Objectivity and Realism
Meeting the Manifestation Challenge
1st Edition
Published in October 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
XXX, 232 pages
978-3-935025-15-7 (ISBN)
Description
Objectivity and Realism is a realist's response ta philosophical challenge which arises for any conception of truth as minimally objective. The challenge is one of explaining how submission ta standard of objective truth can originate from immersion in a practice, where compliance with the rules of this practice is not an objective matter. Meeting this challenge generates certain definite obligations for a philosophical theory of understanding: if the meaning of a sentence is taken tconsist in the conditions for its truth, then the theory must render intelligible how knowledge of what those conditions are, is manifested in the abilities necessary and sufficient for the competent use of that sentence.
Specifying what objectivity minimally requires, Sven Rosenkranz develops a theory of understanding meeting this constraint. He goes on tprovide a sustained defense of realism on that basis. This defense involves a major dialectical reorientation of the realism/anti-realism debate, in which the argumentative burdens are shifted in the realist's favour. In the course of his argument, Rosenkranz offers original critical discussions of important topics in the philosophy of logic and language and general epistemology such as logical revisionism, Fitch's paradox of knowability, minimalism, assertibilist semantics, inferentialism, Kripke's paradox of dogmatism, belief revision, hypothetical reasoning and its role in inferences to the best explanation, and the connection between causality and empirical knowledge.
INHALT
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Analytical Table of Contents
Chapter One
1.1 Innocence and Agnosticism
1.2 Logical Revisionism and Anti-Realism
1.3 The Paradox of Knowability
1.4 Anti-Anti-Realism
Chapter Two
2.1 The Manifestability Requirement
2.2 The Manifestation Argument
2.3 Truth vs. Warranted Assertibility
2.4 Ought Anti-Realist Semantics tbe Systematic, and How Can it Be?
Chapter Three
3.1 Assertoric Content and Ingredient Sense
3.2 Wright's 'Inflationary Argument': An Application
3.3 An Assertibilist Account of Negation
3.4 An Assertibilist Account of Conditionals
3.5 Inferential Warrants for Conditionals
3.6 An Assertibilist Account of the Quantifiers
3.7 Semantic Theory and Object Language
3.8 The Role of Truth in Corrections
3.9 The Manifestation Argument Reconsidered
Chapter Four
4.1 Truth and Inference
4.2 Warrants tAssert
4.3 Deductive Validity and Commitment-Preserving Inferences
4.4 Inconsistency and Incompatibility
4.5 Hypothetical Reasoning
4.6 Objective Truth as Designated Value
Chapter Five
5.1 The Problem of Rational Belief Change
5.2 Entitlement and Explanation
5.3 Objective Discourse and Causation
5.4 Causal Origin and Evidence
5.5 Inferences to the Best Explanation and their Manifestation
5.6 Assertoric Practice and Knowledge-why
5.7 A Solution to the Problem of Understanding
Chapter Six
6.1 Superassertibility and the Limits of Truth
6.2 Theoretical Slack?
6.3 Completeness and Superneutrality
6.4 Causes and Best Explanations
6.5 Assumptions and their Conclusions
Bibliography
Specifying what objectivity minimally requires, Sven Rosenkranz develops a theory of understanding meeting this constraint. He goes on tprovide a sustained defense of realism on that basis. This defense involves a major dialectical reorientation of the realism/anti-realism debate, in which the argumentative burdens are shifted in the realist's favour. In the course of his argument, Rosenkranz offers original critical discussions of important topics in the philosophy of logic and language and general epistemology such as logical revisionism, Fitch's paradox of knowability, minimalism, assertibilist semantics, inferentialism, Kripke's paradox of dogmatism, belief revision, hypothetical reasoning and its role in inferences to the best explanation, and the connection between causality and empirical knowledge.
INHALT
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Analytical Table of Contents
Chapter One
1.1 Innocence and Agnosticism
1.2 Logical Revisionism and Anti-Realism
1.3 The Paradox of Knowability
1.4 Anti-Anti-Realism
Chapter Two
2.1 The Manifestability Requirement
2.2 The Manifestation Argument
2.3 Truth vs. Warranted Assertibility
2.4 Ought Anti-Realist Semantics tbe Systematic, and How Can it Be?
Chapter Three
3.1 Assertoric Content and Ingredient Sense
3.2 Wright's 'Inflationary Argument': An Application
3.3 An Assertibilist Account of Negation
3.4 An Assertibilist Account of Conditionals
3.5 Inferential Warrants for Conditionals
3.6 An Assertibilist Account of the Quantifiers
3.7 Semantic Theory and Object Language
3.8 The Role of Truth in Corrections
3.9 The Manifestation Argument Reconsidered
Chapter Four
4.1 Truth and Inference
4.2 Warrants tAssert
4.3 Deductive Validity and Commitment-Preserving Inferences
4.4 Inconsistency and Incompatibility
4.5 Hypothetical Reasoning
4.6 Objective Truth as Designated Value
Chapter Five
5.1 The Problem of Rational Belief Change
5.2 Entitlement and Explanation
5.3 Objective Discourse and Causation
5.4 Causal Origin and Evidence
5.5 Inferences to the Best Explanation and their Manifestation
5.6 Assertoric Practice and Knowledge-why
5.7 A Solution to the Problem of Understanding
Chapter Six
6.1 Superassertibility and the Limits of Truth
6.2 Theoretical Slack?
6.3 Completeness and Superneutrality
6.4 Causes and Best Explanations
6.5 Assumptions and their Conclusions
Bibliography
More details
Person
Sven Rosenkranz is Assistant Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin.