Kirjahaku

First published in 1985, Practical Inferences describes how practical inferences are used. Starting with relatively simple inference patterns exhibited in everyday prudential decisions, the author extends a basic structural framework to the more complex inferences used in assessing probabilities, and finally to moral inferences. In this way what have been regarded as disparate activities are shown to exhibit fundamental similarities. The author argues that at all levels of decision-making the practical inferences used contain at least one premise expressing the desires or preferences of the agent. This is in opposition to the dominant view in Western philosophy that desires must be regulated or evaluated by means of principles of conduct discovered by rational procedures. By examining the premises implied by holders of this view, the author shows that they are inadequate bases for justifying practical decisions. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy, logic and mathematics.

First published in 1985, Practical Inferences describes how practical inferences are used. Starting with relatively simple inference patterns exhibited in everyday prudential decisions, the author extends a basic structural framework to the more complex inferences used in assessing probabilities, and finally to moral inferences. In this way what have been regarded as disparate activities are shown to exhibit fundamental similarities. The author argues that at all levels of decision-making the practical inferences used contain at least one premise expressing the desires or preferences of the agent. This is in opposition to the dominant view in Western philosophy that desires must be regulated or evaluated by means of principles of conduct discovered by rational procedures. By examining the premises implied by holders of this view, the author shows that they are inadequate bases for justifying practical decisions. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy, logic and mathematics.

This collection of four essays argues that pragmatic naturalism provides the most promising way of overcoming the puzzles and controversies of recent philosophy. Pragmatic naturalism maintains that philosophical controversies arise from attempts to extend the scopes of the principal forms of specialized discourse used in the sciences and religion, and in interpretations and evaluations of the arts, beyond their proper boundaries. By relating these specialized forms to everyday conversation, pragmatic naturalism provides the basis for a philosophical system in which these controversies can be resolved. The first essay focuses on the discourse level of signs, the level of sign use and interpretation that is most distinctively human and occupies our waking lives. The remaining three essays apply the central ideas of Essay I to issues raised in the philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy of education.