Authors:
Explores controversial aspects in both modern and ancient philosophy in the form of fictional dialogues
Explores intellectural issues throughout history
Illustrates the wider differences of opinion at the time at which they lived
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Table of contents (33 chapters)
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Front Matter
About this book
How would Plato have responded if his student Aristotle had ever challenged his idea that our senses perceive nothing more than the shadows cast upon a wall by a true world of perfect ideals? What would Charles Darwin have said to Karl Marx about his claim that dialectical materialism is a scientific theory of evolution? How would Jean-Paul Sartre have reacted to Simone de Beauvoir’s claim that the Marquis de Sade was a philosopher worthy of serious attention?
This light-hearted book proposes answers to such questions by imagining dialogues between thirty-three pairs of philosophical sages who were alive at the same time. Sometime famous sages get a much rougher handling than usual, as when Adam Smith beards Immanuel Kant in his Konigsberg den. Sometimes neglected or maligned sages get a chance to say what they really believed, as when Epicurus explains that he wasn’t epicurean. Sometimes the dialogues are about the origins of modern concepts, as when Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat discuss their invention of probability, or when John Nash and John von Neumann discuss the creation of game theory. Even in these scientific cases, the intention is that the protagonists come across as fallible human beings like the rest of us, rather than the intellectual paragons of philosophical textbooks.
Keywords
- pairs of philosophical sages
- Physis versus nomos
- Realism versus nominalism
- Idealism versus materialism
- Tradition versus enlightenment
- Faith versus science
- Rationalism versus empiricism
- Ancient philosophy
- Protagoras
- Aristotle
- Plato
- John Locke
- Thomas Hobbes
- Charles Darwin
- Karl Marx
- dialectical materialism
Authors and Affiliations
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University College London, Monmouth, UK
Kenneth Binmore
About the author
Kenneth Binmore is a mathematician turned economist and philosopher. He has held Chairs at the London School of Economics (UK), the University of Michigan (USA), and University College London (UK). He has been involved in a range of applied projects, including the design of major telecom auctions in various countries across the world. As a consequence of the $35 billion raised by the telecom auction he organized in the UK, he was described by Newsweek magazine as the “ruthless, poker-playing economist who destroyed the telecom industry”. He has contributed to game theory, experimental economics, evolutionary biology and moral philosophy. His books include Natural Justice (OUP), Does Game Theory Work? (MIT Press), A Very Short Introduction to Game Theory (OUP), Rational Decisions (PUP), and Crooked Thinking or Straight Talk? (Springer).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Imaginary Philosophical Dialogues
Book Subtitle: between Sages down the Ages
Authors: Kenneth Binmore
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65387-3
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-65386-6Published: 24 December 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-65387-3Published: 23 December 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 209
Topics: Philosophy, general, Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods