The Nature of Inquiry: Volume I: Epistemology

The Nature of Inquiry is a complete philosophical system in four volumes developed from an epistemological perspective and the culmination of nearly fifty years of study and reflection. In Volume I, the author presents a formal epistemology that engages the very possibility of theoretical inquiry, uncovers its transcendentally necessary presuppositions, and defends the possibility of theoretical inquiry from the challenge of global skepticism. The approach taken is broadly Cartesian and takes seriously Descartes's reliance on the divine veracity as the foundation for the reliability of our cognitive faculties. Then, through an examination of our innate ideas - those we can acquire from reflection on our own existence and nature - we are led to a decidedly non-Cartesian account of the most basic elements of substantive human knowledge.