Realism And Pragmatic Epistemology

Realism And Pragmatic Epistemology PDF Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970937
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
An examination of philosophical realism from the standpoint of pragmatic epistemology, Realism and Pragmatic Epistemology addresses the core idea of Rescher's work in epistemology: that functional and pragmatic concerns exert a controlling influence on the conduct of rational inquiry and on the ways in which we can and should regard its products.Pragmatism is widely regarded as a philosophical approach that stands at odds with realism, but Rescher takes a very different approach. He views pragmatism as a realistic position that can be developed from a pragmatic point of view, and utilizes a number of case studies to augment his position. Throughout, he shows how the pragmatic and purposive setting of our putative knowledge of the real world proves to be crucial for the constituting and also for the constitution of our knowledge.

Realism And Pragmatic Epistemology

Realism And Pragmatic Epistemology PDF Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970937
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Get Book Here

Book Description
An examination of philosophical realism from the standpoint of pragmatic epistemology, Realism and Pragmatic Epistemology addresses the core idea of Rescher's work in epistemology: that functional and pragmatic concerns exert a controlling influence on the conduct of rational inquiry and on the ways in which we can and should regard its products.Pragmatism is widely regarded as a philosophical approach that stands at odds with realism, but Rescher takes a very different approach. He views pragmatism as a realistic position that can be developed from a pragmatic point of view, and utilizes a number of case studies to augment his position. Throughout, he shows how the pragmatic and purposive setting of our putative knowledge of the real world proves to be crucial for the constituting and also for the constitution of our knowledge.

Grounds of Pragmatic Realism

Grounds of Pragmatic Realism PDF Author: Kenneth Westphal
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004360174
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
Grounds of Pragmatic Realism argues that Hegel’s philosophy from the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit through his last Berlin lectures on philosophical psychology demonstates how Kant’s critique of rational judgment across his Critical corpus can be disentangled from Kant’s failed Transcendental Idealism and developed into a cogent, pragmatic realism, within which the social and historical aspects of rational inquiry and justification are shown to justify realism about the objects of empirical knowledge. Hegel’s demonstration reveals how deeply contemporary epistemology remains beholden to pre-Critical options, none of which are adequate to the natural sciences, nor to commonsense. Hegel recognised and justified (independently) Kant’s semantics of singular cognitive reference to particulars within space and time. Hegel’s analysis of mutual recognition develops Kant’s insights into the self-critical and inter-subjective aspects of rational judgment and justification, to show that none of us can be properly rational judges, nor can we properly justify our judgments rationally, without constructive self-criticism and without acknowledging and benefitting from constructive critical assessment by others.

Pragmatic Naturalism & Realism

Pragmatic Naturalism & Realism PDF Author: John R. Shook
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Pragmatism, the philosophy native to America, has once again grown to prominence in philosophical debate around the world. Today, the type of pragmatism that is proving to be of greatest value for fostering discussions with other worldviews is pragmatic naturalism. The fourteen provocative essays in this original collection are all by philosophers who describe themselves as pragmatic naturalists and who are active in the present-day revival of American pragmatism. Pragmatic naturalism, like all varieties of pragmatism, steers clear of the extreme intellectualism too often found in philosophy. Pragmatic naturalism stresses that genuine inquiry must be conducted in a consistently empirical manner and be responsive to real human problems. It also contends that the sciences and their methodologies are superior to other modes of inquiry into the human environment. Despite the curious fact that pragmatism is often taken to be opposed to realism, the essays in this volume assert the interdependence of pragmatism with some type of realistic metaphysical stance. As such they advance the debates over the question of realism by uncovering and investigating the deepest assumptions running through recent Anglo-American philosophy. This excellent collection of high-quality essays on a resurgent school of American philosophy will be of interest to philosophers as well as scholars in the natural and social sciences.

Hilary Putnam

Hilary Putnam PDF Author: Urszula M. Żegleń
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415256054
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
One of the most influential contemporary philosophers, Hilary Putnam's involvement in philosophy spans philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, ontology and epistemology and logic. This specially commissioned collection discusses his contribution to the realist and pragmatist debate. Hilary Putnam comments on the issues raised in each article, making it invaluable for any scholar of his work.

Understanding Management Research

Understanding Management Research PDF Author: Phil Johnson
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761969181
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
'These sections represent the clearest rendition yet of these subjects, with difficult concepts introduced in a digestible form for the neophytic (or not so neophytic) researcher. Whilst in a book this size not every argument can be presented, there is ample extra material to be found to encourage further engagement... At the end of each chapter, there is a very useful Further Reading section provided by the authors, which gives useful guidelines. I believe to be an extremely useful text, which addresses what has until now been a significant gap in the market. This book will be my first choice in the future for introducing doctoral students of management-related subject to the philosophical underpinning they require for their studies. There is no other text which covers this area so clearly, so succinctly and in language that is readily accessible to a wide range of researcher back-grounds. I can enviSAGE this being a valuable source book to which researchers return again and again in order to deepen their understanding as research projects progress; it certainly provoked some new questions for me. To conclude, an excellent buy' - International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation This is an invaluable introduction for all students and researchers of management confronting a new research project. Understanding Management Research provides an overview of the principal epistemological debates in social science and how these lead to and are expressed in different ways of conceiving and undertaking organizational research. For researchers and students who are increasingly expected to adopt a reflexive understanding of their own epistemological position, the authors present a concise, accessible guide to the different perspectives available and their implications for research output. All students undertaking empirical research for theses and dissertations will find this book helps them comprehend the key ongoing debates and engage with their own pre-understandings when trying to make sense of management and organizations.

Realism, Science, and Pragmatism

Realism, Science, and Pragmatism PDF Author: Kenneth R. Westphal
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131769970X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
This collection of original essays aims to reinvigorate the debate surrounding philosophical realism in relation to philosophy of science, pragmatism, epistemology, and theory of perception. Questions concerning realism are as current and as ancient as philosophy itself; this volume explores relations between different positions designated as ‘realism’ by examining specific cases in point, drawn from a broad range of systematic problems and historical views, from ancient Greek philosophy through the present. The first section examines the context of the project; contributions systematically engage the historical background of philosophical realism, re-examining key works of Aristotle, Descartes, Quine, and others. The following two sections epitomize the central tension within current debates: scientific realism and pragmatism. These contributions address contemporary questions of scientific realism and the reality of the objects of science, and consider whether, how or the extent to which realism and pragmatism are compatible. With an editorial introduction by Kenneth R. Westphal, these fourteen original essays provide wide-ranging, salient insights into the status of realism today.

Pragmatic Perspectives

Pragmatic Perspectives PDF Author: Robert Schwartz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429581394
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
For a good part of the 20th century, the classic Pragmatists—Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey—and pragmatism in general were largely ignored by analytic philosophers. They were said to hold such untenable views as whatever best satisfies our needs is true and that the end justifies the means. Despite a recent revival of interest in these figures, spurred largely by the work of Richard Rorty, it is not uncommon to continue to hear claims that pragmatism is a subjectivist, anti-realist position that denies that there is a mind-independent world, and fails to place objective constraints on inquiry. In this book, Robert Schwartz dispels these traditional views by examining the empiricist and constructivist orientation of the classic pragmatists. Based on updated and expanded versions of his influential papers, as well as a number of previously unpublished essays, in this book Schwartz demonstrates the relevance of pragmatic thought to a wide range of issues beyond concerns over truth and realism that currently dominate discussions. The individual essays elaborate and defend pragmatic, instrumentalist, and constructivist conceptions of truth and inquiry, moral discourse and ethical statements, perception, art, and worldmaking. Pragmatic Perspectives will appeal to scholars interested in the history of American philosophy and pragmatic approaches to contemporary issues in analytic philosophy.

Cognitive Pragmatism

Cognitive Pragmatism PDF Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970589
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In Cognitive Pragmatism, Nicholas Rescher tackles the major questions of philosophical inquiry, pondering the nature of truth and existence. In the authoritative voice and calculated manner that we've come to expect from this distinguished philosopher, Rescher argues that the development of knowledge is a practice, pursued by humans because we have a need for its products. This pragmatic approach satisfies our innate urge as humans to make sense of our surroundings.Taking his discussion down to the level of particular details, and addressing such topics as inductive validation, hypostatization fallacies, and counterfactual reasoning, Rescher abandons abstract generalities in favor of concrete specifics. For example, philosophers usually insist that to reason logically from a counterfactual, we must imagine a possible world in which the statement is fact. But Rescher argues that there's no need to attempt to accept the facts of a world outside our cognition in order to reason from them. He shows us how we can use our own natural system of prioritizing, our own understanding of the fundamental, to resolve the inconsistencies in such statements as, "If the Eiffel Tower were in Manhattan, then it would be in New York State." In using dozens of real-world examples such as these, and in arguing in his characteristically succinct style, Rescher casts light on a wide variety of concrete issues in the classical theory of knowledge, and reassures us along the way that the inherent limitations on our knowledge are no cause for distress. In pragmatic theory and inquiry, we must accept that the best we can do is good enough, because we only have a certain (albeit large) set of tools and conceptualizations available to us.A unique synthesis, this endeavor into pragmatic epistemology will be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy and cognitive science.

Pragmatic Theology

Pragmatic Theology PDF Author: Victor Anderson
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791494861
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Pragmatic Theology argues for a vision of religious life that is derived from the tradition of American pragmatism (James, Dewey, Royce); empirical theology (Chicago School, D.C. Macintosh, H. Richard Niebuhr); and American philosophy of religion (Stone, Frankenberry, Corrington). The author argues that there is a divine reality in human experience that when encountered gives meaning and value to a person's need for cultural fulfillment and to his or her religious need for self-transcendence. The book commends the openness of nature, the world, and human experience to creative transformation and growth. It supports the increase of human capacities to create morally livable and fulfilling communities, the enhancement of the free play of interpretation, and a social order where democratic utopian expectations are envisioned and actualized.

Pragmatism and Objectivity

Pragmatism and Objectivity PDF Author: Sami Pihlström
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317223578
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Pragmatism and Objectivity illuminates the nature of contemporary pragmatism against the background of Rescher’s work, resulting in a stronger grasp of the prospects and promises of this philosophical movement. The central insight of pragmatism is that we must start from where we find ourselves and deflate metaphysical theories of truth in favor of an account that reflects our actual practices of the concept. Pragmatism links truth and rationality to experience, success, and action. While crude versions of pragmatism state that truth is whatever works for a person or a community, Nicholas Rescher has been at the forefront of arguing for a more sophisticated pragmatist position. According to his position, we can illuminate a robust concept of truth by considering its links with inquiry, assertion, belief, and action. His brand of pragmatism is objective and organized around truth and inquiry, rather than other forms of pragmatism that are more subjective and lenient. The contingency and fallibility of knowledge and belief formation does not mean that our beliefs are simply what our community decides, or that truth and objectivity are spurious notions. Rescher offers the best chance of understanding how it is that beliefs can be the products of human inquiry yet aim at the truth nonetheless. The essays in this volume, written by established and up-and-coming scholars of pragmatism, touch on themes related to epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and ethics.