Naturalistic theories abound, but they are often scientistic and at times implicitly foundational, or at least insufficiently attuned to the deep critiques of scientism and foundationaIism posed by postmodernists, by Wittgenstein and his adherents; and by Rorty, Putnam, Macintyre Taylor, Bernstein, and Foucalt among others. NaturaIism Without Foundations, in developing a nonscientistic, holistic, contextual, pragmatic account, falls into none of the scientistic and foundationalist, context-insensitive traps that have often plagued earlier forms of naturalism. Elaborating and refining what has been called the method of wide reflective equilibrium Nielsen develops naturalism that avoids the pitfalls of both absolutism and relativism and shows us a way around the playful but still corrosive skepticism of post-modernism.
NaturaIism Without Foundations is informal, lively, and widely accessible throughout, yet at the same time it considers in depth and carefully a cluster of issues central to contemporary philosophical and social scientific investigation while utilizing methods and conceptualizations at the very cutting edge of philosophical investigation. Whether your interests are philosophical or more wide-ranging, anyone perplexed about the contemporary world and our place in it will find this book both challenging and engaging.
Ka Nielsen (Montreal, Canada), professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary has been heralded as one of the twentieth century's leading atheists. His books include Ethics Without God, Why Be MoraI, and Philosophy and Atheism.
580 pages approx.
ISBN 1-57392-076-2 Cloth
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