Abstract
Perhaps, the best way to approach a book with as broad a scope and as great an ambition as Philip Kitcher's The Advancement of Science is to think about its main goal. What vision is it trying to convey? Is it a worthy vision? Later one can ask how well it was done. Interestingly, the how-well-is-it-done question is essentially Kitcher's model of rationality. Rationality is a means-end equilibration, deciding what is rational in terms of how well a procedure meets a goal. This is the old theme of pragmatic or prudential rationality which has made its reappearance in the cognitive scientists' problem solving literature. Not surprisingly this influence is strong in Kitcher's work. What are Kitcher's goals? He explicitly raises this question:
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