ABSTRACT

First published in 1993. Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? Does time flow at an even rate? These are just two of the questions that won't be answered in Pseudo-Problems. This book explains how problems are dissolved rather than solved. Roy Sorenson takes the most important and interesting examples from one hundred years of analytic philosophy (and the odd one from the centuries before) to consolidate a new theory of dissolution. Pseudo-Problems is a fast-moving, fascinating alternative history of twentieth-century analytic philosophy, and a fine example of what philosophical analysis should be. Not least, it is an important contribution to the debates about creativity and problem solving.

chapter |5 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|13 pages

Question quality control

chapter 2|28 pages

Get ‘real’!

chapter 3|21 pages

Problems with ‘pseudo-problems’

chapter 4|15 pages

The soft consensual underbelly of dispute

chapter 5|24 pages

#?‘!+@mean$@ing~l$ ss*ne$$ˆ

chapter 6|23 pages

The devil’s volleyball

chapter 7|23 pages

Popped presuppositions

chapter 8|14 pages

The unity of opposites

chapter 9|17 pages

Forging the stream of consciousness

chapter 10|12 pages

Beyond our ken

chapter 11|23 pages

The edge of reason

chapter 12|24 pages

Undermining the undeserving

chapter 13|15 pages

Enlightened tasks

chapter 14|15 pages

Depth