Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge

Contents......Page 5
Introduction......Page 9
A Note on Terminology......Page 14
PART I REALISM AND ITS CRITICS......Page 16
Traditional Forms of Realism......Page 18
Locke and Berkeley......Page 20
Lenin and his Critics......Page 24
The Dialectic of Reality and Appearance......Page 29
Kant vs Realism......Page 33
Hegel's Critique of Kant......Page 36
Natural Necessities and Kinds......Page 40
'Structuralist' Realism......Page 44
Identity and Difference......Page 47
The Thing-in-Itself......Page 50
The Nature of Appearance......Page 54
Hegel and Materialism......Page 58
PART II ILLUSION, DREAM AND REALITY......Page 61
The Argument from Illusion......Page 63
Evil Spirits and Brains in Vats......Page 66
Direct Realism......Page 72
Philosophy and Dreaming......Page 78
Freud on Dreams......Page 81
Bodily Sensations......Page 83
Psychical and Material Reality......Page 86
Reason and Emotion......Page 91
Knowledge and Society......Page 95
The Problem of Foundations......Page 98
The Challenge of Relativism......Page 102
Marx on Ideology......Page 107
Stucturalist Accounts......Page 114
PART III RELATIVISM, TRUTH AND PROGRESS......Page 121
A Common Core?......Page 122
The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme......Page 125
Putnam's Realism and its Problems......Page 131
The Causal Theory of Reference......Page 138
Conclusions......Page 142
Concepts and Reality......Page 144
The Role of Interpretation......Page 147
Practice and Knowledge......Page 154
The Politics of Epistemology......Page 162
Structuralism and the Significance of Theory......Page 163
The Practical Side of Analysis......Page 166
Some Doubts and Difficulties......Page 172
The Concept of Relative Truth......Page 176
Qualitative and Quantitative Change......Page 183
Knowledge as a Historical Phenomenon......Page 187
Theories of Truth......Page 190
Other Cultures and Our Own......Page 194
PART IV REALITY AND REASON......Page 201
Reasons and Causes in the Theory of Knowledge......Page 202
The Naturalist Approach......Page 206
Theory and Reality......Page 209
Determinism and Creativity......Page 212
Knowledge and Freedom......Page 216
Bibliography......Page 220
Index......Page 230