{"product_id":"true-enough-isbn-9780262036535","title":"True Enough","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe development of an epistemology that explains how science and art embody and convey understanding.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhilosophy valorizes truth, holding that there can never be epistemically good reasons to accept a known falsehood, or to accept modes of justification that are not truth conducive. How can this stance account for the epistemic standing of science, which unabashedly relies on models, idealizations, and thought experiments that are known not to be true? In \u003ci\u003eTrue Enough\u003c\/i\u003e, Catherine Elgin argues that we should not assume that the inaccuracy of models and idealizations constitutes an inadequacy. To the contrary, their divergence from truth or representational accuracy fosters their epistemic functioning. When effective, models and idealizations are, Elgin contends, felicitous falsehoods that exemplify features of the phenomena they bear on. Because works of art deploy the same sorts of felicitous falsehoods, she argues, they also advance understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eElgin develops a holistic epistemology that focuses on the understanding of broad ranges of phenomena rather than knowledge of individual facts. Epistemic acceptability, she maintains, is a matter not of truth-conduciveness, but of what would be reflectively endorsed by the members of an idealized epistemic community—a quasi-Kantian realm of epistemic ends.\u003c\/p\u003eAn impressively wide-ranging, meticulously argued, thought-provoking book...Elgin's \u003ci\u003eTrue Enough\u003c\/i\u003e is a philosophical tour-de-force of incredible breadth.—\u003ci\u003eBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eElgin's project will show that we get on just fine, intellectually as well as practically, by replacing truth and knowledge with “true enough” and understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003ci\u003eJournal of Philosophy\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn original, fruitful blend of epistemology and philosophy of science...this is a wonderful book, written in an elegant and informal style, and replete with stimulating ideas on a wide range of subjects.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNotre Dame Philosophical Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e—Catherine Z. Elgin is Professor of the Philosophy of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eConsidered Judgment\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBetween the Absolute and the Arbitrary\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWith Reference to Reference\u003c\/i\u003e, and (with Nelson Goodman) \u003ci\u003eReconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302920343781,"sku":"NP9780262036535","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262036535.jpg?v=1767742993","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/true-enough-isbn-9780262036535","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}