Studies in Philosophical Inquiry. Volume 4

A set of studies of various central problems in contemporary philosophy--particularly issues relating to the theory of knowledge and to philosophical inquiry itself (metaphilosophy). PREFACE Chapter One: Textuality, Reality, and the Limitedness of Knowledge 1. How Much Can a Person Know? 2. Leibnizian Perspective on Human Finitude 2. The Leibnizian Perspective 3. Cognitive Finitude 4. Surd Facts and Unknowability 5. Sessons Chapter Two: Limits of Knowledge: Unanswerable Questions and Unknowable Facts 1. Unknowable Facts 2. Time and Prediction 3. Noninstantiable Properties and Vagrant Predicates 4. The Role of Numerical Disparity in Validating Claims of Inapplicability: The Musical Chairs Perplex 5. Truths are Enumerable 6. Truths vs. Facts 7. The Transdenumerability of Facts 8. A Surfeit of Facts 9. Musical Chairs 10. Does Incompleteness Entail Incorrectness? 11. Coda: Against Cognitive Nominalism 12. Postscript: A Cognitively Indeterminate Universe Chapter Three: On Conceptual Change 1. Hegel vs. Plato 2. The Way of Concepts 3. Conceptual Change 4. Science vs. Common Sense Chapter Four: Possibility Conceptualism: An Essay in Modal Ontology 1. Modal Conceptualism 2. Possibility Conceptualism 3. Dispensing with Possibilia 4. On the Logic of Possibility 5. Overcoming the Insufficiency Chapter Five: The Fallacy of Respect Neglect 1. Respect Neglect 2. Simplicity 3. Further Examples of Respect Neglect 4. Perspectival Dissonance and Non-Amalgamation 5. Respectival Problems of Analogy 6. Summary Chapter Six: On Distinctions in Philosophy 1. How Distinctions Work: Some Historical Backgrounds 2. How Distinctions Can Fail 3. Misassimilation 4. Apories and the Role of Distinctions in Philosophy 5. How Philosophical Distinctions can Fail 6. The Shift of Standardism Chapter Seven: On Philosophical Systematization: Plausibility and the Hegelian Vision 1. The Hegelian Vision 2. A Fatal Obstacle: The Plunge into Inconsistency 3. Plausibility to the Rescue 4. How Plausibility Works 5. Plausibility Syncretism and Aporetics 6. Apory Engenders a Diversity of Resolutions 7. The Role of Distinctions in Dialectics 8. Distinctions as a Means to Preservation 9. An Historical Illustration 10. Philosophy in a Different Light: Recovering the Hegelian Vision of Philosophy at Large Chapter Eight: Universality of Reason: On Kantian Universalization in Matters of Rationality and Morality 1. Rationality and its Demands 2. Obligatoriness 3. Universality and Uniformity 4. The Governing Maxims of Theoretical Reason 5. The Governing Maxim of Practical and Evaluating Reason 6. Interrelationships Among the Domains 7. Maxims and Universalisation 8. An Epistemological Turn: Deduction 9. Consequentialism 10. A Kantian Moral Chapter Nine: On the Import and Rationale of Value Attribution 1. Introduction 2. Tertiary Properties 3. Values as Tertiary Properties 4. Values as Supervenient 5. Values as Beneficiary Coordinated? 6. Paramount Consequences of Seeing Values as Tertiary Dispositions 7. The Epistemology of Value Chapter Ten: Ethical Quantities 1. The Problem of Ethical Quantities 2. An Impetus of Inexactness 3. Generality Creates Difficulties Chapter Eleven: The Scope and Import of Pragmatism: On the Methodology of Practical Reason 1. Pragmatism and Purpose 2. The Ramification of Purpose 3. Overcoming Difficulties 4. Epistemic Pragmatism 5. Pragmatism and Value 6. A Humean Excursion 7. Moral vs. Epistemic Credit: A Case Study of How the Difference of Aims Explains the Difference Between the Principles at Work With Moral and With Epistemic Credit 8. The Crucial Rule of Interests and Needs: Wants and Preferences are not Enough 9. The Impetus of Interests Chapter Twelve: Referential Analysis in Philosophy: A Foray in Metaphilosophy 1. Referential Analysis 2. Some Not-so-Ideal Types