Research Catalog

Title

Philosophy after objectivity : making sense in perspective / Paul K. Moser.

Author

Moser, Paul K., 1957-

Publication

New York : Oxford University Press, 1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 267 pages; 24 cm

Summary

Since the beginning of philosophy, philosophers have sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. Philosophy After Objectivity uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for non-question begging support for claims to objective truth, and that therefore we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges. One key lesson in this volume is that constructive, explanatory approach to philosophy must change the subject from skeptic-resistant reasons to perspectival reasons arising from variable semantic commitments and instrumental, purpose-relative considerations. The book lays foundations for such a reorientation of philosophy creating Fundamental methodological issues in ontology, epistemology, the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of practical rationality. Philosophy After Objectivity explains how certain perennial debates in philosophy rest not on genuine disagreement, but on conceptual diversity: talk about different matters. The book shows how acknowledgment of conceptual diversity can resolve a range of traditional disputes in philosophy, and also explains why philosophers need not anchor their discipline in the physicalism of the natural sciences.

Subject

• Objectivity
• Realism
• Relativity
• Perspective (Philosophy)
• Objectivity
• Realism
• Relativity
• Objektivität
• Ontologie
• Perspektivismus
• Kennistheorie
• Objectiviteit

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-252) and index.

Contents

1. Ontology, evidence, and philosophical questions -- 2. Justification, meta-epistemology, and meaning -- 3. Meaning, interpretation, and analyticity -- 4. Reasons, truth, and relativism -- 5. Physicialism, action, and explanation.

ISBN

• 0195081099
• 9780195081091
• 9780195351354
• 0195351355
• 9780195130942 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

92038864

OCLC

• ocm27012227
• 27012227
• SCSB-9577641

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library