Confederacy of Dunces

The work of the classic philosophers--Plato, Aristotle, Russell, and Wittgenstein, among many--is well known. But what do comtemporary thinkers say about our current state of being? In his serious, challenging, and remarkably accessible new book, The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions, British philosopher Nicholas Fearn delivers a broad interrogation of age-old questions: Who am I? What do I know? What should I do? In his search for higher meaning, Fearn consulted with great thinkers from around the world. The result is an impressive survey of recent thought from the likes of, among others, Derek Parfit, David Wiggins, and Bernard Williams to Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty, and Daniel Dennett--their unique ideas largely captured in their own voices. Fearn measures the current class of thinkers with the classic greats like Hume and Kant, attempting to understand how the theories we've inherited from nearly three thousand years of thought stand and how--due to scientific advancements and societal changes--philosophical thought has evolved. The topics--free will and fate, minds and machines, bodies and souls, knowledge, meaning, and understanding--haven't varied, though our world has. Or has it? Moving deftly from pop culture to the writings of Plato, The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions is a fascinating tour of where philosophy is today and what it can tell us about where we as humans are going.Fearn, Nicholas is the author of 'Confederacy of Dunces' with ISBN 9780802143471 and ISBN 0802143474.