Page 199 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

Further Reading

Further reading on knowledge and philosophy

Doyal, Len and Harris, Ken, Empiricism, Explanation and Rationality in the Social
Sciences, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1986.
A very comprehensive treatment of the topic. The authors' main argument is
that naive empiricism (that is, the belief that facts are facts and we find them) is
wrong because all 'facts' are interpretive claims based in political and/or social
circumstances.

Gaarder, Jostein, Sophies World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy, Phoenix
House, London, 1995.
A story about a teenage girl who is drawn into a mystery that involves an unseen
philosophy teacher who sends her short commentaries on philosophy. The plot is
excellent, and the philosophy 'lessons' are not bad either.
Gellner, Ernest, Reason and Culture, Blackwell, Oxford, 1992.
A broad-brush history of the development of modern 'Reason', pointing to the ways
in which knowledge and knowledge systems (such as reasoning) are non-objective.
Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1970.
A revolutionary book in itself. It argues for the centrality of non-objective theo-
retical paradigms and for the cultural practices of scientists in determining 'facts'.
Lloyd, Genevieve, The Man of Reason, Methuen, London, 1984.
Much Western philosophy (the basis of this book) is gender-biased, both in its
practical exclusion of women and also in its founding ideas. Lloyd gives a very
readable account of the ways in which the social context of patriarchy (men in
charge) has influenced the 'objective' ideas of philosophy.
McCarthy, E. Doyle, Knowledge as Culture: The New Sociology of Knowledge,
Routledge, London, 1996.

186