Imaginary Philosophical Dialogues

How would Plato have responded if his student Aristotle had ever challenged his idea that our senses perceive nothing more than the shadows cast upon a wall by a true world of perfect ideals? What would Charles Darwin have said to Karl Marx about his claim that dialectical materialism is a scientific theory of evolution? How would Jean-Paul Sartre have reacted to Simone de Beauvoir's claim that the Marquis de Sade was a philosopher worthy of serious attention?

This light-hearted book proposes answers to such questions by imagining dialogues between thirty-three pairs of philosophical sages who were alive at the same time. Sometime famous sages get a much rougher handling than usual, as when Adam Smith beards Immanuel Kant in his Konigsberg den. Sometimes neglected or maligned sages get a chance to say what they really believed, as when Epicurus explains that he wasn't epicurean. Sometimes the dialogues are about the origins of modern concepts, as when Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat discuss their invention of probability, or when John Nash and John von Neumann discuss the creation of game theory. Even in these scientific cases, the intention is that the protagonists come across as fallible human beings like the rest of us, rather than the intellectual paragons of philosophical textbooks.

Explores controversial aspects in both modern and ancient philosophy in the form of fictional dialogues Explores intellectural issues throughout history Illustrates the wider differences of opinion at the time at which they lived

Autorentext

Kenneth Binmore is a mathematician turned economist and philosopher. He has held Chairs at the London School of Economics (UK), the University of Michigan (USA), and University College London (UK). He has been involved in a range of applied projects, including the design of major telecom auctions in various countries across the world. As a consequence of the $35 billion raised by the telecom auction he organized in the UK, he was described by Newsweek magazine as the "ruthless, poker-playing economist who destroyed the telecom industry". He has contributed to game theory, experimental economics, evolutionary biology and moral philosophy. His books include Natural Justice (OUP), Does Game Theory Work? (MIT Press), A Very Short Introduction to Game Theory (OUP), Rational Decisions (PUP), and Crooked Thinking or Straight Talk? (Springer).

Inhalt
Protagoras versus Socrates.- Diogenes versus Plato.- Aristotle versus Plato.- Eudoxus versus Aristotle.- Epicurus versus Zeno.- Sextus Empiricus versus Marcus Aurelius.- Augustine versus Hypatia.- Anselm versus Abelard.- Thomas Aquinas versus Roger Bacon.- William of Ockham versus Duns Scotus.- Thomas Hobbes versus Ren e Descartes.- Blaise Pascal versus Pierre de Fermat.- John Locke versus Thomas Hobbes.- Gottfried Leibniz versus Baruch de Spinoza.- David Hume versus Jean-Jacques Rousseau.- Immanuel Kant versus Adam Smith.- Edmund Burke versus Thomas Paine.- Jeremy Bentham versus John Stuart Mill.- Friedrich Engels versus Karl Marx.- Charles Darwin versus Gregor Mendel.- Karl Marx versus Charles Darwin.- Georg Cantor versus Bertrand Russell.- Bertrand Russell versus John Dewey.- Ludwig Wittgenstein versus David Hilbert.- Oskar Morgenstern versus John von Neumann.- Karl Popper versus Ludwig Wittgenstein.- Jean-Paul Sartre versus Simone de Beauvoir.- John Nash versus John von Neumann.- Rudolph Carnap versus Leonard Savage.- Imre Lakatos versus Karl Popper.- Robert Nozick versus David Lewis.- John Rawls versus John Harsanyi.- Derek Parfit versus John Rawls.