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Explanation and Practical Reason

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The Scientific Enterprise

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 146))

Abstract

Our modern conceptions of practical reason are shaped — I might say are distorted — by the weight of moral skepticism. Even conceptions which intend to give no ground to skepticism have frequently taken form in order to resist it best, or to offer the least possible purchase to it. In this, practical reason falls into line with a pervasive feature of modern intellectual culture, which one could call the primacy of the epistemological: the tendency to think out the question “what something is” in terms of the question “how it is known.”

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References

  • Lovejoy, A., 1960. The Great Chain of Being. New York: Harper Torchbook.

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Authors

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Edna Ullmann-Margalit

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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Taylor, C. (1992). Explanation and Practical Reason. In: Ullmann-Margalit, E. (eds) The Scientific Enterprise. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 146. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2688-5_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2688-5_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5190-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2688-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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