Concept Audits (eBook)

A Philosophical Method

Nicholas Rescher (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
194 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-4040-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Concept auditing explores the obligation of philosophers to honor the existing meanings of terms and concepts such as knowledge, truth, justice, fairness, and beauty. Nicholas Rescher explains how philosophers’ treatments of topics relate to our presystematic understanding and how their deliberations should relate to the prevailing conception of the matters.

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Concept auditing is based on an innovative premise for philosophers: when they address an everyday life conception on the order of knowledge, truth, justice, fairness, beauty, or the like and purport to be dealing with what it involves, then they must honor the existing meanings of these terms. And insofar as the prevailing meaning is being contravened, they must explain how and justify why this is being done. They must, in sum, explain how their treatment of a topic relates to our established pre-systematic understanding of the issues involved and relate their deliberations to the prevailing conception of the matter they are proposing to discuss. The aim of a concept audit is to consider to what extent a given philosophical discussion honors this communicative obligation. Concept Audits sets out not only to explain and defend this procedure, but also to consider a host of applications and exemplifications of these ideas. Nicholas Rescher shows how this method of conceptual auditing can function to elucidate and evaluate philosophical theses and doctrine across a wide spectrum of issues, ranging from logic to ethics and metaphysics. Accordingly, he explains and illustrates an instructive innovation in philosophical method. This new study of philosophical methodology presents its method in a clear and convincing way and shows the method at work with respect to a wide spectrum of important philosophical issues.

Autor

Nicholas Rescher is professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Inhalt

PREFACEI.METHODOLOGY1.Introduction: The Concept Auditing ProcessII.SOME HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS2. The Socratic Method as an Illustration3.Neo-Platonic Wholes4.Descartes and Generalization5.Spinoza on Things and Ideas6.Kantian Absolutism in Moral Theory7.Mill on Desirability8.Ordinary Language Philosophy on the Nature of Knowing9.Russell-Gettier on the Analysis of Knowledge10.Concept Dialectics in Historical Perspective11.Metaphysical IllusionsIII.FURTHER ILLUSTRATIVE APPLICATIONS12.Who Dun It?13.Existence: To Be or Not to Be14.Explanatory Regression15.The Fallacy of Respect Neglect16.Appearance and Reality17.On the Truth about Reality18.Sameness and Change19.Origination Issues20.Shaping Ideas21.Construing Necessitation22.Conceptual Horizons23.Language Limits24.On Certainty25.Timeless Truth26.Assessing Acceptability27.Value Neutrality in Science28.Personhood and Obligation29.Control Issues30.Fairness Problems31.The Ethics of Delegation32.Doing unto Others33.Faux Quantities34.Luck vs. Fortune35.The Problem of Progress36.Issues of Excellence37.Problems of PerfectionIV.CONCLUSION38.Concluding Observations

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.8.2016
• Zusatzinfo: 17 Illustrations including: - 13 Black & White Illustrations; - 4 Text Boxes.
• Verlagsort: Lanham
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Sprachphilosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: category mistakes • Epistemology • ethics • Logic • luck • Metaphysics • Obligation • Ordinary Language Philosophy • perfection • Philosophy of Language • Progress • Socratic method • Truth
• ISBN-10: 1-4985-4040-6 / 1498540406
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4985-4040-7 / 9781498540407