One World and Our Knowledge of It

Philosophy, Aristotle is well known to have said, begins in wonder. So, of course, does everything else. Astronomy begins in wonder at the moving lights in the sky; biology, in wonder at the living creatures of the earth; psychology, in wonder at the intricacies and eccentricities of our distinctively human form of life. So, at best, wonder is only a necessary condition for philosophy. What. is peculiar about philosophers is what we are inclined to wonder about. We wonder about everything. In particular, we wonder about astron omy and biology and psychology (and about philosophy) - about whether and how such disciplines are possible and, crucially, about whether and how such disciplines fit together. We don't just wonder about everything. We wonder about everything all at once. Philosophers are general practitioners. Things stand ill with our disciplme today. There was quite recently at large in America an occasional publication under the title Jobs in Philosophy. The title rested upon a confusion, and the publication furthered the confusion upon which it rested. For it did not, in fact, list jobs in philosophy. It couldn't.

Inhalt
O: Introduction.- I: Epistemic Legitimacy: The Problematic of Empiricism.- II: Things: The Micro-Ontology of Realist Consciousness.- III: Time and the Self: The Limits of Idealist Consciousness.- IV: Correctness and Community: From the Individual to the Social.- V: Realism and Idealism: Evolutionary Epistemology.- VI: Attribution and Appraisal: Elements of a Theory of Conduct.- VII: Communal Norms: Steps Toward a Collective Pragmatics.- VIII: Explanatory Realism: The Convergence of Conceptual Schemes.- IX: Retrospect: The End of a Myth and the Future of a Discipline.- Appendix I. Notes.- Appendix II. Bibliography.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.