Redirecting Philosophy: Reflections on the Nature of Knowledge from Plato to Lonergan

In a contemporary climate that tends to dismiss philosophy as an outmoded and increasingly useless discipline, philosophers have been forced to reconsider much of what they have formerly taken for granted. Redirecting Philosophy, Hugo Meynell's reassessment of the foundations and nature of knowledge, is a compelling response to this trend.

This illuminating study surveys and analysis the views of the most influential contemporary thinkers in the English-speaking world (Wittgenstein, Strawson, Searle, Popper, Feyerabend, Kuhn, Rorty, Lonergan) and in continental philosophy (Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas). In setting those views against the background of classical philosophy, Meynell offers fresh perspectives on the basic problems that occupy philosophers today - problems such as scepticism, truth, experience, metaphysics, method, power, humane values, and the role of science.

An insightful, up-to-date guide to philosophy and the theory of science, Meynell's book will be stimulating and valuable reading both in and out of the classroom.

HUGO MEYNELL is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary.