Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism

by Peter Unger

Overview

In this controversial volume (originally published in 1975) Peter Unger suggests that, not only can nothing ever be known, but no one can ever have a reason at all for anything. A consequence of this is that we cannot have any realistic emotional ties: it can never be conclusively said that someone is happy or sad about anything. Finally he argues that no one can ever say, let alone believe, that anything is the case. In order to get beyond this apparent bind - and this condition of ignorance - Unger proposes a radical departure from the linguistic and epistemological systems we have become accustomed to. Epistemologists, as well as philosophers of mind and language will undoubtedly find in this study of the limitations of language an invaluable philosophical perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191519697
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	01/04/1978
Series:	Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	457 KB

About the Author

Peter Unger is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He is the author of Philosophical Relativity (1984, OUP 2002), Identity, Consciousness, and Value (OUP 1990), and Living High and Letting Die (OUP 1996).

Editorial Reviews

"Oxford University Press has done well to reissue Ignorance, Peter Unger's first book in epistemology. Unger follows the argument to great depth, wherever it may lead, and the reader who follows along will be amply rewarded, which shows how impressively fresh and relevant this work remains after all these years."—Ernest Sosa, Brown University and Rutgers University.

"A powerful and profoundly original skeptical challenge. What you have to know-but if Unger is right, you don't-about ignorance. Anyone serious about epistemology should read it."—Fred Dretske, emeritus, Stanford University.

"A profoundly rewarding work, this is one of the most important studies in epistemology of the last fifty years. It should be read by any serious student in that field."—John Hawthorne, Rutgers University.

"Ignorance is, in my opinion, the best book in epistemology to appear in the last thirty years. It would be good for epistemology if every graduate student entering the field read and studied this classic."—Keith DeRose, Yale University.

From the Publisher