Description: For Descartes, knowledge exists as ideas in the mind that represent the world. In a radical critique, Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor argue that knowledge consists of much more than the representations we formulate in our minds. They affirm our direct contact with reality--both the physical and the social world--and our shared understanding of it.
Brief description: Hubert Dreyfus is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Review Quotes: This book is a spirited defense of a sensible yet profound idea all too often ignored in mainstream philosophy, namely, that our grip on the world is deeply rooted in contingent interpretations and practices, but that those modes of access to reality do not preclude our--sometimes--coming to see it as it really is 'in itself.' Retrieving Realism is a passionate plea that we cannot escape seeing ourselves as being in direct contact with a world that vastly transcends us.--Taylor Carman, Barnard College