AS IF

Idealization is a fundamental feature of human thought. We build simplified models in our scientific research and utopias in our pol itical imaginations. Concepts like belief, desire, reason, and justice are bound up with idealizations and ideals. Life is a constan t adjustment between the models we make and the realities we encounter. In idealizing, we proceed as if our representations were t rue, while knowing they are not. This is not a dangerous or distracting occupation, Kwame Anthony Appiah shows. Our best chance of u nderstandi...[Read more]