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The Causal Indicator Analysis Of Knowledge, Steven Luper
The Causal Indicator Analysis Of Knowledge, Steven Luper
Steven Luper
In this paper I want to describe and motivate an approach to knowledge that I call the Causal Indicator Analysis. My strategy will be to sketch (in Part I) the main features of an adequate account of knowledge, then use my sketch (in Part II) to reveal some of the faults of some of the main anal- yses defended today. I will be particularly interested in discussing the work of Fred Dretske, whose views have significantly influenced my own. With these tasks behind me, I will offer my own account in Part III, and argue that it has the features …
Past Desires And The Dead, Steven Luper
Past Desires And The Dead, Steven Luper
Steven Luper
I examine an argument that appears to take us from Parfit’s [Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1984)] thesis that we have no reason to fulfil desires we no longer care about to the conclusion that the effect of posthumous events on our desires is a matter of indifference (the post-mortem thesis). I suspect that many of Parfit’s readers, including Vorobej [Philosophical Studies 90 (1998) 305], think that he is committed to (something like) this reasoning, and that Parfit must therefore give up the post-mortem thesis. However, as it turns out, the argument is subtly equivocal and does not commit …
The Absurdity Of Life, Steven Luper
Retroactive Harms And Wrongs, Steven Luper
Retroactive Harms And Wrongs, Steven Luper
Steven Luper
According to t he immunity thesis, nothing that happens after we a re dead harms or benefits us . It seems defensible on the following basis : 1. If harmed (benefitted) by something , we incur the harm (benefit) at some time. 2. So if harmed (benefitted) by a postmortem event, we incur the harm (benefit) while alive or at some other time . 3. But if we incur the harm (benefit) while alive , backwards causation occurs. 4. And if we incur the harm (benefit) at any other time, we incur it at a time when we do not …
Dretske On Knowledge Closure, Steven Luper
The Knower, Inside And Out, Steven Luper
The Knower, Inside And Out, Steven Luper
Steven Luper
Adherents of the epistemological position called internalism typically believe that the view they oppose, called externalism, is such a new and radical departure from the established way of seeing knowledge that its implications are uninteresting. Perhaps itis relatively novel, but the approach to knowledge with the greatest antiquity is the one that equates it withcertainty, and while this conception is amenable to the demands of the internalist, it is also a non-starter in the opinion of almost all contemporary epistemologists since obviously it directly implies that we know nothing about the world. Perhaps skepticism is correct, but there are conceptions …
Epistemic Relativism, Steven Luper
The Anatomy Of Aggression, Steven Luper
Doxastic Skepticism, Steven Luper
Doxastic Skepticism, Steven Luper
Steven Luper
In “A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge,” Donald Davidson offers a n attempt to refute skepticism, a n attempt that is an expansion of the dense argument in part 1 of “The Method of Truth in Metaphysics” for the claim that “massive error about the world is simply unintelligible.”’ To help in his attack, he presses into service tightly interrelated theories about belief and meaning. In particular, he relies on the claim that ideal interpreters, who are fully informed and charitable, must attribute t o a speaker what are by their lights largely true beliefs. I argue that this …
Adaptation, Steven Luper
"Life's Meaning", Steven Luper
"Life's Meaning", Steven Luper
Steven Luper
Your life has meaning just if, and to the extent that, you achieve the aims that you devote it to freely and competently. You adopt your goals and achieve them more or less through your own efforts, so meaning is something you bestow upon your own life. These achievements are the meaning of your life. In this essay I develop this view, discuss how life’s meaning is related to its purpose and to an individual’s welfare and identity, and examine reasoning that suggests that life is absurd and show how it can be resisted.
The Epistemic Predicament: Knowledge, Nozickean Tracking, And Scepticism, Steven Luper
The Epistemic Predicament: Knowledge, Nozickean Tracking, And Scepticism, Steven Luper
Steven Luper
No abstract provided.