HARTMAN Jan - Philosophical Heuristics

Philosophical Heuristics is a conceptual work, presenting a sketch of a program for doing philosophy through metaphilosophical reflection, aiming at a very comprehensive and systematic discernment of both the multiple argumentative possibilities related to a given issue, the obstacles and pitfalls of conceptual or linguistic nature, and the extra-theoretical conditions affecting the shape of the discourse. All factors, whether of a conceptual, pragmatic, linguistic or social nature, which shape the result in the form of a theoretical product such as a philosophical discourse, argument, concept or, finally, a text, are called heuristics in this work. Heuristics is an attempt to form the skill of intellectual mastery over the entirety of the heureis. The task is difficult, because any respectable philosophical theory exhibits a considerable degree of self-reflection, and consequently suffers from the illusion that it provides sufficient theoretical discernment both in terms of its own claims to legitimacy and in relation to other, competing concepts. Overcoming this illusion, which initiates philosophical heuristics as a theory and skill, is possible only on the condition that we acquire the ability to authentically adapt those forms of theoretical self-knowledge provided by the great philosophical projects, all the while maintaining the autonomy necessary to confront them with other forms of philosophical criticism.

Publisher: Foundation for Polish Science, Humanities Series, Wrocław 1997

Format: 210 x 150 mm, 298s.

Very good condition, micro-spots visible under light.