Suchergebnisse

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 s

Much recent political thought has been devoted to the proposition that neither political endeavor properly understood nor theorizing about such endeavor is or could ever be a kind of rational activity. I examine three broad approaches that celebrate, respectively, rhetorical practices of political persuasion, agonistic conceptions of democracy, and, more generally, a kind of hard-headed critical realism rooted in the plain facts of political life. I argue that criticisms of rationalism in politics associated with these approaches systematically ignore central tenets of what might be called a post-Kantian convergence of recent and important philosophical perspectives and that such perspectives can be enormously useful in addressing and critically evaluating the underlying intellectual structures of political life.

"Rationalism and Security" published on by Oxford University Press.

A brief survey of the historical development of rationalism is made. It is shown that neither rationalism nor empiricism satisfy Aristotle's postulates for a science. The development of mathematical statistics shows a direct concern with the relation between theory and observation. Results to date suggest that Aristotle's postulates do not yield a suitable characterization of science. It is concluded that any system of rationalism suitable for science will share the following characteristics with mathematical statistics; (1) basic concepts will involve both theoretical and empirical entities, (2) some aspects of the rationalism will he developed empirically, and (3) some aspects of the rationalism will be developed by "elimination" of "true values" from "self-evident" mathematics. New systems of scientific rationalism may differ from mathematical statistics by (1) prohibiting the use of the "excluded middle," (2) replacing, or reformulating, the probability concept, and (3) relaxing the requirement of indefinite repetition of experiments.

Are there appropriate limits to the application of rational choice in political decision making? Does rationalism in politics lead to absolutism? Is there a "pressing threat" to liberal democracy "posed by the irreverent conviction of the hegemony of reason"? In the June 1987 issue of thisReview, Darrell Dobbs drew lesson from Homer's epic poem, theOdyssey, to argue the limits of rationalism in politics. In this Controversy, Robert Crafstein argues that Dobbs's case against rationalism is not proved. In turn, Dobbs holds to his construction of the relevance of Odysseus' nod to sacred values.

AbstractIt used to be thought that rational coherence and metaphysical possibility went hand in hand. Kripke and Putnam put a spanner in the works by proposing examples of propositions which seem to violate this principle. I will propose a nuanced form of modal rationalism consistent with the Kripke/Putnam cases. The rough idea is that rational coherence entails possibility when you grasp the essential nature of what you're conceiving of.

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a