The Strife of Systems: An Essay on the Grounds and Implications of Philosophical Diversity

295 Pages·1985·9.933 MB·English

by  Nicholas Rescher

The Strife of Systems

The Strife
of Systems
An Essay
on the Grounds
and Implications of
Philosophical
Diversity
Nicholas Rescher
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 1985, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Feffer and Simons, Inc., London
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Rescher, Nicholas.
The strife of systems.
Includes indexes.
1. Methodology—Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. Philosophy—Addresses, essays, lectures.
1. Title.
BD241.R44 1985 101 84-21958
ISBN 0-8229-35104
For Lorenz Puntel
in cordial friendship

Contents
Preface xi
1. The Problem of Philosophical Diversity 3
1. The Strife of Systems 3
2. The Problem Is Itself a Focus of Diversity 6
3. The Untenability of the Platonic Ideal 9
4. Is Disagreement an Illusion? 13
5. A Fatal Flaw? 15
2. Philosophy and Paradox: The Pivotal Role of Aporetic
Clusters 17
1. The Task of Philosophy 17
2. Antinomies and Cognitive Overcommitment 21
3. How Apory Engenders a Diversity of Resolutions 25
4. Antinomies Structure the Issues 28
5. Can Different Schools Debate the Same Issues? 31
6. Consequences of Incommensurability 34
7. Why Not Simply "Live with Inconsistency"? The Imperative
of Cognitive Rationality 38
3. Why Antinomies Pervade Philosophy 45
1. Philosophical Concepts Are Fact Coordinated 45
2. Clarificatory Pressures and Antinomy 49
3. Fact-Coordinated Concepts Resist Purely Theoretical
Clarification 52
4. Philosophy Cannot Abandon the Concepts of Presystemic
Experience 57
5. Philosophy and the "Limits of Experience" 60
4. Escaping Inconsistency via Distinctions 64
1. Removing Inconsistency Through Curtailments 64
2. The Role of Distinctions 65
3. Dialectical Development 69
4. A Historical Illustration 70
THE STRIFE OF SYSTEMS
Contents
5. Intimations of Imperfection 72
6. Some Important Forms of Philosophical Inventiveness 75
5. Developmental Dialectics 78
1. The Convergence of Traditions 78
2. The Growth of Complexity and its Dialectical
Ramifications 80
3. A Glance Backwards: Hegel and Herbart 84
4. The Structure of Philosophical History 85
5. Sic Transit 88
6. The Burden of History 90
6. Cognitive Values and Antinomy Resolution 95
1. The Problem of Evaluative Selection 95
2. The Pivotal Role of Analogy and the Role of Cognitive
Values 98
3. Philosophizing Hinges on Cognitive Evaluation 105
4. The Loss of Objectivity 111
7. Orientational Pluralism: The Inevitability of Value
Diversity 116
1. Doctrinal Diversity Reflects a Diversity of Values 116
2. The Import of Orientational Pluralism 122
3. The Inevitability of "Schools of Thought" and the
Unattainability of Consensus 125
4. Whence Cognitive Values? The Key Role of
"Experience" 129
5. Are Philosophical Problems Pseudoproblems? 132
6. The Persistence of Conflict 133
7. A Review of the Argumentation 137
8. The Range of Reason 139
1. The Infeasibility of a "Neutral" Basis of Philosophical
Appraisal 139
2. Against Indifferentism: Orientational Pluralism Does Not
Make the Choice Among Positions Into "a Mere Matter of
Taste" 145
3. Does Orientational Pluralism Support Irrationalism? 151
4. Pluralism and the Impetus of Reason 154
5. The Rational Imperative 156
9. What Orientational Pluralism Means for Philosophy 159
1. The Individual and the Community 159
2. In Philosophy We Cannot "Rise Above the Battle" 160
3. Is Philosophy a Guide to Life? 161
4. Are Orientationally Bound Positions Worth Having? 165
viii
5. Does the Relativity of Philosophical Claims Undermine the
Worth of the Enterprise? 168
6. The Values Underlying the Present Account Itself 170
10. Truth and Reality: Ramifications of Relativism 173
1. Views Regarding Our Cognitive Access to Reality 173
2. Where Orientational Pluralism Stands 177
3. Against Absolutism 179
4. Does Its Relativism Undercut Orientational Pluralism
Itself? 180
5. The Pursuit of Truth 186
6. Relativism and the Problem of Protagoras 191
7. Does Orientational Pluralism Mean We Must Abandon the
Pursuit of Truth? 1%
11. Is There Progress in Philosophy? The Problem of
Unattainable Consensus 202
1. The Complexity of the Question in the Absence of
Consensus 202
2. The Balance Sheet: Technical vs. Doctrinal Progress 203
3. Abandoning Consensus as a Prime Desideratum 207
4. The Contrast of Scientific Consensus 210
5. Progress in the Absence of Consensus 217
6. Is Consensus Dispensable? 219
12. Reactions to Pluralism 221
1. An Inventory of Responses 221
2. Scepticism 224
3. Arationalism 230
4. Historical Convergentism 233
5. Rationalistic Doctrinalism in Its Absolutistic and
Orientational Versions 235
6. Syncretism: Against the Averroist Theory of Multiple
Truth 236
7. Coda 238
13. More on Scepticism and Syncretism 241
1. The Kinship of Scepticism and Syncretism 241
2. Agnostic Scepticism 241
3. Scepticism in Its Neo-Hermeneutic Guise 245
4. Why Not Abandon Philosophy? A Reply to the Sceptic 248
5. Syncretism 252
6. A Critique of Syncretism 257
7. The Flight from Commitment 258
14. Prescriptive Versus Descriptive Metaphilosophy 261
1. Modes of Metaphilosphy 261
2. Orientational Pluralism is Not at Odds with Doctrinal
Commitment 265
JX
THE STRIFE OF SYSTEMS
Contents
3. On Replacing Philosophy with Its Own History 267
4. Does Orientational Pluralism in Metaphilosophy Carry
Lessons for Philosophy Itself? 271
Name Index 279
Subject Index 282
x