59,112 research outputs found
Epistemic Teleology: Synchronic and Diachronic
According to a widely held view of the matter, whenever we assess beliefs as ârationalâ or âjustifiedâ, we are making normative judgements about those beliefs. In this discussion, I shall simply assume, for the sake of argument, that this view is correct. My goal here is to explore a particular approach to understanding the basic principles that explain which of these normative judgements are true. Specifically, this approach is based on the assumption that all such normative principles are grounded in facts about values, and the normative principles that apply to beliefs in particular are grounded in facts about alethic valueââa kind of value that is exemplified by believing what is true and not believing what is false. In this chapter, I shall explain what I regard as the best way of interpreting this approach. In doing so, I shall also show how this interpretation can solve some problems that have recently been raised for approaches of this kind by Selim Berker, Jennifer Carr, Michael Caie, and Hilary Greaves
Epistemic Pluralism
The present paper wants to promote epistemic pluralism as an alternative view of non-classical logics. For this purpose, a bilateralist logic of acceptance and rejection is developed in order to make an important di erence between several concepts of epistemology, including information and justi cation. Moreover, the notion of disagreement corresponds to a set of epistemic oppositions between agents. The result is a non-standard theory of opposition for many-valued logics, rendering total and partial disagreement in terms of epistemic negation and semi-negations
Creationism and evolution
In Tower of Babel, Robert Pennock wrote that
âdefenders of evolution would help their case
immeasurably if they would reassure their
audience that morality, purpose, and meaning are
not lost by accepting the truth of evolution.â We
first consider the thesis that the creationistsâ
movement exploits moral concerns to spread its
ideas against the theory of evolution. We analyze
their arguments and possible reasons why they are
easily accepted. Creationists usually employ two
contradictive strategies to expose the purported
moral degradation that comes with accepting the
theory of evolution. On the one hand they claim
that evolutionary theory is immoral. On the other
hand creationists think of evolutionary theory as
amoral. Both objections come naturally in a
monotheistic view. But we can find similar
conclusions about the supposed moral aspects of
evolution in non-religiously inspired discussions.
Meanwhile, the creationism-evolution debate
mainly focuses â understandably â on what
constitutes good science. We consider the need for
moral reassurance and analyze reassuring
arguments from philosophers. Philosophers may
stress that science does not prescribe and is
therefore not immoral, but this reaction opens the
door for the objection of amorality that evolution
â as a naturalistic world view at least â
supposedly endorses. We consider that the topic of
morality and its relation to the acceptance of
evolution may need more empirical research
Cognitive science and epistemic openness
Recent findings in cognitive science suggest that the epistemic subject is more complex and epistemically porous than is generally pictured. Human knowers are open to the world via multiple channels, each operating for particular purposes and according to its own logic. These findings need to be understood and addressed by the philosophical community. The current essay argues that one consequence of the new findings is to invalidate certain arguments for epistemic anti-realism
Introduction: Examined Live â An Epistemological Exchange Between Philosophy and Cultural Psychology on Reflection
Besides the general agreement about the human capability of reflection, there is a large area of disagreement and debate about the nature and value of âreflective scrutinyâ and the role of âsecond-order statesâ in everyday life. This problem has been discussed in a vast and heterogeneous literature about topics such as epistemic injustice, epistemic norms, agency, understanding, meta-cognition etc. However, there is not yet any extensive and interdisciplinary work, specifically focused on the topic of the epistemic value of reflection. This volume is one of the first attempts aimed at providing an innovative contribution, an exchange between philosophy, epistemology and psychology about the place and value of reflection in everyday life.
Our goal in the next sections is not to offer an exhaustive overview of recent work on epistemic reflection, nor to mimic all of the contributions made by the chapters in this volume. We will try to highlight some topics that have motivated a new resumption of this field and, with that, drawing on chapters from this volume where relevant.
Two elements defined the scope and content of this volume, on the one hand, the crucial contribution of Ernest Sosa, whose works provide original and thought-provoking contributions to contemporary epistemology in setting a new direction for old dilemmas about the nature and value of knowledge, giving a central place to reflection. On the other hand, the recent developments of cultural psychology, in the version of the âAalborg approachâ, reconsider the object and scope of psychological sciences, stressing that â[h]uman conduct is purposefulâ
A Paradox of Inferentialism
John McDowell articulated a radical criticism of normative inferentialism against Robert Brandomâs expressivist account of conceptual contents. One of his main concerns consists in vindicating a notion of intentionality that could not be reduced to the deontic relations that are established by discursive practitioners. Noticeably, large part of this discussion is focused on empirical knowledge and observational judgments. McDowell
argues that there is no role for inference in the application of observational concepts, except the paradoxical one of justifying the content of an observational judgment in terms of itself. This paper examines the semantical consequences of the analysis of the content of empirical judgments in terms of their inferential role. These, it is suggested, are distinct from the epistemological paradoxes that McDowell charges the inferentialist approach with
Is the Private Language Argument a Transcendental Argument?
Comparisons between KantĂ´s critique of pure
reason and WittgensteinĂ´s critique of language, which
became current in analytic philosophy (Cf. e.g Hacker
1972, 30.) seem not far-fetched in view of the impetus for
the destruction of dogmatic metaphysics both philosophers
share. Their relevance would gain though by an
elaboration of their dissimilarities rather than by just
stressing similarities.
An example of the former approach, Weinert
(1983, 412) contrasts the tools both critics of metaphysics
employ: the distinction between analytic and synthetic
judgments, and the description of the logic of languageuse
and in particular the Ă´Argument from Epistemic
Operatorsô (Wittgenstein 1961, sects. 6.5, 6.51; 1958, çç
246, 247, 251, 303; references in the form of paragraphnumbers
are to the latter text) respectively. The analysis of
the employment of those tools in anti-metaphysical
arguments -and Weinert treats the Private Language
Argument (PLA) as such (427-429)- enables to uncover
underlying assumptions, e.g. the implicit assumption in
Kant of a prior conceptual relation between concepts to
which his notion of analysis is to be applied (430-431) and
WittgensteinĂ´s explicit doctrine that "ordinary language is
alrightâ� (434)
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