Grand Theories and Everyday Beliefs

• Matson traces an unusually broad ranging story about the history of philosophy and the origins and development of science.
• He writes in a clear style and with a minimum of scholarly apparatus.

Readership: Readers interested in: metaphysics, philosophy of language/science/religion, logic, political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics.

Wallace Matson, University of California, Berkeley

Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley. Co-author of A NEW HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, vols 1 and 2 (Wadsworth)

"The book offers an innovative and exciting perspective on two problems important in the contemporary philosophy of science: that false beliefs are ubiquitous and that propositions have a shady ontological status... Matson sets off in a fresh, if not entirely new, direction ... Grand Theories and Everyday Beliefs is well worth reading." - William Hughes, Science

Chapter 1. Introduction.
PART ONE. BEFORE MILETUS
Chapter 2. A Brief History of Coping.
Chapter 3. Language
Chapter 4. High and Low Beliefs
Chapter 5. The 'Will to Believe'
Chapter 6. Eden
Chapter 7. Babylon
PART TWO. MILETUS TO ALEXANDRIA
Chapter 8. Miletus: the Invention of Science
Chapter 9. Anaximander and Anaximenes
Chapter 10. Science and Philosophy Come to Italy
Chapter 11. Athens I.
Chapter 12. Atomism
Chapter 13. Athens II: Plato
Chapter 14. Athens III: Aristotle
Chapter 15. Alexandria
Chapter 16. Beliefs About Believers
PART THREE. THE LEGACY OF CHRISTIANITY
Chapter 17. Jerusalem Collides with Athens
Chapter 18. Cartesianism
Chapter 19. Miletus Preserved I: Hobbes
Chapter 20. Institutions
Chapter 21. Miletus Preserved II: Spinoza
Chapter 22. The Strange Case of David Hume
Chapter 23. Ethics Without Edification.
Chapter 24. L'Envoi
Chapter 25. Conclusion?