Working Without a Net : A Study of Egocentric Epistemology
Overview
In this book, Richard Foley defends an epistemology that takes seriously the perspectives of individual thinkers. He argues that having rational opinions is a matter of meeting our own internal standards rather than standards that are somehow imposed upon us from the outside. It is a matter of making ourselves invulnerable to intellectual self-criticism. Foley also shows how the theory of rational belief is part of a general theory of rationality. He thus avoids treating the rationality of belief as a fundamentally different kind of phenomenon from the rationality of decision or action. His approach generates promising suggestions about a wide range of issues, e.g., the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic reasons for belief; the question of what aspects of the Cartesian project are still worth doing; the significance of simplicity and other theoretical virtues; the relevance of skeptical hypotheses; the difference between a theory of rational belief and a theory of knowledge; the difference between a theory of rational belief and a theory of rational degrees of belief; and the limits of idealization in epistemology. The book runs counter to a tendency in contemporary epistemology to discount the perspectives of individual thinkers. Endorsing a radically subjective conception of rational belief, Working Without A Net will interest students of philosophy, epistemology, and rationality.
This item is Non-Returnable
Customers Also Bought
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780195076998
- ISBN-10: 0195076990
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publish Date: December 1992
- Dimensions: 9.58 x 6.36 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.13 pounds
- Page Count: 224
Related Categories
