The Unity of Knowledge and Action

Warren G. Frisina

Description

Building upon insights from the sixteenth century Neo-Confucian Wang Yang-ming, the American pragmatist John Dewey, and the process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, this book argues that knowledge is best understood as a form of action. Many of the most puzzling philosophic problems in the modern era can be traced to our tendency to assume that knowledge is separate from action. Letting go of the sharp knowledge-action distinction, however, makes possible a more coherent theory of knowledge that is more adaptive to the way we experience one another, the world, and ourselves. By responding directly to problems raised by contemporary thinkers like Charles Taylor, Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty, Daniel Dennett, Mark Johnson, George Lakoff, and Robert Neville, this book maps out a strategy for making progress in the contemporary quest for a "nonrepresentational theory of knowledge."

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I. Preliminary Remarks

1. Knowledge and the Self: Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self

2. Antirepresentationalism in Late- and Postanalytic Philosophy: Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty

3. Minds, Bodies, and Consciousness: Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained

PART II. Preliminary Remarks

4. Are Knowledge and Action Really One Thing? Wang Yang-ming's Doctrine of Mind

5. Knowledge as Active, Aesthetic, and Hypothetical: The Relationship between Dewey's Metaphysics and Epistemology

6. A Pragmatic Interpretation of Whitehead's Cosmology

PART III. Preliminary Remarks

7. Minds, Bodies, Experience, Nature: Is Panpsychism Really Dead?

8. Heaven's Partners or Nietzschean Free Spirits?

9. Knowledge, Action, and the Organicist Turn

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Pragmatism
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791488669
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

warren g. frisina

the unity of knowledge and action toward a nonrepresentational theory of knowledge

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THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

SUNY series in Philosophy George R. Lucas Jr., editor

THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

Toward a Nonrepresentational Theory of Knowledge

WARREN G. FRISINA

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2002 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Susan Geraghty Marketing by Jennifer Giovani

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Frisina, Warren G., 1954– The unity of knowledge and action : toward a nonrepresentational theory of knowledge / Warren G. Frisina. p. cm. — (SUNY series in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-7914-5361-8 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5362-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Knowledge, theory of. 2. Act (Philosophy). I Frisina, Warren G., 1954– II. Title. III. SUNY series in philosophy.

BD161 .F69 2002 121.21—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

200104616

To Patsy

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

PART II

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

PART III

Chapter 7

C O N T E N T S

Preliminary Remarks

Knowledge and the Self: Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self

Antirepresentationalism in Late- and Postanalytic Philosophy: Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty

Minds, Bodies, and Consciousness: Daniel Dennett’sConsciousness Explained

Preliminary Remarks

Are Knowledge and Action Really One Thing? Wang Yang-ming’s Doctrine of Mind

Knowledge as Active, Aesthetic, and Hypothetical: The Relationship between Dewey’s Metaphysics and Epistemology

A Pragmatic Interpretation of Whitehead’s Cosmology

Preliminary Remarks

Minds, Bodies, Experience, Nature: Is Panpsychism Really Dead?

ix

1

9

13

31

43

71

73

101

123

141

145

vii

viii

CONTENTS

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Notes

Heaven’s Partners or Nietzschean Free Spirits?

Knowledge, Action, and the Organicist Turn

Works Cited

Index

163

195

237

243

247