The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality

ISBN-13: 9780195141122 / Angielski / Twarda / 2001 / 304 str.

Robert Audi

Opis

The literature on theoretical reason has been dominated by epistemological concerns, treatments of practical reason by ethical concerns. This book overcomes the limitations of dealing with each separately. It sets out a comprehensive theory of rationality applicable to both practical and theoretical reason. In both domains, Audi explains how experience grounds rationality, delineates the structure of central elements, and attacks the egocentric conception of rationality. He establishes the rationality of altruism and thereby supports major moral principles. The concluding part describes the pluralism and relativity his conception of rationality accommodates and, taking the unified account of theoretical and practical rationality in that light, constructs a theory of global rationality--the overall rationality of persons. Rich in narrative examples, intriguing analogies, and intuitively appealing arguments, this beautifully crafted book will spur advances in ethics and epistemology as well in philosophy of mind and action and the theory of rationality itself.

Recenzje

The book has a particular strength in respect of its overall conception and another in respect of execution. The former is that it brings vividly to light some quite substantial points of contact and analogy between the projects of understanding and explicating theoretical reason on the one hand and practical reason on the other ... The latter strength is that there is an admirable clarity of presentation.