The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay

Cover
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part I. The Rise and Fall of Philosophy in Antiquity
	Chapter 1. The Emergence of Philosophy
		Coming to Terms with the World
		A Presocratic Genealogy
		The Transition to Philosophy
		Outwitting Opponents vs Intellectual Morality
		The Metaphysics of Morals
		Moral Complexity
	Chapter 2. Metaphysics as a Form of Understanding
		Explanation by Essential Properties
		Logic as a Route to Understanding
		Epistemology and Morality
	Chapter 3. Philosophy’s Loss of Autonomy
		The Good Life
		The Undisturbed Life
		The Vagaries of Platonism
		The Christian Assimilation of Philosophy
Part II. Philosophy Re-Purposed as the Ultimate Arbiter
	Chapter 4. The Creation of an Autonomous Role for Philosophy
		Philosophy as a Tool of Theology
		The Revival of Aristotle
		The Role of Metaphysics
		Losing Control: Renaissance Naturalism
		Regaining Control: The Abandonment of Aristotle
		The Persona of the New Natural Philosopher
	Chapter 5. From Natural Philosophy to Epistemology
		Reconfiguring Knowledge
		Optics and Representationalism
		Knowledge of the World
		Does Natural Philosophy Replace Sense Perception?
	Chapter 6. Reason versus Sensibility
		Contact with the World
		Moral Diversity and Moral Complexity
		Beyond Philosophy?
Part III. The Decline of Philosophy and Its Re-Purposing as Metascience
	Chapter 7. The Retreat from Philosophy
		The Perils of Metaphysics
		Medicine of the Mind
		Philosophy and the Shaping of Character
		The Collapse of the Standing of Philosophy
	Chapter 8. The Search for a Theory of Everything
		Philosophy as a Theory of Everything
		All or Nothing
		Science as a Theory of Everything
		The Quantification of Morality
	Chapter 9. Science Assimilates Philosophy
		Philosophy as a Metatheory of Science
		The Logical Structure of the World
		Rethinking the Nature of Philosophy
Conclusion
Notes
Index