggerlike sense-datum. So what you ...
... sense-data you have after having the sense-data of walking to the room; the objects remain maddeningly out of reach. It is just a short step from this to full-blown industrial-strength Cartesian skepticism: All you really know to exist ...
... sense-data. Maybe the entire universe is just a shimmering wall of illusion, with my consciousness as the only ... sensory nerves and activate parts of our brain; if we can reproduce those signals without the aid of actual physical ...
Contents
Chapter Three Logic and Language | |
Chapter Four Mind and Reality | |
Chapter Five Belief Desire and Wittgenstein | |
Chapter Six Consciousness and Cognition | |
Chapter Seven Metaphilosophy and Fiction | |
Chapter Eight Evil Beauty and Logic | |
Acknowledgments | |
Other editions - View all
The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy Colin McGinn Limited preview - 2003 |
The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-century Philosophy Colin McGinn No preview available - 2003 |
The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy Colin McGinn No preview available - 2002 |