Imitation of Rigor: An Alternative History of Analytic Philosophy

Description

J.L. Austin has written of &quotthe blinding veil of ease and obviousness that hides the mechanisms of the natural successful act&quot. By revisiting a classic &quotsmall metaphysics&quot puzzle drawn from physics that launched a thousand ships of grander philosophizing, Imitation of Rigor employs recent insights into the architectures of effective reasoning as a means of explicating how Austin's covert &quotmechanisms&quot operate in concrete terms. By these means, the book attempts to reconnect analytic philosophy with the evolving practicalities within science from which many of its grander concerns originally sprang. In doing so, it provides an &quotalternative history&quot of how the subject might have developed had the diagnostic insights of its philosopher/scientist forebears (e.g., Heinrich Hertz and Ernst Mach) not been cast aside in the vain pursuit of inappropriate standards of &quotersatz rigor&quot. Cover Title_Pages Dedication Contents Synopsis Foreword 1. Ersatz Rigor 2. Prospectus 3. Inductive Warrant 4. The Mystery of Physics 101 5. Multiscalar Architectures 6. Diversity in “Cause” 7. Dreams of a Final Theory T 8. Linguistic Scaffolding and Scientific Realism 9. Truth in a Multiscalar Landscape Bibliography Index