Sketches of landscapes

Avrum Stroll accepts the ancient tradition that one of the tasks of philosophy is to give an accurate account of the world's features, both animate and inanimate. But, he contends, because these features are inexhaustibly complex, no single theory or conceptual model can provide a complete account. Stroll's approach is piecemeal and example-oriented. In stressing the importance of examples, his work runs counter to one of the most powerful and seductive ways of thinking about the world - the Platonic tradition, which denigrates examples in the search for essences. Stroll favors pluralism, on the ground that this is how the world is.

First sentence: Popkin has taught us some valuable lessons about the history of modern philosophy, and especially about the important role that scepticism plays in that history.

Year

1997

Language

English

Publisher

The MIT Press

Editions

1

Pages

298

ISBN

9780262193917

Data source: Wikidata