Trying to Make Sense. This item is unavailable.Trying to Make Sense

The title of the book is not meant to characterize only the author's own activity. The philosophical problems he discusses arise out of the attempts of human beings to make sense of themselves and the lives they lead - and of the lives they feel they should lead; of each other, of their own and others' cultures, of existence itself and the world in which they live. The discussions spring from the conviction that philosophy has neither the mandate nor the resources to dictate what can and what cannot make sense. There is no "theory of meaning" to which it has, or could find, the key. A philosopher may hope to clarify sense where he finds it; and sometimes to expose the lack of a sense which others claim to find. But he can only do any of this by exposing himself to the disciplines already inherent in different ways of speaking, thinking, representing and living. This work is aimed at students and scholars of philosophy.

The title of the book is not meant to characterize only the author's own activity. The philosophical problems he discusses arise out of the attempts of human beings to make sense of themselves and the lives they lead - and of the lives they feel they should lead; of each other, of their own and others' cultures, of existence itself and the world in which they live. The discussions spring from the conviction that philosophy has neither the mandate nor the resources to dictate what can and what cannot make sense. There is no "theory of meaning" to which it has, or could find, the key. A philosopher may hope to clarify sense where he finds it; and sometimes to expose the lack of a sense which others claim to find. But he can only do any of this by exposing himself to the disciplines already inherent in different ways of speaking, thinking, representing and living. This work is aimed at students and scholars of philosophy.