Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the rehabilitation of philosophy from the rationalist bias of its origin, at the origin of Western rationalism. It provides a new direction in the theory of knowledge, away from textbook problems of epistemology, toward an ecological philosophy of technology and civilization. The book introduces alternative approach to a theory of knowledge and discusses three postmodern philosophers of knowledge: Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty. It argues that the need in philosophy to recognize, not language games, history, or politics, but artifact and ecology as the ultimate context for understanding knowledge. The book also introduces the concepts of evolution and civilization to the argument. It critically analyses the ideas of knowledge, truth, skepticism, and certainty that have dominated philosophical discussions, especially in the twentieth century.