CiNii Books - As if : idealization and ideals

Summary: Idealization is a central feature of human thought. We build ideal models in the sciences, our politics is guided by pictures of impossible utopias, and our thinking about the arts and moral life is guided by images of how things might have been. In all these cases we sometimes proceed with a representation of the world that we know is not true or aim at a world we accept we cannot realize. This is the world of the "as if," which the philosopher Hans Vaihinger delineated at the turn of the century, in ways he traced back to Kant. In this book, I aim to explore idealization in aesthetics, ethics, and metaphysics, as well as in the philosophy of mind, of language, of religion, and of the social and natural sciences. No one could be an expert on all of these things, but sometimes in philosophy it helps to stand back and take a broader view. On the way I hope to illuminate many issues, large and small, but there is one over-arching lesson: our best chance of understanding the world must be to have a plur

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Useful untruths: lessons from Hans Vaihinger
A measure of belief: lessons from Frank Ramsey
Political ideals: lessons from John Rawls

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Idealization is a fundamental feature of human thought. We build simplified models in our scientific research and utopias in our political imaginations. Concepts like belief, desire, reason, and justice are bound up with idealizations and ideals. Life is a constant adjustment between the models we make and the realities we encounter. In idealizing, we proceed "as if" our representations were true, while knowing they are not. This is not a dangerous or distracting occupation, Kwame Anthony Appiah shows. Our best chance of understanding nature, society, and ourselves is to open our minds to a plurality of imperfect depictions that together allow us to manage and interpret our world. The philosopher Hans Vaihinger first delineated the "as if" impulse at the turn of the twentieth century, drawing on Kant, who argued that rational agency required us to act as if we were free. Appiah extends this strategy to examples across philosophy and the human and natural sciences. In a broad range of activities, we have some notion of the truth yet continue with theories that we recognize are, strictly speaking, false. From this vantage point, Appiah demonstrates that a picture one knows to be unreal can be a vehicle for accessing reality. As If explores how strategic untruth plays a critical role in far-flung areas of inquiry: decision theory, psychology, natural science, and political philosophy. A polymath who writes with mainstream clarity, Appiah defends the centrality of the imagination not just in the arts but in science, morality, and everyday life.

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As if : idealization and ideals

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