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Philosophy and Mystification: A Reflection on Nonsense and Clarity
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Philosophy and mystification
Philosophy and Mystification is both a book of philosophy and a book
about philosophy. It is a reflection on the nature, methods and resources
of philosophic enquiry, one that is grounded in concretely discussed
central problems. The problems discussed are ones which have dogged
Western philosophy in the modern era: logical necessity, machine
intelligence, the relation of science and religion, determinism, skepticism,
as well as the search for foundations and origins that has so
characterized our time.
Guy Robinson argues that a conception of philosophy was adopted in
the Seventeenth Century which brought with it projects, goals and
methods that required us to see the world upside-down, creating abstract
and mystified entities to explain the ordinary and concrete, requiring us
to explain the social in terms of the individual, and the human and
purposive in terms of the mechanical, and not only to see nature as a
vast mechanism but science as a mechanical activity whose rules it was
the business of philosophers to discover.
Robinson has made an unusual alliance between Aristotle, Marx and
Wittgenstein in trying to re-focus our views on these problems and in
locating philosophy itself in a wider historical context. His thesis is that
the historical tasks of a revolutionary transition in Europe made the new
conceptions of philosophy, of nature and of humanity seem both natural
and necessary and hid from the philosophers the inversions and
incoherences involved. If we are to escape from the confusions and blind-
alleys we were led into then, we are going to have to go back not only to
question the agenda but to understand how the historical context made
that agenda seem both natural and necessary. The aim of Philosophy and
Mystification is to make a start on that project.
Guy Robinson was senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of
Southampton until his early retirement in 1982 and then research
professor at MIT and the University of Boston. He now lives and works
in Dublin.
Philosophy and mystification
A reflection on nonsense and clarity
Guy Robinson
London and New York
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First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY10001
© 1998 Guy Robinson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-98089-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-17851-7 (Print Edition)
Contents
Preface
v
Acknowledgements
vi
Introduction: Philosophy and mystification
1
1 Understanding nonsense
13
2 Following and formalization
39
3 Infinity
59
4 Miracles
75
5 How to tell your friends from machines
91
6 Nature and necessity
107
7 Skepticism about skepticism
127
8 Fool’s intelligence
145
9 Language and the society of others
161
10 Deus sive natura: science, nature, and ideology
175
11 On misunderstanding science
195
12 History and human nature
213
13 Newton, Euclid, and the foundation of geometry
237
14 Coda: philosophy and history
255
Notes
281
Index
295

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