IngentaConnect Scheme-Based Alethic Realism: Agency, the Environment, and Truthm...

Authors: Baç M.¹; Elio R.²

Source: Minds and Machines, Volume 14, Number 2, May 2004 , pp. 173-196(24)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

This paper presents a position called Scheme-based Alethic Realism, which reconciles a realist position on the nature of truth with a pluralistic Kantian perspective that allows for multiple “environments” in which truthmaking relationships are established. We argue that truthmaking functions are constrained by a stable phenomenal world and a stable cognitive architecture. This account takes truth as normatively distinct from epistemic justification while relativizing the truth conditions of our statements to what we call “Frameworks.” The pluralistic aspect allows that these stable elements, while constraining representational and linguistic schemes, do not define a single framework for truthmaking relations. We strengthen this position by considering themes on situated rational agency from cognitive science and artificial intelligence, arguing that whatever enables or supports rational action within a particular environment must figure into some account of truth and truthmaking, and vice versa.

Keywords: agency; artificial intelligence; cognitive science; conceptual schemes; framework; Kant; ontology; pluralism; rationality; realism; situated cognition; truth

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1023/B:MIND.0000021705.36572.0f

Affiliations: 1: Department of Philosophy, Bogaziçi University, 34342 Bebek, Istanbul, Turkey; murat.bac@boun.edu.tr, Email: murat.bac@boun.edu.tr 2: Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H1; ree@cs.ualberta.ca, Email: ree@cs.ualberta.ca

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Scheme-Based Alethic Realism: Agency, the Environment, and Truthmaking