Knowledge at the Boundaries

The book offers a reflection on the nature, scope, and limits of knowledge that have been at the focus of the author's work over decades. The essays collected in this volume expound and extend these efforts in exploring the outer fringes of understanding: the outer boundaries of conceivability, the limits of cognition, and the ramifications of ineffability and paradox. They join in exploring the lay of the land at the boundaries of knowledge.The first chapters address basic facts regarding the conceptualization of knowledge. This is followed by a study on how to deal with problems relating to the affirmation and considerations of truth. The final chapters scrutinize the limits of demonstration and the inherent impossibility of realizing an ideal systematization of our knowledge of totalities. The book affords novel perspectives regarding the thought of a widely appreciated philosopher. It is an original work aimed for readers interested in the theory of knowledge and philosophy of cognition.

Chapter 1. Default Reasoning.- Chapter 2. Vagueness: a Variant Approach.- Chapter 3. Conceivability.- Chapter 4. Issues of Identity and Identification.- Chapter 5. On Explanation and Understanding.- Chapter 6. Alethic Topology (a Study in Topological Semantics and Paradox).- Chapter 7. The Logic of Knowledge Distribution.- Chapter 8. Relevance and its Problems.- Chapter 9. Leibniz and “the liar”.- Chapter 10. Did Leibniz Anticipate Gödel.- Chapter 11. Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities.- Chapter 12. Mind Questions.- Chapter 13. Intuition and Mathematical Idealism.- Chapter 14. Outlandish Hypotheses and the Limits of Thought Experimentation.- Chapter 15. Limitations and the World Beyond (Co-authored with Patrick Grim).- Chapter 16. Philosophical Confrontations.- Chapter 17. The Limits of Philosophy.- Chapter 18. The Rational Inescapability of Philosophizing.- Chapter 19. Antiphilosophy.