Rescher’s defence of philosophy is particularly clear in how...

Rescher’s defence of philosophy is particularly clear in how it fails to satisfy this sort of agnostic. (This is not to say his defence is bad, but just that it is not what I called a proper epistemic defence.) Rescher holds that it can instrumentally rational to accept a theory based on one’s cognitive values. There is a plurality of reasonable stances on the weights of these cognitive values. So, for Rescher, rational disagreement rests precisely on these cognitive values rather than on truth.

But our agnostic is not interested in these cognitive unless they reliably get her to the truth. Apparently,…