Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

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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 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 relevancePlato 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. New Download Kindle ePUB Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away By Rebecca Goldstein – kino-fada.fr Plato on GoodreadsMANNY Plato, welcome to Goodreads I can t tell you what an honor PLATO No, no, please, I find this fascinating What a wonderful agora you have created for philosophical discussions I have been exploring it all dayMANNY You have PLATO I will come back again I am still not accustomed to the extraordinary profusion of books that your time has produced The site is quite helpful in locating theinteresting ones.MANNY Well, that s, ah, that s very nice to hear But Plato on GoodreadsMANNY Plato, welcome to Goodreads I can t tell you what an honor PLATO No, no, please, I find this fascinating What a wonderful agora you have created for philosophical discussions I have been exploring it all dayMANNY You have PLATO I will come back again I am still not accustomed to the extraordinary profusion of books that your time has produced The site is quite helpful in locating theinteresting ones.MANNY Well, that s, ah, that s very nice to hear But actually, I was hoping w...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 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 ...Plato was born in 428 or 427 BCE and died in 348 or 347 BCE at about 81, and, to Rebecca Goldstein s credit, he comes back to life in this book So do his times The Greek city states poleis , and especially Athens, reached their peak after winning the Persian Wars The way the author portrays the situation, they then no longer had to look back at an age of Homeric giants before the dark centuries Instead, they most particularly, the Athenians saw themselves as giants and set out to express Plato was born in 428 or 427 BCE and died in 348 or 347 BCE at about 81, and, to Rebecca Goldstein s credit, he comes back to life in this book So do his times The Greek city states poleis , and especially Athens, reached their peak after winning the Persian Wars The way the author portrays the situation, they then no longer had to look back at an age of Homeric giants before the dark centuries Instead, they most particularly, the Athenians saw themselves as giants and set out to express that with their sculpture and architecture, their democratic politics and luxury and cultural advances Full of themselves they proceeded to knock themselves out, expending their energies in the Peloponnesian War in which all the poleis fought each other and among themselves, leading eventually to Athens comi...I finally went with a 2 star rating for this book I will note that Goldstein did stimulate my thought at times, albeit half the time to take notes on how she was wrong, and did get me to modify somewhat the harsh take I ve had on Socrates since reading Izzy Stone, but, the book is still not that good.First, a couple of overarching issues.I am discomfited by a professional philosopher diving into the tank of commercial toutery Plato can t just have a laptop, he has to have a Chromebook He can I finally went with a 2 star rating for this book I will note that Goldstein did stimulate my thought at times, albeit half the time to take notes on how she was wrong, and did get me to modify somewhat the harsh take I ve had on Socrates since reading Izzy Stone, but, the book is still not that good.First, a couple of overarching issues.I am discomfited by a professional philosopher diving into the tank of commercial toutery Plato can t just have a laptop, he has to have a Chromebook He can t just like the Internet, he has to like Google for searches rather than using a generic term for Internet search He has to like Google s cloud based services He has to like Google so much that, per one chapter that gives the book its titl...Plato s back Reading Plato was by far my favorite part of studying philosophy in college, and it was sheer delight to encounter him again in this book Author Rebecca Goldstein, both a philosophy professor and a novelist, poses an interesting question Now that the sciences have advanced so far in explaining the inner and outer worlds of our universe from the subatomic level to the farthest galaxies, and from the genetic codes for life to the structures of the brain that support thought, Plato s back Reading Plato was by far my favorite part of studying philosophy in college, and it was sheer delight to encounter him again in this book Author Rebecca Goldstein, both a philosophy professor and a novelist, poses an interesting question Now that the sciences have advanced so far in explaining the inner and outer worlds of our universe from the suba...I always imagined what an intellectual hero from the past would think of our modern world I have wondered what Tom Paine, Bertrand Russell or George Orwell would think of us living today The author has taken this historical fantasy and applied it to Plato The author takes the father of philosophy and has...This is a nice survey of Plato a philosopher I ve always really admired and still think about a lot, though I m not sure I agree with a single one of his main points Unfortunately, there s not as much new material here as I d hoped and I m not sure I was convinced of Goldstein s main argument about the usefulness of philosophy in the age of science The part of me that almost majored in philosophy years ago was hoping sort of blindly to be convinced But Goldstein has achieved something This is a nice survey of Plato a philosopher I ve always really admired and still think about a lot, though I m not sure I agree with a single one of his main points Unfortunately, there s not as much new material here as I d hoped and I m not sure I was convinced of Goldstein s main argument about the usefulness of philosophy in the age of science The part of ...This was a very interesting book I am very unfamiliar with the topic of philosophy, and approached this book in a mindset where I felt the need to be convinced of the relevancy of the topic While a lot of the discussion did seem to be beyond me at times, I definitely feel better for having read this Most of the book is framed as a fictional dialogs between Plato and modern day folks ranging from his book tour publicity agent to a neuroscientist, though my favorite was probably his TV This was a very interesting book I am very unfamiliar with the topic of...Some background I had to take a philosophy course in college and for the final exam my paper was along the lines of the futility of studying the topic at all like the old Bill Cosby comedy piece Why is there air The paper came back with a big C and a note that others took the same topic and did a much better job with it But, somehow, this book caught my eye probably the thought of Plato visiting the Googleplex, participating in a panel discussion at the 92nd Street Y, Plato on Cable Some background I had to take a philosophy course in college and for the final exam my paper was along the lines of the futility of studying the topic at all like the old Bill Cosby comedy piece Why is there air The paper came back with a big C and a note that others took the same topic and did a much better job with it But, somehow, this book caught my eye probably the thought of Plato visiting the Googleplex, participating in a panel discussion at the 92nd Street Y, Plato o...Typical Goldstein fare intelligent, playful, entertaining, wise Argues convincingly for the relevance of ancient Greek philosophy in our time, and effectively dismantles the oft cited claim pace Whitehead that all of philosophy post Plato is merely a gloss on Plato A terrific read.

Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away
  • English
  • 20 December 2019
  • Hardcover
  • 461 pages
  • 0307378195
  • Rebecca Goldstein
  • Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away