Space and Motion Online Book Publishing
This webpage contains a brief overview of the recently published
book 'Philosophical Sketches'. Below you will find details on the book cover
and back page text, links to other book chapters, and introduction. You can
buy this book online at our Cafepress Philosophy
Book Shop (Book Details: 90 pages, 30 full page portraits, 8.5 inches by
11 inches, $19.50 USD)
Hope you find it interesting,
Geoff Haselhurst & Karene Jade Howie
A lively and concise journey through the central
ideas of thirty famous philosophers. From ancient Indian, Greek and Chinese
Philosophy to modern Western Philosophy, this book explores the changing foundations
of human knowledge and their effect on how we think and live.
Includes full page portraits, brief biographies and selected quotes from some
of the greatest minds of human history on the universal subjects of Truth,
Reality, Nature, Cosmos, Wisdom, Morality, Mind, Education, Politics, Art,
Religion & God.
Written for the lay person, while remaining true to the original ideas, this
is an engaging account of the Metaphysical foundations of Philosophy that is
both illuminating and thought provoking. (Cover Photograph: Plato & Aristotle
- The School of Athens by Raphael)
Philosophy Book
Philosophical Sketches: Chapter Headings & Content Summary
Introduction to 'Philosophical Sketches'
Philosophy in our modern world is largely seen as abstract,
esoteric and irrelevant to our daily lives. As the philosopher Michel de Montaigne
wrote;
Oddly, things have now reached such a state that even among
men of intelligence philosophy means something fantastical and vain, without
value or usefulness, both in opinion and practice.” (de Montaigne, 1580)
However, if you read the history of philosophy, you realise that this was
never its intent and this misconception has come about through the failure
of philosophy. So how has philosophy failed?
At the time of the ancients (2,500 years ago) there was no separation between
philosophy, physics and metaphysics. They realised that each of these subjects
was dependent upon physical reality. The problem, quite simply, has been the
failure to work out physical reality. Nonetheless, there are central elements
of reality that are accepted by most philosophers and metaphysicists, these
being;
i) The world we experience from our senses is different (representation of
the mind) to the real world which causes our senses.
ii) Though we perceive many apparently separate objects, they are in fact connected.
This requires an underlying unity to connect them, which has become known as
the problem of the One and the Many. i.e. That there must be One thing which
causes and connects the Many things.
iii) This One thing that exists must also have the properties of activity (flux,
motion) to explain the phenomena of time and change.
iv) If language was to have any absolute meaning and truth it must directly
connect to this underlying dynamic unity of reality (rather than our naive
real senses of the world).
A simple example of this is the orbit of the earth about the sun. While we
do not see any obvious connection between these apparently separate bodies,
reason tells us that they must be connected. And while everyone knows that ‘gravity’ is
the explanation, this word does not explain the cause of this connection.
The purpose of this book is to provide a brief summary of the central ideas
of the most important philosophers of the past 2,500 years and their attempts
to resolve these problems. Further, and most importantly, we have provided
a short essay at the end of this book on the Metaphysics of Space and the Wave
Structure of Matter which suggests that there is in fact a simple solution
to this most profound of all problems, what is the true nature of reality and
thus what does it really mean to be a human existing in the universe.
The history of philosophy is intriguing and thought provoking. Philosophers
are generally interesting characters and at times, highly amusing. Philosophy
is of benefit to everyone as it encourages us to think critically, examine
our beliefs and to be governed by truth rather than custom or emotion. As Michel
de Montaigne wrote;
If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it
can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price. … Since
philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need
to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in
it? (de Montaigne, 1580)
We have tried to make this work accessible to everyone and to include philosophers
who wrote on popular subjects such as politics, morality, education, nature,
art and society. The book is formatted with large page size (coffee table style)
as we have included full page images of the philosophers that can be removed
to make nice poster prints. We hope you find it both interesting and illuminating.
Geoff Haselhurst, Karene Jade Howie (September, 2005)
Publisher / Online Bookstore Details
Space
and Motion Publications
Online print on demand publishers of books on;
Philosophy, Physics, Metaphysics, Truth, Reality, Evolution, Ecology, Nature,
Education, Politics, Fine Art, Erotic Art, Nature, Cosmos, Wisdom, Morality,
Mind, Religion & God.
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/books/online-book-publishing.htm
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"When
forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time
and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical
objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended.
In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle
can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or
the energy density are particularly high. ...
