After Parmenides: Idealism, Realism, and Epistemic Constructivism
by Tom Rockmore
University of Chicago Press, 2021 eISBN: 978-0-226-79556-0 | Cloth: 978-0-226-79542-3 Library of Congress Classification B235.P24R635 2021 Dewey Decimal Classification 182.3
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK Engages with one of the oldest philosophical problems—the relationship between thought and being—and offers a fresh perspective with which to approach the long history of this puzzle.
In After Parmenides, Tom Rockmore takes us all the way back to the beginning of Western philosophy, when Parmenides asserted that thought and being are the same. This idea created a division between what the mind constructs as knowable entities and the idea that there is also a mind-independent real, which we can know or fail to know. Rockmore argues that we need to give up on the idea of knowing the real as it is, and instead focus on the objects of cognition that our mind constructs. Though we cannot know mind-independent objects as they “really” are, we can and do know objects as they appear to us.
After Parmenides charts the continual engagement with these ideas of the real and the knowable throughout philosophical history from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, and others. This ambitious book shows how new connections can be made in the history of philosophy when it is reread through a new lens.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tom Rockmore is Duquesne McAnulty College Distinguished Professor emeritus at Duquesne University, Peking University Distinguished Humanities Chair Professor, and professor emeritus of philosophy at Peking University. He is the author of numerous books, including Kant and Phenomenology, Art and Truth after Plato, and German Idealism as Constructivism, all published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
“With characteristic clarity and breadth, Rockmore traces the history of the great struggle between idealism and realism from its origins in Parmenides onwards and his fateful claim that thought and being are the same. The reader cannot fail to be gripped by the debates laid out for us here and impressed by the erudition on display.”
— Robert A. Stern, University of Sheffield
“Rockmore offers a thought-provoking thesis based on the Parmenidean roots of the philosophical enterprise. The ‘Dream of Philosophy’ boils down to two options: the Sisyphean pursuit of the real per se and a more promising alternative of constructivism and idealism. Constructivism no longer serves as the bogeyman of epistemology. Rockmore presents a convincing vindication, moving it from the philosophical fringe to the center. Elegantly and lucidly written, After Parmenides is highly recommended for philosophers and scholars across the humanities and the social sciences.”
— Josef Mitterer, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
"This book will be useful to specialists working at the intersection of epistemology and metaphysics. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty."
— Choice
"The overall aim of Rockmore’s book, announced on the first page, is to defend 'epistemic constructivism.' . . . as alternative to what Rockmore calls the 'standard approach,' [that] . . . remains “dominant” in Western philosophy since Parmenides, in whose claims he suggests it originates. If Parmenides’ original claims . . . could be vindicated, 'this would at long last demonstrate the approach to cognition as knowing the real.' But, Rockmore argues, they cannot, leaving us with the only alternatives that he sees as remaining: either an overarching skepticism, to be rejected, or the constructivist alternative he favors."
— Review of Metaphysics
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. On Reading Parmenides in the Twenty-First Century
2. Some Ancient Greek Reactions to Parmenides
3. Cartesian Rationalism and the Way of Ideas
4. Locke, Empiricism, and the Way of Ideas
5. Idealism, Epistemic Constructivism, and Realism
6. Kant on Causality and Epistemic Constructivism
7. Post-Kantian German Idealism, Realism, and Empirical Realism
8. Epistemic Constructivism and Metaphysical Realism after Kant
9. Neoconstructivism and Neorealism
Conclusion: Idealism and Realism after Parmenides
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
After Parmenides: Idealism, Realism, and Epistemic Constructivism
by Tom Rockmore
University of Chicago Press, 2021 eISBN: 978-0-226-79556-0 Cloth: 978-0-226-79542-3
Engages with one of the oldest philosophical problems—the relationship between thought and being—and offers a fresh perspective with which to approach the long history of this puzzle.
In After Parmenides, Tom Rockmore takes us all the way back to the beginning of Western philosophy, when Parmenides asserted that thought and being are the same. This idea created a division between what the mind constructs as knowable entities and the idea that there is also a mind-independent real, which we can know or fail to know. Rockmore argues that we need to give up on the idea of knowing the real as it is, and instead focus on the objects of cognition that our mind constructs. Though we cannot know mind-independent objects as they “really” are, we can and do know objects as they appear to us.
After Parmenides charts the continual engagement with these ideas of the real and the knowable throughout philosophical history from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, and others. This ambitious book shows how new connections can be made in the history of philosophy when it is reread through a new lens.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tom Rockmore is Duquesne McAnulty College Distinguished Professor emeritus at Duquesne University, Peking University Distinguished Humanities Chair Professor, and professor emeritus of philosophy at Peking University. He is the author of numerous books, including Kant and Phenomenology, Art and Truth after Plato, and German Idealism as Constructivism, all published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
“With characteristic clarity and breadth, Rockmore traces the history of the great struggle between idealism and realism from its origins in Parmenides onwards and his fateful claim that thought and being are the same. The reader cannot fail to be gripped by the debates laid out for us here and impressed by the erudition on display.”
— Robert A. Stern, University of Sheffield
“Rockmore offers a thought-provoking thesis based on the Parmenidean roots of the philosophical enterprise. The ‘Dream of Philosophy’ boils down to two options: the Sisyphean pursuit of the real per se and a more promising alternative of constructivism and idealism. Constructivism no longer serves as the bogeyman of epistemology. Rockmore presents a convincing vindication, moving it from the philosophical fringe to the center. Elegantly and lucidly written, After Parmenides is highly recommended for philosophers and scholars across the humanities and the social sciences.”
— Josef Mitterer, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
"This book will be useful to specialists working at the intersection of epistemology and metaphysics. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty."
— Choice
"The overall aim of Rockmore’s book, announced on the first page, is to defend 'epistemic constructivism.' . . . as alternative to what Rockmore calls the 'standard approach,' [that] . . . remains “dominant” in Western philosophy since Parmenides, in whose claims he suggests it originates. If Parmenides’ original claims . . . could be vindicated, 'this would at long last demonstrate the approach to cognition as knowing the real.' But, Rockmore argues, they cannot, leaving us with the only alternatives that he sees as remaining: either an overarching skepticism, to be rejected, or the constructivist alternative he favors."
— Review of Metaphysics
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. On Reading Parmenides in the Twenty-First Century
2. Some Ancient Greek Reactions to Parmenides
3. Cartesian Rationalism and the Way of Ideas
4. Locke, Empiricism, and the Way of Ideas
5. Idealism, Epistemic Constructivism, and Realism
6. Kant on Causality and Epistemic Constructivism
7. Post-Kantian German Idealism, Realism, and Empirical Realism
8. Epistemic Constructivism and Metaphysical Realism after Kant
9. Neoconstructivism and Neorealism
Conclusion: Idealism and Realism after Parmenides
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE