James Hall has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is Tools of Thinking: Understanding the World Through Experience and Reason.
Tools of Thinking: Understanding the World Through Experience and Reason
Summary
Everyone has to think in order to function in the world, but what is the best way to reason effectively in your pursuit of reliable beliefs and useful knowledge? What is the best way to prove a case, create a rule, solve a problem, justify an idea, invent a hypothesis, or evaluate an argument? In short, what is the best way to think? Professor Hall helps you cut through deception and faulty reasoning in these 24 humorous, clear, and interesting lectures, offering a friendly but intellectually rigorous approach to the problem of thinking. Among the topics you'll learn about are: Deduction (this form of reasoning reaches a conclusion based on a set of premises; if the premises are true, then the conclusion necessarily follows) Induction (less ironclad than deduction, this approach surveys the evidence and then generalizes an explanation to account for it; the conclusion may be probable, but it is not certain) Syllogism (this simple but powerful deductive argument offers two premises and a conclusion, e.g., "All Greeks are mortals. All Athenians are Greeks. Therefore, all Athenians are mortals.") Dialectic (a question-and-answer dialogue, called dialectic, is valuable for uncovering first principles) Venn diagrams (this technique uses overlapping circles to represent different classes of objects or ideas in order to clarify a syllogism) Some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have used these tools to separate ideas that make sense from those that don't. Now you, too, can think more clearly, making better lives for ourselves and for those to come. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2005 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2005 The Great Courses
Philosophy of Religion
Summary
These 36 intellectually challenging yet remarkably clear lectures take you on an intellectual journey to explore the questions of divine existence, not from the standpoint of theology, but as an issue of epistemology, the classic branch of philosophy that concerns itself with knowledge theory: how we can know things and how we can know we know them. If you enjoy wrapping your mind around questions for which every potential answer triggers a new set of questions and issues, you will find this course particularly enjoyable, regardless of whether you define yourself as a believer, an atheist, or an agnostic. Professor Hall lays out many of the fundamental questions and issues related to the philosophy of religion: What do we mean by "God"? Consider the many characteristics of a monotheistic deity - including omnipotence, omniscience, omniperfection, and asceity. Can we know if there is a God? Examine the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for the existence of God and the problem of evil. Weigh the arguments and counterarguments for whether the existence of evil - sometimes natural and sometimes human - is compatible with the existence of a god. You won't be surprised to discover that the issue of divine existence remains undecided after the arguments for and against have been put on the table and analyzed. This provocative course will hold the attention of believers, skeptics, and agnostics alike. While your mind may not be changed, it will definitely be put to work.
©2003 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2003 The Great Courses
Bones of Coral
Summary
All kinds of evolved life forms wash up on the beaches of Key West, just waiting for a chance to wreak havoc on the general population. Take Douglas Barnes, president of Barnes Waste Management, who gets his jollies by sending some amazing things into the outer atmosphere; or Dougie Barnes, who has a predilection for poetry, parrots and perversion. Into this haven for the insane waltzes Trula Montoya, a former TV actress with a secret, and Shaw Chandler, a disenchanted EMS worker on the scent of murder.
©1991 James W. Hall (P)1992 Recorded Books, LLC