{"title":"Bernard Williams","description":"\u003cp\u003eBernard Williams offers profound explorations into the complexities of human thought, ethics, and truth. His works challenge readers to reconsider fundamental philosophical questions, blending rigorous analysis with accessible prose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThrough titles like \u003cem\u003eDescartes\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eShame and Necessity\u003c\/em\u003e, Williams delves into moral psychology and the nature of truth, making significant contributions to contemporary philosophy and the understanding of human experience.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"truth-and-truthfulness-by-bernard-williams-9780691271767","title":"Truth and Truthfulness","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combination of passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eModern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and scepticism that objective truth exists at all (no one wants to be naive). This tension between a demand for truthfulness and the doubt that there is any truth to be found is not an abstract paradox. It has political consequences and signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWilliams's approach, in the tradition of Nietzsche's genealogy, blends philosophy, history, and a fictional account of how the human concern with truth might have arisen. Without denying that we should worry about the contingency of much that we take for granted, he defends truth as an intellectual objective and a cultural value. He identifies two basic virtues of truth, \u003cem\u003eAccuracy\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSincerity\u003c\/em\u003e, the first of which aims at finding out the truth and the second at telling it. He describes different psychological and social forms that these virtues have taken and asks what ideas can make best sense of them today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTruth and Truthfulness\u003c\/em\u003e presents a powerful challenge to the fashionable belief that truth has no value, but equally to the traditional faith that its value guarantees itself. Bernard Williams shows us that when we lose a sense of the value of truth, we lose a lot both politically and personally, and may well lose everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47461747949804,"sku":"9780691271767","price":56.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691271767-truth-and-truthfulness.jpg?v=1774976067"},{"product_id":"shame-and-necessity-second-edition-by-bernard-williams-9780520256439","title":"Shame and Necessity, Second Edition","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the centre of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWilliams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. In a new foreword, A.A. Long explores the impact of this volume in the context of Williams's stunning career.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47603146916076,"sku":"9780520256439","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780520256439-shame-and-necessity-second-edition.jpg?v=1778056166"},{"product_id":"descartes-by-bernard-williams-9781138132085","title":"Descartes","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDescartes\u003c\/em\u003e has often been called the \u003cem\u003efather of modern philosophy\u003c\/em\u003e. His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time, are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of philosophy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a classic and challenging introduction to \u003cem\u003eDescartes\u003c\/em\u003e by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers. Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes' \u003cem\u003eMeditations\u003c\/em\u003e are not merely a description but the very enactment of philosophical thought and discovery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWilliams covers all of the key areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and philosophy generally.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a new foreword by John Cottingham.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47605582921964,"sku":"9781138132085","price":247.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781138132085-descartes.jpg?v=1778132726"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/bernard-williams.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}