Publishing House SB RAS:

Publishing House SB RAS:

Address of the Publishing House SB RAS:
Morskoy pr. 2, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia



Advanced Search

Humanitarian sciences in Siberia

2004 year, number

Epistemic and Instrumental Rationality

Karpovitch V. N.
Institute of philosophy and law SB RAS, Novosibirsk
Pages: 10-14

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between epistemic and instrumental rationality in the methodology of science. Instrumental rationality concerns the means and ends of an action, epistemic rationality deals with the normativity of the rules of inference.
There are many attempts to describe epistemic rationality as merely a kind of instrumental, as an instrumental rationality in service of cognitive or epistemic goals. The paper explores the instrumentalist conception of epistemic rationality, its philosophical importance, its plausibility and defensibility. The arguments of the proponents of the instrumentalist conception are compared to the attempts to naturalize moral judgments in philosophical ethics.