Thinking Things Through: An Introduction to Philosophical Issues and Achievements

by Clark N. Glymour

"Thinking Things Through" offers a broad, historical, and rigorous introduction to the logical tradition in philosophy and its contemporary significance. It is unique among introductory philosophy texts in that it considers both the historical development and modern fruition of a few central questions. It traces the influence of philosophical ideas and arguments on modern logic, statistics, decision theory, computer science, cognitive science, and public policy. The text offers an account of the history of speculation and argument, and the development of theories of deductive and probabilistic reasoning. It considers whether and how new knowledge of the world is possible at all, investigates rational decision making and causality, explores the nature of mind, and considers ethical theories. Suggestions for reading, both historical and contemporary, accompany most chapters.

This second edition includes four new chapters, on decision theory and causal relations, moral and political theories, "moral tools" such as game theory and voting theory, and ethical theories and their relation to real-world issues. Examples have been updated throughout, and some new material has been added. It is suitable for use in advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate classes in philosophy, and as an ancillary text for students in computer science and the natural sciences.

Genres: Philosophy

472 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Clark Glymour is Alumni University Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University and Senior Research Scientist at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. He is the author of The Mind's Arrows: Bayes Nets and Graphical Causal Models in Psychology (MIT Press), Galileo in Pittsburgh, and other books.

Reviews

[Mishehu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm puzzled by the middling ratings and total lack of reviews of this book. It's an excellent -- and at times very demanding -- survey of topics in logic and philosophy of mind, as well as their part in the history of philosophy. I found it rigorous and compelling throughout. It was like an undergraduate philosophy seminar in book form. I rate it highly.