Human beings are both supremely rational and deeply superstitious,
capable of believing just about anything and of questioning just
about everything. Indeed, just as our reason demands that we know
the truth, our skepticism leads to doubts we can ever really do so.
In Walking the Tightrope of Reason, Robert J. Fogelin guides
readers through a contradiction that lies at the very heart of
philosophical inquiry. Fogelin argues that our rational faculties
insist on a purely rational account of the universe, yet at the
same time, the inherent limitations of these faculties ensure that
we will never fully satisfy that demand. As a result of being
driven to this point of paradox, we either comfort ourselves with
what Kant called "metaphysical illusions" or adopt a stance of
radical skepticism. No middle ground seems possible and, as Fogelin
shows, skepticism, even though a healthy dose of it is essential
for living a rational life, "has an inherent tendency to become
unlimited in its scope, with the result that the edifice of
rationality is destroyed." In much Postmodernist thought, for
example, skepticism takes the extreme form of absolute relativism,
denying the basis for any value distinctions and treating all
truth-claims as equally groundless. How reason avoids disgracing
itself, walking a fine line between dogmatic belief and
self-defeating doubt, is the question Fogelin seeks to
answer.
Reflecting upon the ancient Greek skeptics as well as such
thinkers as Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Whitman, this
book takes readers into--and through--some of philosophy's most
troubling paradoxes.
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