Worlds of Truth

Israel Scheffler is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education and Philosophy Emeritus at Harvard University and serves as Scholar-in-Residence at the Mandel Center at Brandeis University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a founding member of the National Academy of Education and a past president of both the Philosophy of Science Association and the Charles S. Peirce Society. Among his various books are The Anatomy of Inquiry (1963), Science and Subjectivity (1967), Four Pragmatists (1974), Beyond the Letter (1979), and Symbolic Worlds: Art, Science, Language, Ritual (1997).

• Preface viiiAcknowledgments xIntroduction 1Part I: Inquiry 5Chapter 1: Justification 71. Beliefs 72. Access to truth 83. Cogito ergo sum 94. Mathematical certainty 115. Classical logic 126. C. I. Lewis’ empiricism 147. Access as a metaphor 178. J. F. Fries and K. Popper 189. Voluntarism and linearity 1910. One-way justification 2011. Beginning in the middle 2112. Justification, contextual and comparative 2213. Justification in the empirical sciences 2314. Circularity versus linearity 2515. Democratic controls 2516. Interactionism 27Chapter 2: Truth 301. Allergy to absolute truth 312. Provisionality and truth 323. Truth versus verification 344. Truth and fixity 365. Transparency, Tarski, and Carnap 386. Truth and certainty 427. Sentences as truth candidates 448. Theoretical terms 449. Varieties of instrumentalism 4510. Pragmatism and instrumentalism 4511. Systems, simplicity, reduction 4612. Crises in science 5113. Reduction and expansion 52Chapter 3: Worlds 551. Philosophies of truth 552. Operationism and truth 573. Version-dependence 594. Differences among scientifically oriented philosophers 615. Monism, pluralism, plurealism 626. Realism versus irrealism 667. A theory of everything 728. The status of ethics 759. Emotive theories; Ayer and Stevenson 7510. Moore’s ethical intuitionism 7711. Dewey and ethical naturalism 7912. Symbol, reference, and ritual 81Part II: Related Pragmatic Themes 93Chapter 4: Belief and Method 95Introduction 951. Problems of pragmatism and pragmatic responses 982. Peirce’s theory of belief, doubt, and inquiry 1023. Peirce’s comparison of methods 1044. Difficulties in Peirce’s treatment 1065. An epistemological interpretation 1086. The primacy of method 109Chapter 5: Action and Commitment 114Chapter 6: Emotion and Cognition 1251. Emotions in the service of cognition 1262. Cognitive emotions 132Index 143

"The book will be of interest to philosophers working on pragmatism, pluralism, relativism, and justification". (International Studies In The Philosophy Of Science, 1 December 2010) "This volume will be useful for specialists in pragmatism, but perhaps not sufficiently original for all collections." (CHOICE, October 2009)