Philosophical Dialectics: An Essay on Metaphilosophy

Nicholas Rescher

SUNY Press, Jun 1, 2007 - Philosophy - 128 pages

While the pursuit of philosophy of studies of science, of art, of politics has blossomed, the philosophy of philosophy remains a comparatively neglected domain. In this book, Nicholas Rescher fills this gap by offering a study in methodology aimed at providing a clear view of the scope and limits of philosophical inquiry. He argues that philosophy s inability to resolve all of the problems of the field does not preclude the prospect of achieving a satisfactory resolution of many or even most of them.

Contents

• Philosophical Principles: 1
• Principles of Informative Adequacy: 3
• Probative Principles of Rational Cogency: 5
• Principles of Rational Economy: 7
• Issues of Validation: 10
• Dealing with Objections: 14
• Aporetic Method in Philosophy: 17
• Some Sample Apories: 19
• On Appraising Apories: 21
• Enter Distinctions: 23
• Apory Resolution as CostBenefit Analysis: 24
• On Distinctions in Philosophy: 27
• How Distinctions Fail: 29
• Misassimilation: 31
• Historical Background: 35
• The Role of Distinctions in Philosophy: 36
• Philosophical Apories Tie Issues Together: 41
• Respect Neglect and Misassimilation as Fallacies of Philosophical Distinctions: 45
• Simplicity: 46
• Fallacy: 47
• Systemic Interconnectedness and Explanatory Holism in Philosophy: 51
• Summative Features: 52
• Fallacies of Composition and Division: 53
• The AnalyticalConstructionist Program: 54
• Instances of the Implementation of the Constructionist Program: 55
• The Fallacy of Termination Presumption: 60
• The Disintegration of Simplicity and the Fallacy of Respect Neglect: 61
• Perspectival Dissonance and Nonamalgamation: 62
• Cognition Is Not Summative: 63
• Review: 65
• Externalities and Negative Side Effects: 66
• Systematic Interconnectedness as a Consequence of Aporetic Complexity: 71
• The Structure of Philosophical Dialectic: 75
• The Role of Distinctions: 78
• The Structure of Dialectic: 81
• Developmental Dialectics: 84
• The Burden of History: 89
• The Structure of Philosophical History: 92
• Ignorance and Cognitive Horizons: 95
• Intractable Questions about the Cognitive Future and Surd Generalities: 97
• Insolubilia Then and Now: 100
• Cognitive Limits: 102
• Identifying Insolubilia: 104
• Relating Knowledge to Ignorance: 106
• Notes: 109
• Bibliography: 115
• Name Index: 119

About the author

Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of more than one hundred books, including Epistemology: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge; Realistic Pragmatism: An Introduction to Pragmatic Philosophy; Predicting the Future: An Introduction to the Theory of Forecasting; Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy; and Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge; all published by SUNY Press. Among his many achievements, he is former president of the American Philosophical Association and recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Philosophical Dialectics: An Essay on Metaphilosophy; G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
• Author: Nicholas Rescher
• Edition: illustrated, annotated
• Publisher: SUNY Press, 2007
• ISBN: 0791467465, 9780791467466
• Length: 128 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / General; Philosophy / Metaphysics; Philosophy / Methodology