The Agnostic Stance / / Sven Rosenkranz.

• VerfasserIn: Rosenkranz, Sven,
• Place / Publishing House: Paderborn : : mentis Verlag, , 2007.
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

The Agnostic Stance is a sustained defence of agnosticism as a serious alternative to both metaphysical realism and anti-realism. Metaphysical realists and anti-realists give competing answers to the question of whether truth and reality transcend what we can know or think. The agnostic, by contrast, denies that we are in a position to know how to answer this question. First it is shown how this epistemic reservation can be understood to involve more than merely a temporary suspension of judgement, without thereby collapsing into a form of scepticism inconsistent with the possibility of future knowledge. Then it is argued in detail that agnosticism, as thus understood, fares much better than its realist and anti-realist competitors when it comes to the question about the limits of our thought and knowledge. In pursuing this aim, The Agnostic Stance covers a wide range of topics in general epistemology, the metaphysics of mind and the philosophy of logic and Language.

Table of Contents

Intro -- The Agnostic Stance -- Table Of Contents -- Preface -- 1. AGNOSTICISM AS A THIRD STANCE -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 One Thesis and Two Problems -- 1.3 Being in a position to know -- 1.4 Knowledge of Logic and Principles of Closure -- 1.5 Knowledge-Claims and their Opposition: a Solution to the Alignment Problem -- 1.6 Suspension of Judgement, Epistemic Symmetry and Two Species of Agnosticism -- 1.7 Solving the Referee Problem: Stability, relative and absolute -- 1.8 Previewing Chapters 2-7 -- 2. REALISM, UNDERSTANDING AND TRUTH -- 2.1 Realism and Anti-Realism -- 2.2 The Anti-Realist Account of Understanding -- 2.3 Recognitional Capacity and Epistemic Opportunity -- 2.4 Modesty and Presumption -- 2.5 True Agnosticism as Moderate Realism -- 3. COGNITIVE CLOSURE AND THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS -- 3.1 The Limits of Conception -- 3.2 The Coherence of Cognitive Closure -- 3.3 Experiential Concepts and Other Minds -- 3.4 The Problem of Consciousness and Reductive Materialism -- 4. MATERIALISM AND PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS -- 4.1 Materialism and Logical Supervenience -- 4.2 Chalmers on Reductive Explanation -- 4.3 Apriority and Reference-Fixing -- 4.4 Reductive Materialism and True Agnosticism -- 5. METAETHICS, AGNOSTICISM AND CLASSICAL LOGIC -- 5.1 Principles of Closure and Classical Logic -- 5.2 Cognitivism, Noncognitivism and Metaethical Agnosticism -- 5.3 The Revisionary Argument -- 5.4 Objections -- 5.5 Intuitionism -- 6. VAGUENESS AND CLASSICAL LOGIC -- 6.1 Arguing for Metaphysical Realism: The Role of Bivalence -- 6.2 The No-Sharp-Boundary Paradox -- 6.3 From Paradox to Revision -- 6.4 The Limits of Elimination -- 6.5 Classical Logic and the Reference of Vague Terms -- 6.6 All At Once? -- 7. ANTI-REALISM, AGNOSTICISM AND VAGUENESS -- 7.1 Vagueness as an Epistemic Phenomenon -- 7.2 Wright on Quandaries and Vagueness.

7.3 Knowledge in Borderline Cases -- 7.4 True Agnosticism and Vagueness -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index.