The standard philosophical view of reasoning makes it out to be a matter of eliciting true conclusions from true premises. Truth itself is all-or-nothing: statements and beliefs are either flat-out true or flat-out false. But are they? A second glance suggests that these doctrines simply cannot be correct. Alltoo often our inferences begin and end with claims that we ourselves take to be approximations to the truth, or idealizations, or just technically true, oronly officially true, or merely true for present purposes. In a groundbreaking new work, Elijah Millgram takes up the hard truths of real reasoning and draws out their implications for logic and metaphysics. The ubiquity of partial truth means that we must be able to reason our way from somewhat true premises to conclusions that are, if not entirely true, true enough. In an argument that cuts across philosophical specializations, Millgram reconsiders such contemporary intellectual landmarks as the indeterminacy of translation, the CanberraPlan analysis of the mind, Donald Davidsons uses of the Principle of Charity,and the possible worlds way of thinking about counterfactuals. He ultimately advances a novel re-conception of metaphysics as intellectual ergonomics. Ambitious and strikingly original, Hard Truths will challenge prevailing views of the purpose of truth and of the way we reason; it will make us rethink the place of metaphysics in our daily lives.
- ISBN: 978-1-4051-8815-9
- Editorial: Wiley-Blackwell
- Encuadernacion: Cartoné
- Páginas: 312
- Fecha Publicación: 31/03/2009
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés