Critical Rationalism

Critical Rationalism
Author: David Miller
Publisher: Open Court
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2015-12-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0812699408

David Miller elegantly and provocatively reformulates critical rationalism—the revolutionary approach to epistemology advocated by Karl Popper—by answering its most important critics. He argues for an approach to rationality freed from the debilitating authoritarian dependence on reasons and justification. "Miller presents a particularly useful and stimulating account of critical rationalism. His work is both interesting and controversial . . . of interest to anyone with concerns in epistemology or the philosophy of science." —Canadian Philosophical Reviews

Understanding Rationalism

Understanding Rationalism
Author: Charlie Huenemann
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2014-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317493109

The three great historical philosophers most often associated with rationalism - Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz - opened up ingenious and breathtaking vistas upon the world. Yet their works are so difficult that readers often find themselves stymied. "Understanding Rationalism" offers a guide for anyone approaching these thinkers for the first time.With clear explanations, elegant examples and insightful summaries, "Understanding Rationalism" unlocks their intricate metaphysical systems, which are by turns surprising, compelling and sometimes bizarre. It also lays out their controversial stances on moral, political and religious problems. The study is framed by an opening discussion of the broad themes and attitudes common to these three philosophers and a closing analysis of the legacy they left for the rest of philosophy.

A Companion to Rationalism

A Companion to Rationalism
Author: Alan Nelson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 716
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1118394208

This book is a wide-ranging examination of rationalist thought in philosophy from ancient times to the present day. Written by a superbly qualified cast of philosophers Critically analyses the concept of rationalism Focuses principally on the golden age of rationalism in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Also covers ancient rationalism, nineteenth-century rationalism, and rationalist themes in recent thought Organised chronologically Various philosophical methods and viewpoints are represented

Realistic Rationalism

Realistic Rationalism
Author: Jerrold J. Katz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1997-12-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780262263290

Jerrold Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. In Realistic Rationalism, Jerrold J. Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. Realism here means that the objects of study in mathematics and other formal sciences are abstract; rationalism means that our knowledge of them is not empirical. Katz uses this position to meet the principal challenges to realism. In exposing the flaws in criticisms of the antirealists, he shows that realists can explain knowledge of abstract objects without supposing we have causal contact with them, that numbers are determinate objects, and that the standard counterexamples to the abstract/concrete distinction have no force. Generalizing the account of knowledge used to meet the challenges to realism, he develops a rationalist and non-naturalist account of philosophical knowledge and argues that it is preferable to contemporary naturalist and empiricist accounts. The book illuminates a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of necessity, the distinction between the formal and natural sciences, empiricist holism, the structure of ontology, and philosophical skepticism. Philosophers will use this fresh treatment of realism and rationalism as a starting point for new directions in their own research.

The Minds of the Moderns

The Minds of the Moderns
Author: Janice Thomas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2014-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317492412

This is a comprehensive examination of the ideas of the early modern philosophers on the nature of mind. Taking Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in turn, Janice Thomas presents an authoritative and critical assessment of each of these canonical thinkers' views of the notion of mind. The book examines each philosopher's position on five key topics: the metaphysical character of minds and mental states; the nature and scope of introspection and self-knowledge; the nature of consciousness; the problem of mental causation and the nature of representation and intentionality. The exposition and examination of their positions is informed by present-day debates in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology so that students get a clear sense of the importance of these philosophers' ideas, many of which continue to define our current notions of the mental.Again and again, philosophers and students alike come back to the great early modern rationalist and empiricist philosophers for instruction and inspiration. Their views on the philosophy of mind are no exception and as Janice Thomas shows they have much to offer contemporary debates. The book is suitable for undergraduate courses in the philosophy of mind and the many new courses in philosophy of psychology.

Gewirth's Ethical Rationalism

Gewirth's Ethical Rationalism
Author: Edward Regis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1984
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780226706917

Alan Gewirth's Reason and Morality directed philosophical attention to the possibility of presenting a rational and rigorous demonstration of fundamental moral principles. Now, these previously unpublished essays from some of the most distinguished philosophers of our generation subject Gewirth's program to thorough evaluation and assessment. In a tour de force of philosophical analysis, Professor Gewirth provides detailed replies to all of his critics--a major, genuinely clarifying essay of intrinsic philosophical interest.

Critical Rationalism and the Theory of Society

Critical Rationalism and the Theory of Society
Author: Masoud Mohammadi Alamuti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2021-03-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000361292

Investigating Karl Popper’s philosophy of critical rationalism, Critical Rationalism and the Theory of Society, Volume 1, explores a non-justificationist conception of critical reason and its fundamental outcomes for the theory of society. Through a set of fundamental contributions to epistemology, the theory of rationality and sociology, this volume (a) situates the idea of critical rationalism in its true epistemological context, (b) uses non-justificationist epistemology to reinvent critical rationalism and (c) applies its revised concept of rationality to show how people’s access to critical reason enables them to agree on the common values and social institutions necessary for a peaceful and just social order. These contributions lead the reader to a new epistemological understanding of the idea of critical rationalism and recognition of how a non-justificational concept of reason changes the content of the theory of society. The reader also learns how thinkers, movements and masses apply their critical reason to replace an established social order with an ideal one through activating five types of driving forces of social change: metaphysical, moral, legal, political and economic. Written for philosophers and sociologists, this book will appeal to social scientists such as moral philosophers, legal scholars, political scientists and economists.

Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy

Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy
Author: Paul Stern
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 1993-08-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438421176

In this new interpretation of Plato's Phaedo, Paul Stern considers the dialogue as an invaluable source for understanding the distinctive character of Socratic rationalism. First, he demonstrates, contrary to the charge of such thinkers as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Rorty, that Socrates' rationalism does not rest on the dogmatic presumption of the rationality of nature. Second, he shows that the distinctively Socratic mode of philosophizing is formulated precisely with a view to vindicating the philosophic life in the face of these uncertainties. And finally, he argues that this vindication results in a mode of inquiry that finds its ground in a clear understanding of the problematical but enduring human situation. Stern concludes that Socratic rationalism, aware as it is of the limits of reason, still provides a nondogmatic and nonarbitrary basis for human understanding.

Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism

Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism
Author: Gene Callahan
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-05-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030425991

This book provides an overview of some of the most important critics of “Enlightenment rationalism.” The subjects of the volume—including, among others, Burke, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, T.S. Eliot, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, C.S. Lewis, Gabriel Marcel, Russell Kirk, and Jane Jacobs—do not share a philosophical tradition as much as a skeptical disposition toward the notion, common among modern thinkers, that there is only one standard of rationality or reasonableness, and that that one standard is or ought to be taken from the presuppositions, methods, and logic of the natural sciences. The essays on each thinker are intended not merely to offer a commentary on that thinker, but also to place that thinker in the context of this larger stream of anti-rationalist thought. Thus, while this volume is not a history of anti-rationalist thought, it may contain the intimations of such a history.