5,974 research outputs found
Objectual understanding, factivity and belief
Should we regard Jennifer Lackeyâs (2007) âCreationist Teacherâ as understanding evolution, even though she does not, given her religious convictions, believe its central claims? We think this question raises a range of important and unexplored questions about the relationship between understanding, factivity and belief. Our aim will be to diagnose this case in a principled way, and in doing so, to make some progress toward appreciating what objectual understandingâi.e., understanding a subject matter or body of informationâdemands of us. Here is the plan. After some ground clearing in §1, §2 outlines and motivates a plausible working modelâmoderate factivityâfor characterising the sense in which objectual understanding should be regarded as factive. §3 shows how the datum that we can understand false theories can, despite initial suggestions to the contrary, be assimilated straightforwardly within the moderate factivity model. §4 highlights how the inverse kind of case to that explored in §3âviz., a variant of Lackeyâs creationist teacher caseâposes special problems for moderate factivity. With reference to recent work on moral understanding by Hills (2009), §5 proposes a solution to the problem, and §6 attempts to diagnose why it is that we might originally have been led to draw the wrong conclusion
Knowledge, Assertion and Intellectual Humility
This paper has two central aims. First, we motivate a puzzle. The puzzle features four independently plausible but jointly inconsistent claims. One of the four claims is the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm of assertion (KNA-S), according to which one is properly epistemically positioned to assert that p if one knows that p. Second, we propose that rejecting (KNA-S) is the best way out of the puzzle. Our argument to this end appeals to the epistemic value of intellectual humility in social-epistemic practice
Googled Assertion
Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010a; Clark 2010b; Palermos 2014) can help to explain why certain kinds of assertionsâmade on the basis of information stored in our gadgets rather than in biological memoryâare properly criticisable in light of misleading implicatures, while others are not
Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology on the communication from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council (Doc. C2-48/85- COM(85) 245 final) for a proposal for a Resolution concerning new Community energy policy objectives for 1995 and convergence of the policies of the Member States. Working Documents 1985-86, Document A2-223/85, 4 March 1986.
Norms of assertion: the quantity and quality of epistemic support
We show that the contemporary debate surrounding the question âWhat is the norm of assertion?â presupposes what we call the quantitative view, i.e. the view that this question is best answered by determining how much epistemic support is required to warrant assertion. We consider what Jennifer Lackey (2010) has called cases of isolated second-hand knowledge and showâbeyond what Lackey has suggested herselfâthat these cases are best understood as ones where a certain type of understanding, rather than knowledge, constitutes the required epistemic credential to warrant assertion. If we are right that understanding (and not just knowledge) is the epistemic norm for a restricted class of assertions, then this straightforwardly undercuts not only the widely supposed quantitative view, but also a more general presupposition concerning the universalisability of some norm governing assertionâthe presumption (almost entirely unchallenged since Williamsonâs 1996 paper) that any epistemic norm that governs some assertions should govern assertionsâas a class of speech actâuniformly
Understanding a communicated thought
The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that the understanding one has of a proposition or a propositional content of a representational vehicle is a species of what contemporary epistemologists characterise as objectual understanding. Second, we demonstrate that even though this type of understanding differs from linguistic understanding, in many instances of successful communication, these two types of understanding jointly contribute to understanding a communicated thought
Upper Midwest Climate Variations: Farmer Responses to Excess Water Risks
Persistent above average precipitation and runoff and associated increased sediment transfers from cultivated ecosystems to rivers and oceans are due to changes in climate and human action. The US Upper Midwest has experienced a 37% increase in precipitation (1958â2012), leading to increased crop damage from excess water and off-farm loss of soil and nutrients. Farmer adaptive management responses to changing weather patterns have potential to reduce crop losses and address degrading soil and water resources. This research used farmer survey (n = 4778) and climate data (1971â2011) to model influences of geophysical context, past weather, on-farm flood and saturated soils experiences, and risk and vulnerability perceptions on management practices. Seasonal precipitation varied across six Upper Midwest subregions and was significantly associated with variations in management. Increased warm-season precipitation (2007â2011) relative to the past 40 yr was positively associated with no-till, drainage, and increased planting on highly erodible land (HEL). Experience with saturated soils was significantly associated with increased use of drainage and less use of no-till, cover crops, and planting on HEL. Farmers in counties with a higher percentage of soils considered marginal for row crops were more likely to use no-till, cover crops, and plant on HEL. Respondents who sell corn through multiple markets were more likely to have planted cover crops and planted on HEL in 2011.This suggests that regional climate conditions may not well represent individual farmersâ actual and perceived experiences with changing climate conditions. Accurate climate information downscaled to localized conditions has potential to influence specific adaptation strategies
On Pritchard, Objectual Understanding and the Value Problem
Duncan Pritchard (2008, 2009, 2010, forthcoming) has argued for an elegant solution to what have been called the value problems for knowledge at the forefront of recent literature on epistemic value. As Pritchard sees it, these problems dissolve once it is recognized that that it is understanding-why, not knowledge, that bears the distinctive epistemic value often (mistakenly) attributed to knowledge. A key element of Pritchardâs revisionist argument is the claim that understanding-why always involves what he calls strong cognitive achievementâviz., cognitive achievement that consists always in either (i) the overcoming of a significant obstacle or (ii) the exercise of a significant level of cognitive ability. After outlining Pritchardâs argument, we show (contra Pritchard) that understanding-why does not essentially involve strong cognitive achievement. Interestingly, in the cases in which understanding-why is distinctively valuable, it is (we argue) only because there is sufficiently rich objectual understanding in the background. If thatâs right, then a plausible revisionist solution to the value problems must be sensitive to different kinds of understanding and what makes them valuable, respectively
The physicianâs role in perioperative management of older patients undergoing surgery
Life-sustaining and life-improving surgical interventions are increasingly available to older, frailer patients, many of whom have multimorbidity. Physicians can help support perioperative multidisciplinary teams with assessment and preoperative optimisation of physiological reserve, comorbidities and associated geriatric syndromes. Similar structured support can be useful in the postoperative period where older patients are at increased risk of delirium, medical complications, increased functional dependency and where discharge planning can prove more difficult than in younger cohorts. Comprehensive geriatric assessment has been shown to improve outcomes and is now embedded in most UK-based services for traumatic hip fracture. Perioperative comprehensive geriatric assessment has been explored in other surgical disciplines and procedures and, where evaluated, has been associated with improved outcomes. The need to support older patients with frailty undergoing surgery exceeds the capacity of specialist geriatricians. Other groups of healthcare professionals need to nurture the core competencies to support this group perioperatively
Virtuous Insightfulness
Insight often strikes us blind; when we arenât expecting it, we suddenly see a connection that previously eluded usâa kind of âAha!â experience. People with a propensity to such experiences are regarded as insightful, and insightfulness is a paradigmatic intellectual virtue. Whatâs not clear, however, is just what it is in virtue of which being such that these experiences tend to happen to one renders one intellectually virtuous. This paper draws from both virtue epistemology as well as empirical work on the psychology of problem solving and creativity to make some inroads in accounting for insightfulness as an intellectual virtue. Important to the view advanced is that virtuously insightful individuals manifest certain skills which both cultivate insight experiences (even if not by directly bringing them about) and enable such individuals to move in an epistemically responsible way from insight experience to epistemic endorsement
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