Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away Author: Rebecca Goldstein | Language: English | ISBN:
B00F1W0D90 | Format: EPUB
Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away Description
Is philosophy obsolete? Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news? The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science.
At the origin of Western philosophy stands Plato, who got about as much wrong as one would expect from a thinker who lived 2,400 years ago. But Plato’s role in shaping philosophy was pivotal. On her way to considering the place of philosophy in our ongoing intellectual life, Goldstein tells a new story of its origin, re-envisioning the extraordinary culture that produced the man who produced philosophy.
But it is primarily the fate of philosophy that concerns her. Is the discipline no more than a way of biding our time until the scientists arrive on the scene? Have they already arrived? Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation of these conundra. She interweaves her narrative with Plato’s own choice for bringing ideas to life—the dialogue.
Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato’s brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowd-sourced rather than reasoned out by experts? With a philosopher’s depth and a novelist’s imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world.
(With black-and-white photographs throughout.)
- File Size: 2917 KB
- Print Length: 481 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307378195
- Publisher: Pantheon (March 4, 2014)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00F1W0D90
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,690 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Greek & Roman
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Ethics & Morality - #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Greek & Roman - #2
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Greek & Roman
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. In her new book, "Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away" (2014) Rebecca Goldstein examines the continuous nature of philosophical questioning through a partly expository partly fictional presentation of the thought of the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato. The twentieth century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead observed that all Western philosophy basically constitutes a series of "footnotes to Plato".
Rebecca Goldstein serves as both author and guide in this latest "footnote to Plato". One can only be humbled by her range of learning and her literary skill. Goldstein, a MacArthur Fellow, has written philosophical studies, including a book about Spinoza, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (Jewish Encounters) and philosophical novels, most recently "36 Arguments for the Existence of God". 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (Vintage Contemporaries) She combines philosophy, fiction, and much else in this book. It is rare that a thinker can write with such scholarship and insight on diverse, difficult subjects such as ancient philosophy and history, popular culture, Spinoza, and the mathematical philosopher Kurt Godel. Goldstein does so with a breathtaking ease.
Goldstein aims to show how philosophy, in the face of its many detractors, remains of critical importance.
Modern Euro-Americans can’t venture outdoors or watch television without encountering some concept which began with Plato. Politics? Plato wrote entire books on public service and leadership. Art? Plato couldn’t restrain himself from voicing opinions on artists’ responsibilities and role. Science? Okay, he didn’t invent experimental technique, but he pioneered ideas in physical cosmology. Yet moderns like us are monumentally resistant to Plato, at least directly. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein wonders why.
Philosophy, as we understand the word, begins with one fundamental question: “Why?” Why do we consider certain ideas obvious and true, rather than their opposite? Why do we do our jobs specific ways? Why do we spend our time on such-and-such? Plato’s mentor, the semi-legendary Socrates, wandered ancient Athens, asking politicians and scholars and tradesman questions. Whatever somebody considered self-evident, whatever certainties left citizens numb, Socrates punctured with simple dialog.
Notwithstanding his foundational position, Plato did not invent philosophy. The process began with nigh-forgotten Ionian scholars ruminating about what we’d now call science. Their speculative cosmology, roughly equal to seven-day creationism, makes Thales and Anaximander mere relics. Plato shifted philosophy’s focus off physical science and onto human spirits. He initiated questions about education, politics, and morals that pay off daily in modern schools, elections, and daily life.
Despite this persistence, not everyone agrees Plato remains relevant. Goldstein quotes people she calls “philosophy jeerers” on why changing times have (putatively) rendered conventional philosophy obsolete.
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