Israel Scheffler

Worlds of Truth

A Philosophy of Knowledge

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Worlds of Truth: A Philosophy of Knowledge explicates and expands upon the formidable body of work by the author. Evincing a strong affinity for pragmatic philosophy as well as a dedication to analytical treatment of central problems, Israel Scheffler here provides an overview of his philosophy of knowledge, as developed in previous work and incorporating new views he has developed in recent thinking. The inquiries here focus on truths: how truths are sought, what they express, and how they shape the worlds we inhabit. Consideration of these three topics highlights the interrelations of epistemology, symbolism, and metaphysics, all treated in a scientific spirit. Scheffler's philosophy of knowledge incorporates several unfamiliar corollaries. Eschewing absolutism, the author nevertheless defends absolute truth; upholding systematic relativity, he also commends the ideal of objectivity; propounding his new doctrine of plurealism, he defends realism but rejects its usual concomitant monism, thus implying that we live not in one actual world but in many, all revealed by scientific investigation. Science itself, he holds, is not unitary in its motivation, but dual, spurred by two master impulses: the one to reduce, economize and systematize, the other to unsettle, explore and cultivate new areas for inquiry, an endless process belying the myth of a final theory of everything.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley
• Seitenzahl: 168
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Mai 2009
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 150mm x 18mm
• Gewicht: 408g
• ISBN-13: 9781405191708
• ISBN-10: 1405191708
• Artikelnr.: 26760019

Autorenporträt

Israel Scheffler is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education and Philosophy Emeritus at Harvard University and serves as Scholar-in-Residence at the Mandel Center at Brandeis University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a founding member of the National Academy of Education and a past president of both the Philosophy of Science Association and the Charles S. Peirce Society. Among his various books are The Anatomy of Inquiry (1963), Science and Subjectivity (1967), Four Pragmatists (1974), Beyond the Letter (1979), and Symbolic Worlds: Art, Science, Language, Ritual (1997).

Inhaltsangabe

Preface viii
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
Part I: Inquiry 5
Chapter 1: Justification 7
1. Beliefs 7
2. Access to truth 8
3. Cogito ergo sum 9
4. Mathematical certainty 11
5. Classical logic 12
6. C. I. Lewis' empiricism 14
7. Access as a metaphor 17
8. J. F. Fries and K. Popper 18
9. Voluntarism and linearity 19
10. One-way justification 20
11. Beginning in the middle 21
12. Justification, contextual and comparative 22
13. Justification in the empirical sciences 23
14. Circularity versus linearity 25
15. Democratic controls 25
16. Interactionism 27
Chapter 2: Truth 30
1. Allergy to absolute truth 31
2. Provisionality and truth 32
3. Truth versus verification 34
4. Truth and fixity 36
5. Transparency, Tarski, and Carnap 38
6. Truth and certainty 42
7. Sentences as truth candidates 44
8. Theoretical terms 44
9. Varieties of instrumentalism 45
10. Pragmatism and instrumentalism 45
11. Systems, simplicity, reduction 46
12. Crises in science 51
13. Reduction and expansion 52
Chapter 3: Worlds 55
1. Philosophies of truth 55
2. Operationism and truth 57
3. Version-dependence 59
4. Differences among scientifically oriented philosophers 61
5. Monism, pluralism, plurealism 62
6. Realism versus irrealism 66
7. A theory of everything 72
8. The status of ethics 75
9. Emotive theories; Ayer and Stevenson 75
10. Moore's ethical intuitionism 77
11. Dewey and ethical naturalism 79
12. Symbol, reference, and ritual 81
Part II: Related Pragmatic Themes 93
Chapter 4: Belief and Method 95
Introduction 95
1. Problems of pragmatism and pragmatic responses 98
2. Peirce's theory of belief, doubt, and inquiry 102
3. Peirce's comparison of methods 104
4. Difficulties in Peirce's treatment 106
5. An epistemological interpretation 108
6. The primacy of method 109
Chapter 5: Action and Commitment 114
Chapter 6: Emotion and Cognition 125
1. Emotions in the service of cognition 126
2. Cognitive emotions 132
Index 143

Rezensionen

"The book will be of interest to philosophers working onpragmatism, pluralism, relativism, and justification".(International Studies In The Philosophy Of Science, 1 December2010)

"This volume will be useful for specialists in pragmatism, butperhaps not sufficiently original for all collections."(CHOICE, October 2009)"Worlds of Truth develops an epistemology that accommodatesscience. It construes knowledge as advancing holistically. Becausejustification accrues through systematization, it is a property oftheories, not primarily of individual sentences. Drawing on andcontributing to the pragmatic tradition, Scheffler shows how acommitment to fallibilism is not a concession to epistemicinadequacy but an asset to understanding."
-Catherine Z. Elgin, Harvard University

"Israel Scheffler's Worlds of Truth is a book thatcan be read with profit and enjoyment by the general reader as wellas by the philosophical expert. In recent years both generalreaders and professional philosophers have tended to think of"pragmatism" as a fuzzy philosophy closely allied to postmodernism,and as in deep opposition to analytic philosophy, which is oftenseen as anti-humanistic. In this important book, and in clear andelegant prose, Scheffler performs a great service by showing indetail how to combine the antifoundationalism, the holism, and thedeep fallibilism of the pragmatists with the respect for the notionof absolute truth, and the sharp distinction between being true andbeing warranted at a given moment characteristic of the analyticphilosophers. The result is both an attractive and I believelargely right epistemological picture, and a portrait of thephilosophical thinking of a significant philosopher, whose workdeserves to be more widely known."
-Hilary Putnam, Harvard University

"Many things pass for 'pragmatism' these days that the originalpragmatists would not recognize. It might well be said that thepragmatist tradition has lost its way. It is the perfect time forthis book, which builds upon the groundbreaking work of theoriginal figures, but does not hesitate to criticize their earlierdiscussions where appropriate and improve on them in the service ofthe development of a philosophically adequate pragmaticepistemology and metaphysics."
-Harvey Siegel, University of Miami