Plato at the Googleplex

Plato at the Googleplex
Author :
Publisher : Pantheon
Total Pages : 481
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780307908872
ISBN-13 : 0307908879
Rating : 4/5 (879 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Plato at the Googleplex by : Rebecca Goldstein

Download or read book Plato at the Googleplex written by Rebecca Goldstein and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.)


Plato at the Googleplex Related Books

Plato at the Googleplex
Language: en
Pages: 481
Authors: Rebecca Goldstein
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-03-04 - Publisher: Pantheon

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 acc
Plato at the Googleplex
Language: en
Pages: 482
Authors: Rebecca Goldstein
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-01-06 - Publisher: Vintage

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 acc
The Anthropocene and the Humanities
Language: en
Pages: 231
Authors: Carolyn Merchant
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-04-14 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A wide-ranging and original introduction to the Anthropocene that offers fresh, theoretical insights bridging the sciences and the humanities From noted environ
Plato and the Body
Language: en
Pages: 270
Authors: Coleen P. Zoller
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-08-01 - Publisher: SUNY Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Offers an innovative reading of Plato, analyzing his metaphysical, ethical, and political commitments in connection with feminist critiques. For centuries, it h
Science and Ethics in Dialogue
Language: en
Pages: 165
Authors: Ann Boyd
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-10-01 - Publisher: Biota Publishing

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book represents my experience teaching graduate students in Biomedical Science at Hood College. Being science majors, the students have a limited backgroun