Letting Go of Logic.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goddard, Jules.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creative thinking.

Logic.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (270 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bradford : Ethics International Press Limited, 2024.

Summary:

Reason can take us only so far. At a certain point, it ineluctably falls silent. Other ways of thinking need to be called upon. Reason is good at discerning error, identifying evil, and calling out nonsense; but it is poor at deriving actions from aims, theories from observations, laws from facts, values from experience, and judgments from codes of conduct. Because logic cannot escape its own premises, it remains enclosed in its starting assumptions. If everyone in the world obeyed only reason, we would have no science, art, or morality. This engaging new book is chock full of ideas and arguments, stimulating the reader to take them forward in their own mind. Business schools are moving to a more philosophical curriculum. Both professors and students are asking deeper questions than those answered by economics and psychology. The book will appeal to business practitioners as well as business school students and teachers.

Contents:

Intro

Introduction

On logic

On rationality

On the bounds of reason

Chapter by chapter

Chapter 1 The Open Universe

Nature is an open system

Living is problem-solving

Inductive logic is a myth

We know nothing

Truth is not manifest

Logic is the art of refutation, not proof

Kepler's method exemplifies scientific reasoning

AI is clever but not intelligent

Philosophy is the exploration of possibility, rather than probability.

Matter transcends itself to produce mind

Chapter 2 The Crooked Timber

Man's blind spot is himself

The mind sets the boundary of intelligibility

Reality is not as it appears

A theory of everything is neither plausible nor feasible

Truth originated with evolutionary deception

Good solutions to difficult problems first appear illogical

Economic theory sacrifices truth for elegance

The foundations of morality arose with the idea of sociality

Morality is unrelated to evolutionary fitness

What, if anything, makes one's life meaningful?

Chapter 3 The Divided Brain

There is an asymmetry between both hemispheres

Each hemisphere pays attention differently

There is an imbalance between both hemispheres

The left hemisphere is taking increasing control

The handling of the horizon scandal

The Methodology of the COVID-19 Inquiry

The bureaucratisation of the National Health Service

The regulation of traffic in towns

The rise of meritocratic values

The demise of the Lebensfelt

The rewiring of society

The virtualisation of reality

The polarisation of ideology

The sublimation of the right hemisphere distorts morality

Chapter 4 The Active Voice

"I am not my brain"

There are singularities as well as patterns in nature

Neuroscience has captured the imagination

The argument against agency is self-defeating.

The neuro-scientific premise is all-conquering

A free will is one that wills its own freedom

The interaction between the mind and the world is bi-directional

Materialism cannot accommodate intentionality

Consciousness of self cannot be an illusion

Chapter 5 The Moral Maze

Morality is an evolving social practice

Morality is intrinsically conflicted

Morality is not conclusive

Morality demands dialogue

Morality is an unfinished project

Morality is a blend of duty, virtue, sympathy and piety

Moral traditions are tempered by reason

Morality "happens to an idea"

Morality is as objective as knowledge

Chapter 6 The Aesthetic Gaze

Art releases us from desire

Art is a second home

Art represents inner knowledge

Art is the will in action

Art abjures its usefulness

Art cannot be translated

Art toys with its own tradition

The world is man's invention

Chapter 7 The Spontaneous Order

The pursuit of what is good, like the pursuit of truth, is a discovery process

The market economy approximates a kingdom of ends

The market principle has to be tempered by other forms of spontaneous order

The common law exemplifies the spontaneous order in action

The market is not a zero-sum game

Private vices are the vital ingredients of public goods

Morality defaults to moralizing whenever ideals harden into ideology

Egalitarianism is the political creed that empties equality of its moral force

A primary source of moral laxity is the corruption of language

The moral life is well served by a market economy

Chapter 8 The Psychic Prison

Most of us would not go to work if we were not paid to do so

The dominant logic of the workplace is managerialism

The organisation is not as creative as the talent that it employs

The collective is reified at the expense of the individual.

It is when we have skin in the game that we matter

Distrust is the greatest liability of a corporate culture

Managers behave as though it is better to be logical and wrong, than imaginative and right.

The art of reporting to a boss is to look busy

Better to save your job doing the wrong thing than risk your job doing the right thing.

Hierarchy invariably brings out the autocrat within

Employees tend be treated as human resources rather than resourceful humans

Managerialism needs better managing

Chapter 9 The Inverse Method

Progress pays particular attention to the possibility of regress

Problem-solving is upside-down thinking

Planning requires prospective hindsight

Democracy is judgement, not rule, by the people

Good government pursues negative utilitarianism

Wise policy adheres to the subtraction principle

Negative liberty is more libertarian than positive liberty

Chapter 10 The Oblique Approach

The elusive quality of happiness

The self-defeating nature of desire

The art of aiming sideways

The law of unintended consequences

The perils of the indirect approach

An oblique rationale for capitalism

The conflation of motive and effect

The chain of obliquity

The art of caring less

The art of slowing down

Learning how to learn

Chapter 11 The First Virtue

Commentators increasingly outnumber creators

Risk and reward are increasingly out of kilter

Presentation increasingly trumps performance

Bullshitting is more reprehensible than lying

Logic has a pragmatic foundation

Scale sets the terms of doctrine

For lack of courage, freedoms are easily forsaken

Conclusion

The pace of invention and innovation is slowing down

The mind has its own logic

Towards a renewed faith in human creativity.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

ISBN:

9781804418888

1804418889

OCLC:

1463075787