The Ideal of Rationality presents an evaluation of all the main varieties of rationalism, in clear and jargon-free language. Different notions of rationality - such as means-end, conception, hedonism, and the evil-avoidance view - are examined and rejected, in favor of the theory that to act rationally is to 'act for the best', a theory Nathanson characterizes as "critical pluralism". Among present-day thinkers whose ideas are scrutinized are Richard Brandt, Bernard Gert, Gilbert Harman, John Kekes, Robert Nozick, Karl Popper, and John Rawls.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Bevat: Liberal versus practical orientation of curriculum development / Olusegun Oladipo ; Lessons of world history of the university for Nigeria today / Joseph Kenny ; Human capital in Nigerian universities : the presence of the past and the thrust of the future / Ifeanyi Onyeonoru ; University decline and its reasons : imperatives for change and relevance / Francis Egbokhare ; Knowledge production, cultural identity and globalization : African universities and the challenges of authenticity and transformation in the twenty-first century / Kolawole A. Owolabi ; Idealism versus pragmatism in the production of knowledge in Nigerian universities / Olatunji A. Oyeshile ; The university and the African crisis of morality : lessons from Nigeria / Ogbo Ugwuanyi ; Subjectivity, hermeneutics and culture / George F. Mclean ; Value systems and the interest groups of a university / Francis M. Isichei ; The place of theology in the university curriculum / Anthony A. Akinwale.

The new field of experimental philosophy has emerged as the methods of psychological science have been brought to bear on traditional philosophical issues. This book will be the place to go to see outstanding new work in the field. It will feature papers by philosophers, papers by psychologists, and papers co-authored by people in both disciplines. The series heralds the emergence of a truly interdisciplinary field in which people from different disciplines are working together to address a shared set of questions. The inaugural volume is roughly structured into four sections. The first three papers focus on recent developments in moral psychology, a topic that has seen lively debate and a great deal of progress over the last decade. The second section highlights three contributions that bring new methods to moral psychology: formal modeling and special populations. The third section brings together four papers that adopt an experimental philosophy approach to novel topics, including intuitive dualism, generics, joint action, and happiness. And the last two papers provide critical and historical context to the development of experimental philosophy.

Includes section "New books."

This book collects original essays on the epistemology of modality and related issues in modal metaphysics and philosophical methodology. The contributors utilize both the newer "metaphysics-first" and the more traditional "epistemology-first" approaches to these issues. The chapters on modal epistemology mostly focus on the problem of how we can gain knowledge of possibilities, which have never been actualized, or necessities which are not provable either by logico-mathematical reasoning or by linguistic competence alone. These issues are closely related to some of the central issues in philosophical methodology, notably: to what extent is the armchair methodology of philosophy a reliable guide for the formation of beliefs about what is possible and necessary. This question also relates to the nature of thought experiments that are extensively used in science and philosophy. Epistemology of Modality and Philosophical Methodology will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, as well as those whose work is concerned with philosophical methodology more generally.