Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Objectivity: The Obligations of Impersonal Reason by Nicholas Rescher ISBN: 0-268-03703-5 Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr Pub. Date: January, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A solid work of rational moderacy.
Comment: It was, I believe, Bertrand Ruseel who said something to the effect of, "There are two types of philosophers. Those who divide everything into two types and those that doen't." Rescher is more or less that second type. On ones side there is the objectivist who sees things as context independent; then you have the subjectivist who doesn't. Rescher is....well....a bit of both.
His main point is to outlay a positive philosophy of objectivity (that is, the objectivity of knowledge) while making room for cognitive pluralism. The point being that one can, says Rescher, be an objectivist who believes that not all knowledge is of a subjective kind while realizing that a.) we see the world from our (not, say, God's) point of view, b.) that the objectivity of the world is not a proven thing, but a pragmatically necessary assumption on our parts, and c.) that our knowledge is tentative as we never know which beliefs we hold will turn out falsified later. The problem is that subjectivists exagerate these claims and use them as "proof" that may only suggest in a subjective form and by extension, that reason must be subjective too ("Your reason is different than mine!"). Nonsense!
Rescher also tackles the 'circularity of arguments about rason. First, he outlays: "What is reason?" The answer is circular but not troublingly so. "Reason is being rational; or, doing what any rational person would do in your situation." So when we ask what is reason, we find that is is being rational. But when we then ask why be rational, we are answered with, "Because its the reasonable thing to do." Rescher doesn't see this as troubling; in fact, he said we should expect nothing but a circle here. If it wasn't circular, we could justify our preference for reason without reason, in which case, why wouldn't we just use THAT facutly? A circle shows us that it is difficult to get away from reason and even when we don't want to use it, say, we gnerally try to do so by rational justification. When relativists try to give us a reason to abandon reason (and how many books have been written for just that purpose), they are biting the hand that slaps them.
From here, Rescher spends a chapter on tackling relativist arguments (cultural, historical, feminist, class interest, etc.). Unlike the current popularity, Rescher is very respectful, cogent, and almost humble here. Next, Rescher spends the next half of the book talking about cognitive objectivism (in its pragmatic form) and ethical relativism. For my money, I don't feel as comfortable with Rescher when he moves into ethics. These sections felt rushed and I'm not sure they left me convinced. Still, even minus those chapters (which you still, of course, may like) this book is worth your money and time.
Rating: 4
Summary: Solid indeed . . . but not spectacular
Comment: I should preface my comments by explaining that, while I have plans to pursue a Ph.D. in political theory, I am currently a mere undergraduate!
At any rate, I too found much to like in Professor Rescher's text. He provides a much welcome counterpoint to those who seek to imbue consensus with a normative value that it just may not possess. (See especially the new works in international relations theory that make extraordinary claims for 'global civil society'...) As a student with substantive interests in environmental politics, I find his outline of objectivity to be valuable. (Consider for a moment the problems of pursuing a poststructural environmental politics!)
-----------------
I found Rescher's criticism of Alasdair MacIntyre's "Whose Justice - Which Rationality" somewhat ironic. For just as Rescher complains that MacIntyre "needs to take a deep breath and move forward...", in my view so does Rescher.
As with his "Plurality: against the demand of consensus" (from which Professor Rescher liberally borrows in "Objectivity"), I find that Rescher's text ends just as it really starts to become interesting.
Rescher's treatment of pluralism between societies is useful. A helpful addition, though, would have been a treatment of pluralism within societies. Rescher's pluralism seems to lead one directly into the quintessentially liberal problem of the limits of toleration. It would have been beneficial for this reader had Professor Rescher followed his line of analysis to the end and addressed this issue.
Still, the measure of a good book is not the degree to which one agrees with it but rather the amount of thought that it provokes. For this reader, Objectivity was time and money well invested.
Rating: 5
Summary: A solid pragmatic defense of epistemic objectivity.
Comment: Nicholas Rescher, probably the single most prolific author among contemporary philosophers, here provides a sturdy defense of objectivity based on the primacy and inevitability of practical reason.
His concern here is with _epistemic_ objectivity -- that is, "not with the _subject matter_ of a claim but with its _justification_." What such objectivity calls for, he contends, is "not allowing the indications of reason, reasonableness, and good common sense to be deflected by 'purely subjective' whims, biases, prejudices, preferences, etc." As he is at pains to show, objectivity does not rule out personal values and commitments; indeed, if it did, there would be no hope of our achieving it, as "[t]he 'God's-eye view' on things is unavailable -- at any rate to us." On the contrary, being "objective" is a matter of proceeding, he says, "how we _should_ -- and how reasonable people _would_ -- proceed if they were in our shoes in the relevant regards."
Objectivity hinges on rationality -- as a matter not simply of logical coherence, but also "of the intelligent pursuit of circumstantially appropriate objectives." From its requirements follows a sort of "rational economy," the principles of which are very obviously objective and universal although they may (and do) have different applications in different situations.
On this foundation, Rescher takes on a host of contemporary critics of objectivity -- anthropologists, historicists, sociologists of knowledge, personalists, feminists, Marxists and class-interest theorists, post-modernists, and social activists. He finds that each attack on objectivity involves a misconstruing of what it is all about, and devotes the remainder of the volume to showing why this is the case.
Space will not permit a summary of the following ten chapters, in which Rescher deals by turns with various sorts of relativism, places cognitive objectivity on a ground of ontological objectivity, and argues that the "self-reliance of rationality is not viciously circular" -- objectivity and rationality are self-supporting in a _virtuously_ circular fashion.
As always, Rescher's presentation is clear and cogent. It will be of interest to a wide class of philosophical readers, and also to one other class I shall single out for special mention.
Pseudophilosopher Ayn Rand was pleased to name her own pseudophilosophy "Objectivism," in the incorrect belief that she had actually arrived at a genuine understanding of objectivity. In fact she had done no such thing, and Rescher's work on one particular sort of objectivity is a sure cure for readers who have been infected by her own subjectivism.
(I'm singling the Randroids out because somebody is going through all my reviews and clicking "Not helpful" on any in which I say anything negative about Rand. Click away, you objective Objectivist, you!)
 |
Title: Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy) by Nicholas Rescher ISBN: 0198236018 Publisher: Clarendon Pr Pub. Date: August, 1995 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
