Metaethics, understood as a distinct branch of ethics, is often traced to G. E. Moore's 1903 classic, Principia Ethica. Whereas normative ethics is concerned to answer first-order moral questions about what is good and bad, right and wrong, metaethics is concerned to answer second-order non-moral questions about the semantics, metaphysics, and epistemology of moral thought and discourse. Moore has continued to exert a powerful influence, and the sixteen essays here (most of them specially written for the volume) represent the most up-to-date work in metaethics after, and in some cases directly inspired by, the work of Moore.
This book originated from a discussion between the author, Derek Parfit and Wlodek Rabinowicz, and further developed in correspondence and intense discussions with Wlodek Rabinowics and John Broome. The author disputes the recent trend in metaethics that focuses on reasons rather than norms. The reader is invited to take a new look at the traditional metaethical questions of moral semantics, ontology, and epistemology.
The riddles of metaphysics are the deepest and most puzzling questions we can ponder. Riddles of Existence is the first book ever to make metaphysics genuinely accessible and fun. Its lively, informal style brings these questions to life and shows how stimulating it can be to think about them. Earl Conee and Theodore Sider offer a lucid discussion of the major topics in metaphysics.
Added by: Kahena | Karma: 11526.37 | Fiction literature | 8 January 2012
6
Song of Two Worlds
In Alan Lightman's new book, a verse narrative titled Song of Two Worlds, we meet a man who has lost his faith in all things following a mysterious personal tragedy. After decades of living hung like a dried fly, emptied and haunted by his past, the narrator awakens one morning revitalized and begins a Dante-like journey to find something to believe in, first turning to the world of science and then to the world of philosophy, religion, and human life. As his personal story is slowly revealed, little by little, we confront the great questions of the cosmos and of the human heart, some questions with answers and others without.
