Science, Language, and the Human Condition

“This is a superb volume, deeply thought through and will make a great contribution to the philosophy of thought and to the sciences!”–Karl H. Pribram, Neuroscience, Stanford University


“This is an enormously rich book.... Professor Kaplan masters an incredibly wide field of knowledge...his book will be of use to many scientists interested in the broader aspects of the relation between science and man.”–Gerhard Vollmer, Biophilosophy, University of Giessen, West Germany


“Kaplan takes issue with Popper, Wittgenstein, Kripke, and Putnam for their attempt to found science upon a universal agreement.... This book is to be greatly welcomed, both for its following the continental tradition of boldly ignoring academic boundaries and for its uncontinental use of a clear and readable style which opens it up to readers on all sides of those boundaries.”–Edmond Wright, Philosophy, Pembroke College, Oxford University


In this book, which integrates philosophy of science with language theory, Kaplan argues that every method of inquiry, including inquiry into language, requires supplementation by complementary approaches. Philosophers who attempt to confine analysis to a global method including those whose positions are opposed such as Kuhn and Popper, Quine and Kripke, Wittgenstein and Derrida, and Karl Marx and Milton Friedman–convert partial truths into world views that distort our understanding. These partial views obscure the natural foundation of human values. The approach used by Kaplan permits him to show how and why moral analysis is objective and to restore humans to their natural place in the universe.


This book is of interest to philosophers, social scientists, scientists, and humanists because the world view it propounds has important implications for understanding persisting problems in each of their areas of inquiry. Kaplan calls his approach “analytical pragmatism.”