69 research outputs found
Elgin on understanding:How does it involve know-how, endorsement and factivity?
In Chapter 3 of True Enough, Elgin (2017) outlines her view of objectual understanding, focusing largely on its non-factive nature and the extent to which a certain kind of know-how is required for the âgraspingâ component of understanding. I will explore four central issues that feature in this chapter, concentrating on (1) the role of know-how, (2) the concept of endorsement, (3) Elginâs critique of the factivity constraint on understanding, and (4) how we might use aspects of Elginâs framework to inform related debates on the norm of assertion
Consensus Paper: Radiological Biomarkers of Cerebellar Diseases
Hereditary and sporadic cerebellar ataxias represent a vast and still growing group of diseases whose diagnosis and differentiation cannot only rely on clinical evaluation. Brain imaging including magnetic resonance (MR) and nuclear medicine techniques allows for characterization of structural and functional abnormalities underlying symptomatic ataxias. These methods thus constitute a potential source of radiological biomarkers, which could be used to identify these diseases and differentiate subgroups of them, and to assess their severity and their evolution. Such biomarkers mainly comprise qualitative and quantitative data obtained from MR including proton spectroscopy, diffusion imaging, tractography, voxel-based morphometry, functional imaging during task execution or in a resting state, and from SPETC and PET with several radiotracers. In the current article, we aim to illustrate briefly some applications of these neuroimaging tools to evaluation of cerebellar disorders such as inherited cerebellar ataxia, fetal developmental malformations, and immune-mediated cerebellar diseases and of neurodegenerative or early-developing diseases, such as dementia and autism in which cerebellar involvement is an emerging feature. Although these radiological biomarkers appear promising and helpful to better understand ataxia-related anatomical and physiological impairments, to date, very few of them have turned out to be specific for a given ataxia with atrophy of the cerebellar system being the main and the most usual alteration being observed. Consequently, much remains to be done to establish sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of available MR and nuclear medicine features as diagnostic, progression and surrogate biomarkers in clinical routine
The genealogical method in epistemology
In 1990 Edward Craig published a book called Knowledge and the State of Nature in which he introduced and defended a genealogical approach to epistemology. In recent years Craigâs book has attracted a lot of attention, and his distinctive approach has been put to a wide range of uses including anti-realist metaepistemology, contextualism, relativism, anti-luck virtue epistemology, epistemic injustice, value of knowledge, pragmatism and virtue epistemology. While the number of objections to Craigâs approach has accumulated, there has been no sustained attempt to develop answers to these objections. In this paper we provide answers to seven important objections in the literature
Spreading the Credit: Virtue Reliabilism and Weak Epistemic Anti-Individualism
Mainstream epistemologists have recently made a few isolated attempts to demonstrate the particular ways, in which specific types of knowledge are partly social. Two promising cases in point are Lackeyâs (Learning from words: testimony as a source of knowledge. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008) dualism in the epistemology of testimony and Goldbergâs (Relying on others: an essay in epistemology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) process reliabilist treatment of testimonial and coverage-support justification. What seems to be missing from the literature, however, is a general approach to knowledge that could reveal the partly social nature of the latter anytime this may be the case. Indicatively, even though Lackey (Synthese 158(3):345â361, 2007) has recently launched an attack against the Credit Account of Knowledge (CAK) on the basis of testimony, she has not classified her view of testimonial knowledge into any of the alternative, general approaches to knowledge. Similarly, even if Goldbergâs attempt to provide a process reliabilist explanation of the social nature of testimonial knowledge is deemed satisfactory, his attempt to do the same in the case of coverage-support justification does not deliver the requisite result. This paper demonstrates that CAK can in fact provide, pace Lackeyâs renunciation of the view, a promising account of the social nature of both testimonial and coverage-supported knowledge. Additionally, however, it can display further explanatory power by also revealing the social nature of knowledge produced on the basis of epistemic artifacts. Despite their disparities, all these types of knowledge count as partly social in nature, because in all these cases, according to CAK, the epistemic credit for the individual agentâs true belief must spread between the individual agent and certain parts of her epistemic community. Accordingly, CAK is a promising candidate for providing a unified approach to several and, perhaps all possible, instances of what we may call âweak epistemic anti-individualismâ within mainstream epistemology: i.e., the claim that the nature of knowledge can occasionally be both social and individual at the same time
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