Grounds for Knowing and Acting

What constitutes a justified assertion and a correct behavior are issues that have been central to Western philosophy. Indeed, they are crucial to defining the very notion of rationality, a topic that Rosaria Egidi has explored for decades. This book features twenty essays by distinguished philosophers, each addressing a question that Egidi has grappled with, while shedding new light on it in the spirit of Wittgenstein, Meinong, Husserl, and Bergmann. This volume features contributions by distinguished contemporary philosophers, including Robert Audi (University of Notre Dame), George Meggle (University of Leipzig), Peter Hacker (University College London), Kevin Mulligan (University of Geneva), and Ilkka Niiniluoto (University of Helsinki). These essays, all originally written for the volume, draw on classic thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wilhelm Wundt, Alexius Meinong, Edmund Husserl, Rudolf Carnap, Gustav Bergmann, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Richard Rorty. They particularly engage with the influence of the German-speaking philosophical tradition of the early twentieth century on contemporary analytic philosophy. Dedicated to Rosaria Egidi’s scholarly contributions, this collection offers new perspectives on the origin of significant discussions in contemporary philosophy of language, theory of action, philosophy of mind, and metaphilosophy, including justified assertion, practical reasoning, indexicals, rationality, intentionality, the relationship between philosophy and science, and the structure and function of practical reasoning—all themes of great relevance for scholars interested in methodological and foundational issues.