The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality

Audi, Robert

ISBN 10: 0195141121 / ISBN 13: 9780195141122

Published by Oxford University Press, 2001

About this Item

Seller Inventory # Shelfdream0195141121

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195141121
• ISBN 13: 9780195141122
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The literature on theoretical reason has been dominated by epistemological concerns, treatments of practical reason by ethical concerns. This book overcomes the limitations of dealing with each separately. It sets out a comprehensive theory of rationality applicable to both practical and theoretical reason. In both domains, Audi explains how experience grounds rationality, delineates the structure of central elements, and attacks the egocentric conception of rationality. He establishes the rationality of altruism and thereby supports major moral principles. The concluding part describes the pluralism and relativity his conception of rationality accommodates and, taking the unified account of theoretical and practical rationality in that light, constructs a theory of global rationality--the overall rationality of persons. Rich in narrative examples, intriguing analogies, and intuitively appealing arguments, this beautifully crafted book will spur advances in ethics and epistemology as well in philosophy of mind and action and the theory of rationality itself.

About the Author

Robert Audi is Charles J. Mach Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. His books include The Structure of Justification (1993), Action, Intention, and Reason (1993), Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character (Oxford, 1997) and The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd Ed., 1999).