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Pragmatism and the Problem of Reason in Nature: Meaning, Naturalism, and the Threat of Semantic Nihilism
Hardcover
Series: Routledge Studies in American Philosophy
ISBN13: 9781032973494
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Jan 14 2027
Pages: 208
Language: English
This book argues that pragmatism offers a solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of language and mind: namely, the problem of the place of conceptual meanings--and so human rational minds--in nature. It contends that a pragmatist approach to resolving the problem avoids the dual traps of either reductionist elimination of genuine meanings or rationalist metaphysical excess.
The current intellectual, scientific, and cultural landscape is dominated by scientism, reductionism, and scepticism about such things as values, meanings, and everything that seems to make human life worth living. What, then, is the role of conceptual meanings in what makes human beings unique and important? This book contends that the true nature and depth of this problem is central to pragmatism, and that pragmatism offers the resources to overcome it. First, it demonstrates that radical semantic indeterminacy poses a real danger for all attempts to naturalize human mindedness. The author argues that meaning-destroying indeterminacy is a constant threat of attempts to naturalize meaning and mind, and that centring this aspect of the problem in constructing a version of pragmatism means that we will pay attention to it and thus avoid it, creating a more successful pragmatist approach to the problem of meaning and mind in nature. Second, the book shows that by paying close attention to the relation of meaning and habit in pragmatism, we can identify the threat of indeterminacy in existing pragmatisms and then rectify the problem by putting forward a better account of the relation of meaning and habit that does not face the threat of radical indeterminacy.
Pragmatism and the Problem of Reason in Nature will appeal to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, pragmatism, and history of philosophy.
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