What is philosophy for?

Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives? Mary Midgley addresses these provocative questions in her most up-to-date statement on the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and the life of the mind. This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value.

Part 1. The Search for Signposts. Chapter 1. Directions; Chapter 2. Do Ideas Get Out Of Date?; Chapter 3. What is Research?; Chapter 4. Clashes of Method; Chapter 5. Signposting problems; Chapter 6. What is Matter?; Chapter 7. Quantum Queries; Chapter 8. What is Progress?; Chapter 9. Perspectives and Paradoxes: Rousseau And His Intellectual Explosives; Chapter 10. Mill And The Different Kinds Of Freedom; Chapter 11. Making Sense Of Toleration; PART 2. Tempting Visions of Science. Chapter 12. The Force of World-Pictures; Chapter 13. The Past Does Not Die; Chapter 14. Scientism: The New Sedative; PART 3. Mindlessness and Machine-Worship. Chapter 15. The Power-Struggle; Chapter 16. Missing Persons; Chapter 17. Oracles; PART 4. Singularities and the Cosmos. Chapter 18. What Kind of Singularity?; Chapter 19. Can Intelligence be Measured?; Chapter 20. What is Materialism?; Chapter 21. The Cult of Impersonality; Chapter 22. Matter and Reality; Chapter 23. The Mystique of Scientism; Chapter 24. The Strange World-Picture; Conclusion: One World but Many Windows.