Relativist and constructivist conceptions of knowledge have become orthodoxy in vast stretches of the academic world in recent times. This book critically examines such views and argues that they are fundamentally flawed. The book focuses on three different ways of reading the claim that knowledge is socially constructed, one about facts and two about justification. All three are rejected. The intuitive, common sense view is that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion, and that we (...) are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reasonable, and is binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant evidence, regardless of their social or cultural perspective. Difficult as these notions may be, it is a mistake to think that recent philosophy has uncovered powerful reasons for rejecting them. (shrink)

Such a conception, says Dummett, will form "a base camp for an assault on the metaphysical peaks: I have no greater ambition in this book than to set up a base ...

Philosophie ist wissentlicher Einhegungsversuch des Nichtwissens. Wo immer sie daher die Bedeutung und Wirksamkeit des Nichtwissens nicht präsent hält, verfehlt sie ihre Mitte. Das hat sich seit der Antike bis heute nicht geändert. Allerdings blieb es den Interessen der Zeiten und Denker vorbehalten, die Mischformen von Wissen und Nichtwissen in ihrer Eigenart mehr oder weniger eingehend zu analysieren. Selbst wenn die sokratische Formel vom Wissen des Nichtwissens durchgängig gerne zitiert wurde: Wie die Formen des Wissens in ihren schwachen, aber unentbehrlichen (...) Variationen näherhin zu charakterisieren sind, hat über die Zeiten die Philosophen eher selten interessiert. Aber diese schwachen Formen des Wissens wie Ahnung, Mutmaßung und das Gefühl als Grundlage von Situationseinschätzungen sind für unseren Alltag von erheblicher Bedeutung. Wolfram Hogrebe diskutiert in seinem Buch Formen des Wissens in ihrer szenischen Relevanz, ja das Szenische als Wissensform selbst. Ein von der Philosophie bislang völlig ignoriertes Thema. Aber die Philosophie kann gar nicht ignorieren, ohne dennoch auch in ihrem Absehen noch etwas Mitgesehenes hervortreten zu lassen. (shrink)

This work, the text of Martin Heidegger's lecture course of 1929/30, is crucial for an understanding of Heidegger's transition from the major work of his early years, Being and Time, to his later preoccupations with language, truth, and ...

Inspired by Rudolf Carnap's Der Logische Aufbau Der Welt, David J. Chalmers argues that the world can be constructed from a few basic elements. He develops a scrutability thesis saying that all truths about the world can be derived from basic truths and ideal reasoning. This thesis leads to many philosophical consequences: a broadly Fregean approach to meaning, an internalist approach to the contents of thought, and a reply to W. V. Quine's arguments against the analytic and the a priori. (...) Chalmers also uses scrutability to analyze the unity of science, to defend a conceptual approach to metaphysics, and to mount a structuralist response to skepticism. Based on the 2010 John Locke lectures, Constructing the World opens up debate on central philosophical issues involving language, consciousness, knowledge, and reality. This major work by a leading philosopher will appeal to philosophers in all areas. This entry contains uncorrected proofs of front matter, chapter 1, and first excursus. (shrink)

Now available for the first time in paperback, the remarkable debut of a former student of Alain Badiou.

In order to perfectly describe the world, it is not enough to speak truly. One must also use the right concepts - including the right logical concepts. One must use concepts that "carve at the joints", that give the world's "structure". There is an objectively correct way to "write the book of the world". Much of metaphysics, as traditionally conceived, is about the fundamental nature of reality; in the present terms, this is about the world's structure. Metametaphysics - inquiry into (...) the status of metaphysical questions - turns on structure. The question of whether ontological, causal, or modal questions are "substantive" is in large part a question of whether the world has ontological, causal, and modal structure - whether quantifiers, causal relations, and modal operators carve at the joints. (shrink)

Quine has spoken of bringing our beliefs about the world before “the tribunal of experience.” In Mind and World, McDowell agrees that this is what we must do, but he argues forcefully that Quine’s conception of experience as nothing more than a neuronal cause of verbal responses loses the whole idea that experiences can justify beliefs. McDowell’s overarching aim is to determine conditions that experience must satisfy if it is to be genuinely a tribunal.

A. W. Moore argues in this bold, unusual, and ambitious book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude.

These selections provide a brief but comprehensive introduction to Fichte’s philosophical system and his place in the history of German Idealism. In addition to some of Fichte’s most influential texts, such as the First and Second Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and The Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World, Breazeale has translated, for the first time into English, several other writings from the same period, including Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre, Other short essays, (...) including Fichte’s replies to the charge of atheism, extend the discussions of the Introductions and respond to criticisms. Breazeale’s substantial Introduction supplies the context needed for a sound appreciation of Fichte’s enterprise and achievement. (shrink)

This is a paradigmatic work of contemporary philosophy.

Translator's introduction: The germinal structure of Derrida's thought -- Translator's note -- Introduction -- Sign and signs -- The reduction of indication -- Meaning as soliloquy -- Meaning and representation -- The sign and the blink of an eye -- The voice that keeps silent -- The originative supplement.