This text offers a new beginning for philosophy rooted in a theory of questioning which the author calls "problematology." He argues that a new beginning is necessary in order to resituate philosophy, science and linguistic analysis. For Meyer, philosophy does not solve problems or give answers but instead shows how propositions are related to a whole field of questions that give them meaning. Reason is identified not with answers but with the question-answer process. Meyer pursues this theory of reason and meaning in a critique of Western philosophy from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle through Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Foucault. He provides an analysis of Descartes' notion of radical doubt and demonstrates its implications for the subsequent philosophical tradition. Meyer argues that recent work in rhetoric points toward a theory of radical questioning and claims that the methods of rhetoric and argumentation must be turned back on philosophy itself in order to recover the original significance of metaphysics as the science of ultimate questions.
- ISBN10 0226521516
- ISBN13 9780226521510
- Publish Date 15 August 1995
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Edition 2nd ed.
- Format Paperback
- Pages 318
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780226521510