Synopsis
Since the beginning of philosophy, philosophers have sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. This book uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for nonquestion-begging support for claims to objective truth, and that therefore we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges. One key lesson is that a constructive, explanatory approach to philosophy must change the subject from skeptic-resistant reasons to perspectival reasons arising from variable semantic commitments and instrumental, purpose-relative considerations. The book lays foundations for such a reorientation of philosophy, treating fundamental methodological issues in ontology, epistemology, the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of practical rationality. It explains how certain perennial debates in philosophy rest not on genuine disagreement, but on conceptual diversity: talk about different matters. The book shows how acknowledgment of conceptual diversity can resolve a range of traditional disputes in philosophy. It also explains why philosophers need not anchor their discipline in the physicalism of the natural sciences.
About the Author
Paul K. Moser is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of: The God Relationship (Cambridge University Press, 2017), The Elusive God (Cambridge UP, 2009, winner of a national book award in philosophy from the Jesuit Honor Society), The Evidence for God (Cambridge UP, 2010), The Severity of God (Cambridge UP, 2013), Knowledge and Evidence (Cambridge UP, 1989), and Philosophy after Objectivity (Oxford UP, 1997), co-author of Theory of Knowledge (Oxford UP, 1997), editor of Jesus and Philosophy (Cambridge UP, 2008) and The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology (Oxford UP, 2002), and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil (Cambridge UP, forthcoming 2017) and The Wisdom of the Christian Faith (Cambridge UP, 2013). He is the co-editor of the book series Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society. His book Understanding Religious Experience will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He is now writing a book titled Testing for God's Reality: A Neglected Spiritual Discipline.
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