Cognitive pragmatism : the theory of knowledge in pragmatic perspective / Nicholas Rescher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rescher, Nicholas.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Knowledge, Theory of.

Cognition.

Physical Description:

xi, 250 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

[Pittsburgh, Pa.] : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2001]

Summary:

So begins Cognitive Pragmatism, Nicholas Rescher's systematic and synoptic presentation of arguments and ideas he has devised over many years. In his authoritative voice and characteristically succinct style, he tackles the major questions of philosophical inquiry.

To date, philosophical discussions about pragmatism have focused on global issues such as truth and knowledge. Rescher's book is unique in reducing the discussion to the level of particular details, addressing such themes and topics as inductive validation, hypostatization fallacies, and counterfactual reasoning. His treatment of pragmatic epistemology concentrates the discussion from the level of abstract generalities to that of concrete specifics. He thereby shows how the functionalistic approach of a pragmatic theory of knowledge is able to cast light on a wide variety of concrete issues in the classical theory of knowledge.

By accepting that inquiry involves the risk of failure, Rescher argues that the sensible response is not skepticism, but a practical-minded realism that acknowledges we have no alternative but simply to do the best we can. In an examination of the processes of inductive and probative reasoning used for the substantiation of claims of knowledge, he demonstrates how the substantiation of these processes rests significantly on practical rather than purely theoretical grounds. A consideration of the difficulties we confront in dealing with knowledge beyond the limits of experience allows him to bring to light the prospects for rendering meaningful and informative such inaccessible totalities and hypothetical inactualities. All in all, Rescher's principal message is that in matters of inquiry and cognition, the interrelationship of practical and theoretical issues is at once more close and more complex than theorists of knowledge generally recognize.

Contents:

Knowledge of the truth in pragmatic perspective

Epistemic justification

Categories : a pragmatic approach

On learned ignorance and the limits of knowledge

The deficits of skepticism

Cognitive realism : a pragmatic perspective on existence and our knowledge of it

Induction as enthymematic reasoning : a pragmatic perspective on inference to the best systematizaton

On circularity and regress in rational validation

Reification fallacies and inappropriate totalities

What if things were different?

Meta-knowledge and cognitive limits : rudiments of formalized epistemology.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-248) and index.

ISBN:

0822941538

OCLC:

46937432