Evidence and assurance

Bibliographic Information

Evidence and assurance

N. M. L. Nathan

(Cambridge studies in philosophy / general editor, Ernest Sosa)

Cambridge University Press, 2009

Digitally printed version

  • : pbk

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Note

Originally published: 1980

Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-191) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

A systematic study of rational or justified belief, which throws fresh light on current debates about foundations and coherence theories of knowledge, the validation of induction and moral scepticism. Dr Nathan focuses attention on the largely unsatisfiable desires for active and self-conscious assurance of truth liable to be engendered by philosophical reflection about total belief-systems and the sources of knowledge. He extracts a kernel of truth from the doctrine that a regress of justification is both necessary and impossible, contrasts the resultant scepticism with more familiar complaints about the inapplicability of supposedly essential cognitive concepts and explores the feasibility of non-Humean modes of consolation. This is an original and carefully constructed book, which will interest professional philosophers and advanced students of epistemology.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • 1. The nature of radical assurance
  • 2. The limits of radical assurance
  • 3. On wanting radical assurance
  • 4. Infinite justificatory regression: some psuedo-solutions
  • 5. Self-evidence and self-defeat
  • 6. Induction
  • 7. Moral scepticism
  • 8. On being without radical assurance
  • Works cited
  • Index.

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Details
  • NCID
    BB02740428
  • ISBN
    • 9780521107938
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge
  • Pages/Volumes
    vi, 194 p.
  • Size
    22 cm
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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