Reasons Without Rationalism

Download or read book Reasons without Rationalism written by Kieran Setiya and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-11 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind.

Download or read book Reasons Without Persons written by Brian Hedden and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brian Hedden defends a radical view about rationality, personal identity, and time. He argues that what it is rational to do should not depend on your past beliefs or actions, which are not part of your current perspective on the world. His impersonal approach holds that what rationality demands of you is solely determined by your evidence.

Download or read book Reasons Without Rationalism written by Kieran Setiya and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-21 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind.

Download or read book In Defense of Pure Reason written by Laurence BonJour and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive defence of the rationalist view that insight independent of experience is a genuine basis for knowledge.

Download or read book Rational Causation written by Eric Marcus and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We explain what people think and do by citing their reasons, but how do such explanations work, and what do they tell us about the nature of reality? Contemporary efforts to address these questions are often motivated by the worry that our ordinary conception of rationality contains a kernel of supernaturalism-a ghostly presence that meditates on sensory messages and orchestrates behavior on the basis of its ethereal calculations. In shunning this otherworldly conception, contemporary philosophers have focused on the project of "naturalizing" the mind, viewing it as a kind of machine that converts sensory input and bodily impulse into thought and action. Eric Marcus rejects this choice between physicalism and supernaturalism as false and defends a third way. He argues that philosophers have failed to take seriously the idea that rational explanations postulate a distinctive sort of causation-rational causation. Rational explanations do not reveal the same sorts of causal connections that explanations in the natural sciences do. Rather, rational causation draws on the theoretical and practical inferential abilities of human beings. Marcus defends this position against a wide array of physicalist arguments that have captivated philosophers of mind for decades. Along the way he provides novel views on, for example, the difference between rational and nonrational animals and the distinction between states and events.

Download or read book Reason and Rationality written by Maria Cristina Amoretti and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reason and rationality represent crucial elements of the self-image of human beings and have unquestionably been among the most debated issues in Western philosophy, dating from ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, and to the present day. Many words and thoughts have already been spent trying to define the nature and standards of reason and rationality, what they could or ought to be, and under what conditions something can be said to be rational. This volume focuses instead on the relationships of reason and rationality to some relevant specific topics, i.e., science, knowledge, gender, politics, ethics, religion, aesthetics, language, logic, and metaphysics, trying to uncover and clarify both the connections and differences in their various characterisations and uses.

Download or read book Rationalism Vs. Mysticism written by Natan Slifkin and published by Gefen Books. This book was released on 2021-02-28 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: KNOWLEDGE: Do we obtain reliable knowledge about the world from ongoing supernatural revelation, or from scientific investigation? NATURE: Is it preferable to perceive God as working through nature, or through supernatural miracles? SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES: Are we surrounded by all kinds of supernatural forces and entities, such as endless conscious angels, demons and the Evil Eye? MITZVOT: Do the commandments function solely to change our thoughts and behavior, or primarily to manipulate mystical forces? TORAH: Is Torah a Divine guide for life, or is it also a metaphysical blueprint for existence with all kinds of supernatural qualities? Rationalism vs. Mysticism is a thorough study of how these questions were answered very differently by various rabbinic scholars over history, reflecting two fundamentally different views of the nature of Judaism. It will profoundly deepen your understanding of Judaism and many of the intellectual conflicts that have arisen in Jewish history.