Showing results for "Humans" in Epistemology

A seminal work of scientific and philosophical exploration. Ever since the Greeks coined the language we commonly use for scientific description, mythology and science have developed separately. But what if we could prove that all myths have one common origin in a celestial cosmology? What if the gods, the places they lived, and what they did are but ciphers for celestial activity, a language for the perpetuation of complex astronomical data?

Credited as the Father of Liberalism and revered for his ground-breaking theories, John Locke left behind a legacy which has radically shaped political and philosophical thought for over 300 years. His writings continue to inspire and educate people to this day, from founding our central ideas of consciousness and knowledge to creating a framework for society which greatly influenced America’s founding fathers.

With his feet firmly on the ground, he challenged the speculative ideas of David Hume and George Berkeley who regarded ideas in the mind as a basis for the external world. Instead, the pugnacious but lively Reid took a much more ‘common sense’ view in basing his ideas of reality on sensus communis. Starting from a Ciceronian, stoical platform, he developed his views on more rational attitudes towards reality - ‘direct realism’.

A landmark of Enlightenment thought, Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is accompanied here by two shorter works that shed light on it: A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, Hume's response to those accusing him of atheism, of advocating extreme skepticism, and of undermining the foundations of morality; and his Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature, which anticipates discussions developed in the Enquiry.

First published in 1710, George Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is a seminal contribution to Empiricist philosophy. Making the bold assertion that the physical world consists only of ideas and thus does not exist outside the mind, this work establishes Berkeley as the founder of the immaterialist school of thought. A major influence on such later philosophers as David Hume and Immanuel Kant, Berkeley's ideas have played a role in such diverse fields as mathematics and metaphysics and continue to spark debate today.

In a world overflowing with information yet starved for understanding, Prisoners of the Mind invites listeners on a fearless exploration of the hidden structures that shape thought, distort perception, and quietly govern belief. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and cultural critique, this book dismantles the comforting illusions through which modern life is too often navigated—illusions of control, certainty, merit, and even selfhood.

This book introduces and develops the concept of Historic Antiteleology as a radical reorientation of historical thought beyond the metaphysics of progress, redemption, or narrative coherence. Drawing on the insights of Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson, and poststructuralist thinkers such as Foucault and Benjamin, the essay critiques the enduring influence of teleological models in historiography — models that frame history as a purposeful sequence culminating in moral, political, or technological fulfillment.