Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
"World hypotheses" correspond to metaphysical systems, and they may be systematically judged by the canons of evidence and corroboration. In setting forth his root-metaphor theory and examining six such hypotheses--animism, mysticism, formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism--Pepper surveys the whole field of metaphysics. Because this book is an analytical study, it stresses issues rather than men. It seeks to exhibit the sources of these issues and to show that some are unnecessary; that the rest gather into clusters and are interconnected in systems corresponding closely to the traditional schools of philosophy. The virtue of the root-metaphor method is that it puts metaphysics on a purely factual basis and pushes philosophical issues back to the interpretation of evidence. This book was written primarily as a contribution to the field, but its plan excellently suits it for use as a text in courses in metaphysics, types of philosophical theory, or present tendencies in philosophy.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
THE BIG PICTURE
Customer Rating:
I first read Pepper's most excellent "World Hypotheses" as a philosophy student many years ago. I lost it, checked it out from libraries, and am now purchasing it for my brother and father. And myself. I confess that part of this is quite selfish - my neice is quite philosophically bent, and while two years away from university, she might nevertheless get her hands on this book and get "a leg up" on her colleagues.
So much one can say about a book that segments the different "world pictures" into discriminable types. What a gift Pepper has given us. Finished D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover last month and was amazed how much more intelligible reading Pepper's book made Lawrence's. And not just the literati will have augmented understanding, but scientists as well. What physicist can fail to glean Pepper's wisdom in attempting to unify discrete with consolidated mechanism? Or mechanism with organicism? Don't know if it will improve their home lives, but what a jewel this work is!
A sophisticated but very readable primer in epistemology.
Customer Rating:
At the core of most any deep inquiry, one finds epistemology, questions about how one knows and what one can know. Pepper deeply penetrates the mysteries of epistemology. Having taken an undergraduate degree in philosophy, I can certify that he has successfully distilled the essence of such a degree in 348 very readable pages. If you don't have time to read Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hegel, and William James (all of whom I highly recommend), read World Hypotheses. Pepper lucidly communicates the basic world view of these and many other important philosophers.
Select button not working? 
