Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T16:51:54.037Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sean Sayers, Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1985)

Review products

Sean Sayers, Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1985)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

James O. Young
James O. Young*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, Victoria, B.C., CanadaV8W 2Y2
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Critical Notice
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 491 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 All bracketed numbers refer to pages of Sayers’ book.

2 It is worth noting that radical Berkelians, and indeed any idealists, are not subject to certain standard objections to non-realist accounts of science. They are not subject to the so-called miracle argument. They do not make the observed regularity of nature into a miracle. Radical Berkelians do not deny that some unobserved entity (God) must be posited to account for the regularity of observed phenomena. Neither are idealists subject to the sort of objection which Richard Boyd makes. (See Boyd, Richard ‘Realism, Underdetermination, and a Causal Theory of Evidence,’ Nous 7 [1973], 1-12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) Boyd suggests that if we have two equally empirically adequate theories, we should adopt the one which posits entities more consonant with our other theories. But radical Berkelians do just this. They already countenance the existence of God, so an ontology which appeals to God is preferable to one which appeals to some other sort of entity.

3 Quine, Willard Ways of Paradox (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1976), 211Google Scholar

4 Smart, J.J.C. ‘Metaphysical Realism,’ Analysis 42 (1982), 1-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Laudan, Larry ‘A Confutation of Convergent Realism,’ Philosophy of Science 48 (1981), 19-49CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Laudan, 24

7 I thank Rodger Beehler for having read and made valuable comments on an earlier version of this essay.