A summary of the main issues in contemporary epistemology, arguing for a revision of our ideas about the relation between the mind and the world. Margolis demonstrates that we cannot distinguish between robust relativism and non-dogmatic realism, and proposes a version of epistemological pragmatism. The book provides a full-scale defence of a workable and coherent relativism, addressed to the entire range of contemporary Western philosophy. It presents both a formal account of pragmatism's logical features, and substative and detailed argument demonstrating its explanatory force in quarrels among philosophies of science and theories of knowledge. It also offers a fully worked out attempt to reconcile relativism and realism in the context of the burgeoning uncertainties of scientific realism, through a close reading of the problems which both Anglo-American and continental European philosophy are beginning to share. Professor Margolis's argument distinguishes between three varieties of relativism: protagoreanism (the ancient doctrine), incommensurabilism (the most prominent recent version) and a third option, robust or moderate relativism.
The book concludes by showing that bipolar models of truth and falsehood are too restrictive for many inquiries, which are better served when logically weaker truth-like values are assigned. The argument is pursued with regard to trascendental issues, anti-realism, scientific realism, historicism, extensionalism, universalism, the rejection of all forms of cognitive privilege, the salient features of a variety of empirical disciplines.
- ISBN10 063115034X
- ISBN13 9780631150343
- Publish Date 18 December 1986
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 February 1992
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Imprint Blackwell Publishers
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English