Jay F. Rosenberg was the author of many philosophy books, articles, and textbooks, and was a professor of philosophy at University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill. As an undergraduate, he wrote a students' cookbook which is still in print at the Reed College bookstore (his alma mater).
An essential tool for any undergraduate major or minor in philosophy. This book gets beneath the surface and explains how (analytic) philosophy is done; everything from finding the explicit and implicit arguments to the different ways of reading(and criticizing)a philsophic argument.
An interesting, good introduction to what philosophy entails as a learnable, improvable skill. (This sentence already poses the question - what do I mean by "good"? So let me correct myself: an understandable, slow introduction keeping in mind the beginners, yet still being thorough.)
We receive advice on how to interact with philosophical work, on how we can ourselves write such essays. It introduces us to the validity of arguments, and what kind of argumentation errors we can encounter - especially ones posing as valid arguments: the frogs, as it calls them. Obviously, we do not get an exhaustive primer on argumentation and logic, as that is outside of the bounds of this book.
On the last few pages we can even find puzzles through which we can flaunt our philosophical and argumentative prowess - which will not be too impressive based on the contents of this sole book.
Still, a good introductory work. (For the definition of "good", see the beginning of my review.)
The book offers an excellent of discussion what philosophy is and what philosophers are (or should) be doing, as well as suggestions on how to do it. I came away with an improved understanding of what I have been doing and why, as well as a sense of how I might strategise my future endeavours. I would recommend it to those who have been studying philosophy for a while, to those who just want to get an idea of what the point of philosophy actually is, but especially to those new to philosophy: this book will save you many a headache early on and give you a sense of what you are doing and why as well as the greater significance of the practice.
Probably one of the best books I've read on how to read philosophical works. That is, how to pick apart an argument, how to detect the point of an argument without getting side-tracked, etc. As books on or about philosophy go, this one is a pretty no-nonsense book.
This is a handy little book, especially for first year students: he provides a lot of info on the main patterns of argument used by philosophers, how to take apart their arguments, ways to rebut arguments, as well as the main object of (analytic) philosophy, and how this relates to the seemingly trivial puzzles that they discuss. Was also helpful on the different kinds of philosophy essays that one writes in one’s undergraduate years, and on different (and increasingly profound) was of reading philosophers, as well as finding ways to engage theme with each other.
Rosenberg beschreibt z. B. fünf Arten der Philosophie-Kritik: Äquivokation, Petitio principii, Infiniter Regreß, Verlorener Gegensatz und Leere Behauptung. Ein interessantes Beispiel aus der griechischen Philosophie, welches das Identitätsproblem beleuchtet: 'Das Schiff des Theseus' wird in seinem Buch untersucht.
In the world we can see that at least some things are changing. Whatever is changing is being changed by something else. If that by which it is changing is itself changed, then it too is being changed by something else. But this chain cannot be infinitely long, so there must be something that causes change without itself changing. This everyone understands to be God
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.