Retrieving Realism

For Descartes, knowledge exists as ideas in the mind that represent the world. In a radical critique, Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor argue that knowledge consists of much more than the representations we formulate in our minds. They affirm our direct contact with reality—both the physical and the social world—and our shared understanding of it.

For Descartes, knowledge exists as ideas in the mind that represent the world. In a radical critique, Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor argue that knowledge consists of much more than the representations we formulate in our minds. They affirm our direct contact with reality—both the physical and the social world—and our shared understanding of it.

Charles Taylor is a distinctive figures in contemporary philosophy. In a time of increasing specialization Taylor contributes to areas of philosophical conversation across a wide spectrum of ideas including moral theory, theories of subjectivity, political theory, epistemology, hermeneutics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and aesthetics. His most recent writings have seen him branching into the study of religion. Written by a team of international authorities, this collection will be read primarily by students and professionals in philosophy, political science, religious studies, but will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals across the humanities and social sciences.

Philosophers will be richly rewarded by reading John O’Callaghan’s new book, Thomistic Realism and the Linguistic Turn. Based on his broad knowledge of Aristotle and Aquinas, O’Callaghan provides not only an excellent treatment of Aquinas’s epistemology but also a superb demonstration of just how Aquinas might contribute to contemporary debates. Traditionally, the camps of realism and idealism fiercely engaged one another in the field of epistemology. Thomists participated in confronting idealism from their unique realist position. Post-Wittgenstein, the conflict has been dominated by a form of epistemology that grounds all knowledge in linguistic practice. Since Thomists work in a textual and historical mode, their response to the technical approach of the analytic philosophy in which most of the linguistic epistemologists write has been slow in coming. O’Callaghan expertly closes that gap by successfully bringing together these fields.

A leading German philosopher offers his most ambitious work yet on the nature of knowledge, arguing that being wrong about things defines the human condition. For millennia, philosophers have dedicated themselves to advancing understanding of the nature of truth and reality. In the process they have amassed a great deal of epistemological theory—knowledge about knowledge. But negative epistemological phenomena, such as ignorance, falsity, illusion, and delusion, are persistently overlooked. This is surprising given that we all know how fallible humans are. Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity replies with a theory of false thought, demonstrating that being wrong about things is part and parcel of subjectivity itself. For this reason, knowledge can never be secured without our making claims that can always, in principle, be wrong. Even in successful cases, where we get something right and thereby gain knowledge, the possibility of failure lingers with us. Markus Gabriel grounds this argument in a novel account of the relationship between sense, nonsense, and subjectivity—phenomena that hang together in the temporal unfolding of our cognitive lives. While most philosophers continue to theorize subjectivity in terms of conscious self-representation and the supposedly infallible grip we have on ourselves as thinkers, Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity addresses the age-old Platonic challenge to understand situations in which we do not get reality right. Adding a stimulating perspective on epistemic failures to the work of New Realism, Gabriel addresses long-standing ontological questions in an age where the line between the real and the fake is increasingly blurred.

Kant declared that philosophy began in 1781 with his Critique of Pure Reason. In 1806 Hegel announced that philosophy had now been completed. Eckart Förster examines the reasons behind these claims and assesses the steps that led in such a short time from Kant's "(Bbeginning" to Hegel's "(Bend." He concludes that, in an unexpected yet significant sense, both Kant and Hegel were indeed right. The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy follows the unfolding of a key idea during this exceptionally productive period: the Kantian idea that philosophy can be scientific and, consequently, can be completed. Förster's study combines historical research with philosophical insight and leads him to propose a new thesis. The development of Kant's transcendental philosophy in his three Critiques, Förster claims, resulted in a fundamental distinction between "(Bintellectual intuition" and "(Bintuitive understanding." Overlooked until now, this distinction yields two takes on how to pursue philosophy as science after Kant. One line of thought culminates in Fichte's theory of freedom (Wissenschaftslehre), while the other--and here Förster brings Goethe's significance to the fore--results in Goethe's transformation of the Kantian idea of an intuitive understanding in light of Spinoza's third kind of knowledge. Both strands are brought together in Hegel and propel his split from Schelling. Förster's work makes an original contribution to our understanding of the classical era of German philosophy--an expanding interest within the Anglophone philosophical community.

Rhetorical Realism responds to the surging interest in nonhumans across the humanities by exploring how realist commitments have historically accompanied understandings of rhetoric from antiquity to the present. For a discipline that often defines itself according to human speech and writing, the nonhuman turn poses a number of challenges and opportunities for rhetoric. To date, many of the responses to the nonhuman turn in rhetoric have sought to address rhetoric’s compatibility with new conceptions of materiality. In Rhetorical Realism, Scot Barnett extends this work by transforming it into a new historiographic methodology attuned to the presence and occlusion of things in rhetorical history. Through investigations of rhetoric’s place in Aristotelian metaphysics, the language invention movement of the seventeenth century, and postmodern conceptions of rhetoric as an epistemic art, Barnett’s study expands the scope of rhetorical inquiry by showing how realist ideas have worked to frame rhetoric’s scope and meanings during key moments in its history. Ultimately, Barnett argues that all versions of rhetoric depend upon some realist assumptions about the world. Rather than conceive of the nonhuman as a dramatic turning point in rhetorical theory, Rhetorical Realism encourages rhetorical theorists to turn another eye toward what rhetoricians have always done—defining and configuring rhetoric within a broader ontology of things.

Is knowledge discovered, or just invented? Can we ever get outside ourselves to know how reality is in itself, independent of us? Philosophical realism raises the question whether in our knowing we connect with an independent reality--or only connect with our own mental constructs. Far from being a silly parlor game, the question impacts our lives concretely and deeply. Modern Western culture has been infected with antirealism and the doubt, skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, and atheism that attends it--not to mention distrust and arbitrary (mis)use of reality. Premier scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi stepped aside from research to offer an innovative account of knowing that takes its cue from how discovery actually happens. Polanyi defied the antirealism of the twentieth century, sounding a ringing note of hope in his repeated claim that in discovery, we know we have made contact with reality because "we have a sense of the possibility of indeterminate future manifestations." And that sense marks contact with reality, because it is the way reality is: abundant, generous, and fraught with as-yet-unnameable possibilities. This book examines that distinctive claim, contrasting it to the wider philosophical discussions regarding realism and antirealism in the recent decades. It shows why Polanyi's outlook is superior, and why that matters, not just to scientific discoverers, but to us all.