Experiments in Ethics (Mary Flexner Lecture Series of Bryn Mawr College) (Mary Flexner Lectures of Bryn Mawr College) - Softcover

Appiah, Kwame Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674034570 ISBN 13: 9780674034570

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Synopsis

Unusual book

About this title

Review:

This engaging book surveys influential recent attempts to bring empirical studies to bear specifically on moral philosophy, in a style that is accessible to non-specialists yet philosophically nuanced. Professor Appiah is sympathetic to the idea that moral philosophy has a good deal to learn from experimental work, but skeptical of the suggestion that this approach constitutes a radical departure from the philosophical tradition. He begins with a fascinating and erudite characterization of philosophy as a discipline that only "calved off" from psychology around the beginning of the twentieth century. Until then, experimental works and empirical investigation ("natural philosophy") were interwoven with metaphysical theorizing and deductive argumentation, and psychology was only just becoming a distinct academic discipline in its own right. Trying to distinguish metaphysical from psychological elements in the work of such canonical figures of European philosophy as Plato and Aristotle, Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume and J. S. Mill, Appiah claims, is like "trying to peel a raspberry." --Justin D'Arms "Times Literary Supplement" (03/06/2009)

About the Author:

Kwame Anthony Appiah is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• ISBN 10: 0674034570
• ISBN 13: 9780674034570
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288