Abstract

This very intelligent, informative and clear book is about true judgments. Its line of argumentation is that ultimate philosophy which must always question its own assumptions reveals three ends of philosophy: the epistemically true, the pragmatically good, and the poetically beautiful. Epistemic philosophy makes judgments which aim at truth as defined by the correspondence theory in which ideas and objects must conform in a realistic way that includes even the ways of idealism. Pragmatic philosophy makes judgments which have a truth that can be tested according to the social implications of actions. Poetic philosophy makes judgments whose truth must meet the criterion of a qualitatively more valuable life. The book's thesis is that while these ends of philosophy should complement each other, one of them has to take the place of primacy, and Cahoone gives that to the truth of assertive judgments because practical judgments and performative judgments each claim some sort of assertive truth, even if it may get caught in a self referential falsity.