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Title: In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)
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| In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Cambridge University Press Refreshing Rationalism | Laurence Bonjour provides a refreshingly insightful defense of "moderate rationalism" and a priori justification. Bonjour persuasively argues against empiricical "write offs" of the a priori by saying that objections to a priori knowledge are either groundless or presuppose the very a priori justification they claim to reject.
Well done and worth a second read. | | In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Cambridge University Press formidable defense of rationalism. | The rationalist position, essentially that knowledge is possible purely on the basis of thinking, would never have required much defense a few hundred years ago. It had always been taken for granted that knowledge could be given a priori justification, without appeal to sensory perception. The anti-rationalist position is a difficult one: indeed, it seems that any meaningful denial of this claim would itself be a priori. Yet this fact has not dissuaded countless intellectuals from either severely disarming a priori justification or rejecting it outright. So, in my view the primary strength of BonJour's work here is to show that all rejections of synthetic a priori justification implicitly depend on synthetic a priori arguments themselves. This is apparent in BonJour's challenges to moderate empiricism, linguistic analysis, and the radical repudiation of apriorism by Professor Quine and his followers. The defensive aspect of this book demonstrates that a rejection of a priori reasoning results in a rejection of reason itself, a position that is untenable if not an outright performative contradiction. Some critics will ultimately latch on to the argument that appeals to a priori justification are ultimately question-begging. I do not find this view plausible, since such objections are also principally a priori in nature.
BonJour's critique of Kant's epistemology, showing him to be closer to empiricism than rationalism, is pretty much on the mark, because Kant's theory of knowledge applies only to one's own subjective categories and not reality in sich. (I believe a constructivist defense of Kant's philosophy can be made, but it requires that a bridge be made between the mind and external reality, something not established by Kant himself.) He also spends considerable time withering away at the all too prevalently held view of the symbolic conception of thought, which in my view is one of the more powerful arguments against the a priori. His argument, in a nutshell, is that the symbolic conception of thought renders thoughts internally inaccessible, and any metaphysical theory which does so must be untenable.
Ultimately, BonJour's thesis is that a priori justification is fallible, but undeniably possible. BonJour feels secure with the position of moderate rationalism he has a adopted, although I believe this conception of reason is a bit weaker than he does, simply because, on my interpretation, BonJour requires less certainty than I would deem necessary to justify a given proposition a priori. A priori justification requires axioms, without it is clearly weaker than it would be otherwise. In his moderate view, there is also the possibility of empirical data refuting a priori justification, and I cannot accept this. If empirical information really "refutes" a priori justification (which I am not convinced is possible), then I would definitely refrain from calling the a priori argument truly _justified_. Furthermore, I think BonJour misses an essential part of a priori justification-that it logically precedes all empirical knowledge. Yet this takes little away from the essence of BonJour's position, which I would accept.
Bear in mind I am most certainly an extreme rationalist, albeit not quite the kind Mr. BonJour has in mind when he discusses the "extreme" rationalist in his book. Therefore, I may sound more critical than I would prefer. Regardless of my own criticism, this is an excellent, fair, and highly-welcome defense of the most maligned source of knowledge in our time.
| | In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Cambridge University Press Interesting but it conflicts with reality. | | I have not read all the book but noticed in the propositions assumed as reliable, for example that something cannot be "red all over and green all over", that this has turned out not to be correct as determined by science. Investigations into the nature of our physical universe has given us the strange conclusion that a small subatomic particle such as an electron or a photon of light can indeed be "both red all over and green all over", e.g., be both a particle (a point) and a wave (extending indefinitely). This is not understandable to our reason but has been confirmed by experiment. Thus making the logical assumptions as given in the beginning of this book in conflict with what has been determined as the nature of reality and though it seems commonsense and logical to state that something cannot be in two states at once, it does seem indeed to be the way the world is constructed. | | In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Cambridge University Press Reason Vindicated | | Laurence BonJour has written an outstanding defense of "pure reason", i.e., the idea that the human mind can, by way of rational insight, arrive at certain truths about the nature of reality. These truths are known "a priori" and do not rely on the senses for their justification. The most obvious examples of a priori knowledge are the laws of logic and mathematics. Although certain a priori truths may have some empirical content (for example, the statement that something can't be all red and all green at the same time), even these truths are not justified on empirical grounds. This view is, broadly speaking, called rationalism and is the dominant position in the history of philosophy. Not only was it advocated by explicit rationalists such as Plato, but also philosophers considered empiricists, such as Locke and Aristotle, were rationalists. It wasn't until Hume and his followers that rationalism went challenged. (Prof. BonJour has an interesting take on Kant, whom he places within the empiricist tradition.) In our day, rationalism has been defended by many distinguished (and diverse) philosophers such as Brand Blanshard, A. C. Ewing, Gordon Clark, and Roderick Chisolm. Prof. BonJour elaborates on the standard rationalist argument that any attempt to build a rigorously empirical epistemology must ultimately depend on a priori insight. Take the above statement that something can't be all red and all green at the same time. How many examples of red and green objects would we have to observe to come to that conclusion? How would we know that we have made enough observations to be confident in our conclusion? In addition, how can we come to the conclusion given that nothing is entirely red or entirely green? As Brand Blanshard notes somewhere, even a not particularly bright person can cut to the heart of such matters by viewing just one object and applying his rather limited abilities of reflection. Prof. BonJour's book is quite comprehensive and refutes many of the standard critiques of rationalism. In addition, he has a particularly devastating chapter on W.V.O Quine and his "naturalized epistemology." I highly recommend Prof. BonJour's other books, THE STRUCTURE OF EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE and EPISTEMOLOGY. | | In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Cambridge University Press An Incredible Book | | My only qualm with this book is that only a reader who has read some philosophy will find it truly accessible. It's length and scope doesn't allow the author to fully discuss many of the issues surrounding the topic of rational insight. What is rational insight? One of the simplest examples is the syllogism: "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal." Another example is the statement: "Something cannot be both green all over and red all over." I think that only the hardcore skeptic would deny the certainty of such insights. How do we justify/explain such insights? Here comes the rub - to justify such insights, the ability to grasp them must already be possessed by those who are justifying them and those to whom they must be justified. A point later defended by the author, and which has been defended by many rationalists, is that the structure of the world must such that these relationships are given in reality in some form. Rather than list and categorize these insights, Bonjour mounts a wonderful defence for these insights, which he categorizes, like other rationalist philosophers, as "apriori" knowledge, or in his better term, "apriori justification". He, like other rationalists, describes them as a grasp of necessity: once thier nature is grasped and understood, people defend them by thinking and reasoning, rather than pointing to specific data given in experience. The book has many wonderful points: a careful and reasoned exposition of why Kant was not a rationalist in the true sense of the word (this has been known to quite a few rationalists in the Aristotleian tradition, but Bonjour's criticism leaves little to the imagination), a defence of view of a priori knowledge as fallible, but fallible only in the sense that it answers to new and better apriori insights when found to be mistaken, and a nice and careful discussion of the major analytic school's objections against a priori knowledge. A great part of this book is well made and much needed distinctions between the a priori and the a posteriori, the analytic and the synthetic, and the necessary and the contingent. His defence and qualification of these terms are worth the cost of the book alone, and he shows how misrepresentaions of these terms, and thier implications are, have led to the acceptance of weak arguments against them being considered conclusive rejections of them. Finally, the author gives both the nice defence and the beginnings of an a priori theory of induction. The good thing about his defence is that it validates induction, and it will probably be easy to incorporate the best work that has been done into this field since I believe that Bonjour has silenced the greatest oppositions to induction as a source of knowledge. It is a short book, and is quite limited in scope, but it was a page turner for me. I believe the influence of this book's arguments will be far reaching, once the required critical mass of intellectuals inculcate the ideas contained within this book. I think my review is understated, so I will only say this: get the book if you have the philiosophical background, and be prepared for one of the best defences of Reason in philosophical history. | | In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Cambridge University Press Product Description | | This book is concerned with the alleged capacity of the human mind to arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world on the basis of pure reason without any dependence on sensory experience. Most recent philosophers reject the view and argue that all substantive knowledge must be sensory in origin. Laurence BonJour provocatively reopens the debate by presenting the most comprehensive exposition and defense of the rationalist view that a priori insight is a genuine basis for knowledge. |
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Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:37:42 GMT
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