About the Book
Pragmatism's founder, C. S. Peirce, initially envisioned philosophy as a means of rationally validating our beliefs and actions. Afterward, William James changed pragmatism into a way of undermining commitment to rational cogency. With the subsequent turn of various contemporary pragmatisms to relativism and subjectivism, such irrational tendencies have become still more prominent.
Vagaries of Value aims to create a version of realistic and rationalistic pragmatism that is systemically viable and does justice to traditional pragmatism's salient insights. Nicholas Rescher strives to return pragmatism to its realistic and objectivistic roots in a detailed survey of issues across the whole board of philosophical thought, action, and evaluation.
Rescher argues that the crisis of pragmatism created by today's subjective tendencies should be met by adopting not a revisionary, but a reconstructive understanding of pragmatism, keeping close to its Peircean roots. He argues that such a turning does not mitigate against the pragmatic program's practical orientation, but provides an opportunity for sharpening our understanding of how pragmatism can and should be developed.
Table of Contents:
Preface
1 On Evaluation
2 The Rationality of Values and Evaluations (Against the Humean Conception of Reason)
3 Is Reasoning about Values Viciously Circular?
4 The Fallacy of Respect Neglect
5 Multiaspectival Evaluation
6 On the Evaluation of Claims and Assertions
7 On Excellence
8 Levels of Optimality (Best for Me versus Best for Us)
9 Axiological Neutrality (Value Exclusion [Wertfreiheit] and Value Neutrality in Science)
10 On World Improvement
Name Index
About the Author :
Nicholas Rescher, distinguished university professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, is currently chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science. He established himself as a systematic philosopher of the old style in a productive research career extending over six decades and is a prolific author of books in all areas of philosophy.
Review :
-Who but Nicholas Rescher, with his solid background in logic, philosophy of mathematics and science, could develop value theory in this rigorous lucid fashion? The panoply of categories, evaluation criteria, rational preference bases, illustrative applications, and sound evaluation metaprinciples, offers readers of this new important contribution to the metaphysics of value and the rationality of choice a brilliant overview of central ideas in the philosophy of evaluative judgment and normative reasoning in historical context and with incisive memorable thought experiments. The book complements as it extends Rescher's career-long commitment to understanding the vagaries of value.-
--Dale Jacquette, professor and chair of philosophy, UniversitAt Bern
-In his new book, Nicholas Rescher, a leading contemporary pragmatist, explores value theory (-axiology-) arising in German neo-Kantianism. His clear, well-informed, insightful account of evaluative rationality relating to meritorious ends (instead of instrumental means) is highly recommended.-
--Tom Rockmore, distinguished professor, Peking University
-Nicholas Rescher bridges the realms of logical and evaluative reasoning, facts and values, by explaining the particulars of how we evaluate goals and ends and not just the means to these. He carefully outlines the importance of ideals and principles of evaluation in our lives, a perennial topic of philosophy but one of particular contemporary relevance. This work is important to anyone interested in the nature of practical reason and axiological theory.-
--Mark Roberts, Franciscan University of Steubenville
"Who but Nicholas Rescher, with his solid background in logic, philosophy of mathematics and science, could develop value theory in this rigorous lucid fashion? The panoply of categories, evaluation criteria, rational preference bases, illustrative applications, and sound evaluation metaprinciples, offers readers of this new important contribution to the metaphysics of value and the rationality of choice a brilliant overview of central ideas in the philosophy of evaluative judgment and normative reasoning in historical context and with incisive memorable thought experiments. The book complements as it extends Rescher's career-long commitment to understanding the vagaries of value."
--Dale Jacquette, professor and chair of philosophy, UniversitAt Bern
"In his new book, Nicholas Rescher, a leading contemporary pragmatist, explores value theory ("axiology") arising in German neo-Kantianism. His clear, well-informed, insightful account of evaluative rationality relating to meritorious ends (instead of instrumental means) is highly recommended."
--Tom Rockmore, distinguished professor, Peking University
"Nicholas Rescher bridges the realms of logical and evaluative reasoning, facts and values, by explaining the particulars of how we evaluate goals and ends and not just the means to these. He carefully outlines the importance of ideals and principles of evaluation in our lives, a perennial topic of philosophy but one of particular contemporary relevance. This work is important to anyone interested in the nature of practical reason and axiological theory."
--Mark Roberts, Franciscan University of Steubenville
"Who but Nicholas Rescher, with his solid background in logic, philosophy of mathematics and science, could develop value theory in this rigorous lucid fashion? The panoply of categories, evaluation criteria, rational preference bases, illustrative applications, and sound evaluation metaprinciples, offers readers of this new important contribution to the metaphysics of value and the rationality of choice a brilliant overview of central ideas in the philosophy of evaluative judgment and normative reasoning in historical context and with incisive memorable thought experiments. The book complements as it extends Rescher's career-long commitment to understanding the vagaries of value."
--Dale Jacquette, professor and chair of philosophy, UniversitAt Bern
"In his new book, Nicholas Rescher, a leading contemporary pragmatist, explores value theory ("axiology") arising in German neo-Kantianism. His clear, well-informed, insightful account of evaluative rationality relating to meritorious ends (instead of instrumental means) is highly recommended."
--Tom Rockmore, distinguished professor, Peking University
"Nicholas Rescher bridges the realms of logical and evaluative reasoning, facts and values, by explaining the particulars of how we evaluate goals and ends and not just the means to these. He carefully outlines the importance of ideals and principles of evaluation in our lives, a perennial topic of philosophy but one of particular contemporary relevance. This work is important to anyone interested in the nature of practical reason and axiological theory."
--Mark Roberts, Franciscan University of Steubenville
