Who Needs a World View?

Who Needs a World View?
Raymond Geuss
RRP:
NZ$ 95.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 81.59
Hardback
h210 x 140mm - 208pg
13 Apr 2020 US
9780674245938
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
One of the world' s most provocative philosophers attacks the obsession with comprehensive intellectual systems-the perceived need for a world view. We live in a unitary cosmos created and cared for in all its details by a benevolent god. That, for centuries, was the starting point for much philosophical and religious thinking in the West. The task was to accommodate ourselves to that view and restrict ourselves to working out how the pieces fit together within a rigidly determined framework. In this collection of essays, one of our most creative contemporary philosophers explores the problems and pathologies of the habit of overly systematic thinking that we have inherited from this past. Raymond Geuss begins by making a general case for flexible and skeptical thinking with room for doubt and unresolved complexity. He examines the ideas of two of his most influential teachers-one systematic, the other pragmatic-in light of Nietzsche' s ideas about appearance and reality. The chapters that follow concern related moral, psychological, and philosophical subjects. These include the idea that one should make one' s life a work of art, the importance of games, the concept of need, and the nature of manifestoes. Along the way, Geuss ranges widely, from ancient philosophy to modern art, with his characteristic combination of clarity, acuity, and wit. Who Needs a World View? is a provocative and enlightening demonstration of what philosophy can achieve when it abandons its ambitions for completeness, consistency, and unity.
Many of the joys of Who Needs a World View? lie not only in the encouragement Geuss offers to see through the need for a worldview but also in his pithy and enlightening insights into the works of the philosophers, artists, and writers he discusses. -- Georgia Warnke, Director, Center for Ideas and Society, University of California, Riverside Raymond Geuss has undertaken in recent years to resuscitate the genre of the classical philosophical essay, and he has by now made himself an absolute master of it. This is abundantly evident in his new collection of essays, which takes us on a vertiginous and often exhilarating journey that easily passes from Homer to the present in pursuit of his leading question, ' Who needs a world view? ' -- Hans Sluga, University of California, Berkeley Who Needs a World View? is a brilliant collection of essays that richly yet deftly challenges a broad range of pieties and settled assumptions on how we are supposed to understand our lives and our circumstances. Raymond Geuss shares with us the philosophical motivations behind his approach to those questions, with absorbing accounts of the two teachers who deeply impressed his thinking. This is a book of unfailingly resonant, sometimes poignant, and characteristically timely interventions. -- Brian O' Connor, Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin
Raymond Geuss is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His books include Changing the Subject and Reality and Its Dreams.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780674245938
Published: 13 Apr 2020
Published In: United States
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Format: Hardback
Height: 210mm
Width: 140mm
Pages: 208

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information