Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge

Though I already own this monumental work, I could not help but write a review when I realized there are no reviews of this book! Clarence Irving Lewis was an American philosopher prominent in the first half of the 20th century. He is well known as the father of modal logic, the founder of conceptual pragmatism, and a brilliant moral thinker in his later years. This book, in particular, delves into conceptual pragmatism, Lewis' unique epistemology (theory of knowledge). I would argue that this is a must read for any epistemologist. For one thing, Quine was highly influenced at Harvard by C.I. Lewis, as were many others. One can see many influences on Quine from the epistemology of Lewis. Far from being just a work of historical interest, this work plays prominence into contemporary issues and debates in the philosophical community. I would argue that more than any other philosopher of the 1940's through the 1950's it is C.I.Lewis' work that is most influential and explanatory of how and why contemporary epistemology is interested in the issues of the today. Mind and the World Order is heavily influenced by Kant. In fact, Lewis is an obvious neo-Kantian, one that is trying to navigate a middle road between the pitfalls of traditional realism and idealism. Lewis tries to accomplish this through a type of neo-Kantian transcendental epistemology that appeals to two things: the given, and the concept. The given deals with our perceptions and the coceptual deals with the process of objectification of our imposed interpretations onto the given. One of Lewis' central claims is that the given and the conceptualization in no way limit one another. What is interesting about this process of conceptualization is that it is second order, that is, the point of analysis is from the first person perspective in a coherent/pragmatic theory of truth instead of a first order, third person externalism. What is most intriguing about Lewis is that he abandons the traditional notions of the a priori, but unlike Quine replaces the traditional notions of the a priori with what he coins the pragmatic a priori, a notion that was developed in an earlier journal article for the Journal of Philosophy. This pragmatic a priori circumvents the traditional externalistic problems of the a priori while managing to remain second order in a conceputalistic framework, the validity of which is measured through consistency. Additioanlly, what makes it pragmatic is the appeal to the interests, desires, and other aspects of the individual beyond the "purely rational". There is, therefore, an interesting dance between naturalism and anti-naturalism in Lewis' thought. At any rate, this is an excellent book that develops an intriguing and promising epistemology and metaphysics. There are numerous examples and the book is written in a terminologically accessible manner. In fact, the writing style is deceptively easy (like Rawls) and makes it all too easy just to go along