Concept Audits

Concept Audits explores the obligation of philosophers to honor the existing meanings of terms and concepts such as knowledge, truth, justice, and fairness. This book explains how philosophers’ treatments of topics relate to our presystematic understanding and how their deliberations should relate to the prevailing conception of the matters.

Nicholas Rescher

PREFACE I.METHODOLOGY 1.Introduction: The Concept Auditing Process II.SOME HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS 2. The Socratic Method as an Illustration 3.Neo-Platonic Wholes 4.Descartes and Generalization 5.Spinoza on Things and Ideas 6.Kantian Absolutism in Moral Theory 7.Mill on Desirability 8.Ordinary Language Philosophy on the Nature of Knowing 9.Russell-Gettier on the Analysis of Knowledge 10.Concept Dialectics in Historical Perspective 11.Metaphysical Illusions III.FURTHER ILLUSTRATIVE APPLICATIONS 12.Who Dun It? 13.Existence: To Be or Not to Be 14.Explanatory Regression 15.The Fallacy of Respect Neglect 16.Appearance and Reality 17.On the Truth about Reality 18.Sameness and Change 19.Origination Issues 20.Shaping Ideas 21.Construing Necessitation 22.Conceptual Horizons 23.Language Limits 24.On Certainty 25.Timeless Truth 26.Assessing Acceptability 27.Value Neutrality in Science 28.Personhood and Obligation 29.Control Issues 30.Fairness Problems 31.The Ethics of Delegation 32.Doing unto Others 33.Faux Quantities 34.Luck vs. Fortune 35.The Problem of Progress 36.Issues of Excellence 37.Problems of Perfection IV.CONCLUSION 38.Concluding Observations