Another book recommendation: In Defense of Pure Reason
Been a while since I've last compiled one of these, and as I'm taking a break from the forum to catch up on some reading, what better time than now? I'll be rather brief this time round - primarily because I've yet to finish the book in question. At any rate, I'd recommend to anyone interested in epistemological issues to pick up Laurence BonJour's excellent In Defense of Pure Reason. As an author he is anything but unclear or pedantic. He writes in remarkably clear, jargon-free prose (to the extent that the subject allows for, anyway), and is of a kind with Hans Hoppe who is himself known for his rigorous, logical method of presenting arguments.
BonJour's purpose of authoring this fine book is a rehabilitation of rationalism against a growing tide of scepticism and the failed doctrines of radical empiricsm. He does so by first undermining the arguments and rationale for moderate forms of empiricism, e.g. the evocation of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy by moderate empiricists in the defence of their doctrine (which allows them to conflate all a priori truths with analytic truths, which they take to be necessary in virtue of their logical structure or often their meaning, thereby allowing them to entertain a weakened notion of the a priori.) BonJour artfully explodes the doctrine of apriority being tantamount to analyticity, by deftly demonstrating that if such a conflation is made, it allows analyticity no useful role to play, and will at any rate rely on a rationalist notion of intuition (i.e. grasping that the logical truths analytic statement depend on, are, in fact, valid.) Even so innocuous a notion as reasoning (e.g. inference from premises to conclusion) is not free from an element of a priori justifiability, meaning the moderate empiricist is hard-pressed to escape the force of BonJour's arguments. Besides, the notion of analyticity as is commonly advanced (containment of a predicate in the subject) cannot even characterize most obviously analytic truths (e.g. "either A exists or A does not"), and where the notion of meaning or contradiction is borrowed upon, one must first assume the justifiability of the logical truths in question. The author demonstrates how empiricists often equivocate between different meanings of the term "analytic" in defence of their doctrine. He also demonstrates the utter vacuity of the notion of the analytic being a matter of linguistic conventions, as he shows that this cuts no philosophical ice as far as justifiability goes (which is what the a priori is, after all: a form of justification.) Most interesting, perhaps, is BonJour's unseating of Kant as arch-rationalist, by showing that his belief in the imposition of stucture by the mind on reality deprives Kant of the ability to argue for a genuinely coherent notion of synthetic apriority, thereby rendering him at best a moderate empiricist. He closes his chapter on moderate empiricism by noting the self-refuting nature of the epistemological doctrine (familiar to anyone conversant in Austrian methodology.)
Present also is a clear, rigorous delineation of the questions at hand: BonJour separates the ontological question of the necessity or contingency of a truth from the epistemological question of its justifiability (i.e. apriority or aposteriority) and from syntactic matters (analyticity vs. syntheticity.) The categories are all too often confused, even amongst the more incautious of the Austrians. I've not arrived at BonJour's criticism of Quine and radical empiricism yet, or his positive account of the a priori, but I'm aware that like Barry Smith, he too advances a fallibilistic notion thereof, and as such classifies his rationalism as "moderate". What he has written is pretty much in line with the writings of the likes of Hoppe, and should be read by anyone interested in advancing a coherent defence of the Austrian method. He neatly evades the pitfalls of Cartesian rationalism and excessive faith in reason, and thereby aligns himself with those more moderate rationalists such as Aristotle (whom he explicitly identifies as such.)
All in all, a book well worth reading. I look forward to seeing his solution to the problem of induction. This is not a work for beginners, but for anyone who's read Mises's, Hoppe's or Martin Hollis's works (or those of Brand Blanshard), this work should bring them up to date with modern arguments in the area of epistemology, exposing them to cutting edge thought on the matter. Henry Veatch's Two Logics should also be read for a similarly sustained attack on modern scientism and radical empiricism.
PS: I'd also like to promote this great article by BonJour, though it's not really germaine to this post.