Solving, Resolving, and Dissolving Philosophical Problems: Essays in Connective, Contrastive and Contextual Analysis

Equips readers with the intellectual tools required to tackle perennial philosophical problems

Solving, Resolving, and Dissolving Philosophical Problems is addressed to all who are interested in philosophical questions. It presupposes little philosophical knowledge, only curiosity and an open mind. It demands a willingness to learn not doctrine but method, and the courage to suspend judgement and to challenge received ideas.

Advocating the method of the 3 C-s: Connective, Contrastive, and Contextual Analysis, the book demonstrates the method by putting it to work ― examining fifteen salient philosophical questions that concern all thinking people. It is organized thematically into four parts. Part I introduces questions in philosophy of psychology (the nature of the mind; the mind/body problem; the nature of consciousness and its demystification; knowledge of other minds). Part II deals with epistemological questions (knowledge, belief; memory; imagination, thinking; dreaming). Part III deals with value (the roots of morality; the nature of good and evil; the need for a secular conception of the soul; happiness). The application of the method in the essays produces striking, original and unanticipated results that will give readers pause. The final part of the book articulates in detail the methodology of the 3 C-s exemplified by the fifteen essays and defends it against objections.

Solving, Resolving, and Dissolving Philosophical Problems: On the Methodology of Connective, Contrastive, and Contextual Analysis is an excellent textbook for undergraduate students in introductory philosophy courses alongside more advanced scholars, as well as an invaluable resource for educated general readers with an interest in philosophical methodology.

P.M.S. HACKER is an Emeritus Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford. He is a leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He has also written extensively on philosophy of mind, philosophy and neuroscience, and philosophy of language. He is author of 25 books and 175 papers. His most recent works are the 2nd edition of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (co-authored with the great neuroscientist M. R. Bennett), his human nature tetralogy: Human Nature: the Categorial Framework; The Intellectual Powers; The Passions; The Moral Powers; and A Beginner’s Guide to the Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein.