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Review Of Duncan Pritchard, Epistemic Luck, Jason Baehr Nov 2016

Review Of Duncan Pritchard, Epistemic Luck, Jason Baehr

Jason Baehr

No abstract provided.


From Aristotle’S Teleology To Darwin’S Genealogy: The Stamp Of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (Pdf: Introduction)., Marco Solinas Apr 2015

From Aristotle’S Teleology To Darwin’S Genealogy: The Stamp Of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (Pdf: Introduction)., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of …


Hume's Argument That Empirical Knowledge Cannot Be Certain, From The Enquires (Argument Map), Michael Hoffmann Jan 2015

Hume's Argument That Empirical Knowledge Cannot Be Certain, From The Enquires (Argument Map), Michael Hoffmann

Michael H.G. Hoffmann

This argument map reconstructs David Hume's famous skeptical argument in logical form. The argument is open for debate and comments in AGORA-net (http://agora.gatech.edu/). Search for map ID 9857.


Persimals, Steven Luper Aug 2014

Persimals, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

What sort of thing, fundamentally, are you and I? For convenience, I use the term persimal to refer to the kind of thing we are, whatever that kind turns out to be. Accordingly, the question is, what are persimals? One possible answer is that persimalhood consists in being a human animal, but many theorists, including Derek Parfit and Jeff McMahan, not to mention John Locke, reject this idea in favor of a radically different view, according to which persimalhood consists in having certain sorts of mental or psychological features. In this essay, I try to show that the animalist approach …


The Problem Of Sovereignty, International Law, And Intellectual Conscience, Richard L. Lara Jul 2014

The Problem Of Sovereignty, International Law, And Intellectual Conscience, Richard L. Lara

Richard Louis Lara

The concept of sovereignty is a recurring and controversial theme in international law, and it has a long history in western philosophy. The traditionally favored concept of sovereignty proves problematic in the context of international law. International law’s own claims to sovereignty, which are premised on traditional concept of sovereignty, undermine individual nations’ claims to sovereignty. These problems are attributable to deep-seated flaws in the traditional concept of sovereignty. A viable alternative concept of sovereignty can be derived from key concepts in Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on human reason and epistemology. The essay begins by considering the problem of sovereignty from …


Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject Of Art And Architecture, Gavin W. Keeney May 2014

Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject Of Art And Architecture, Gavin W. Keeney

Gavin W Keeney

Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject of Art and Architecture is a series of essays delineating the gray areas and black zones in present-day cultural production with, in Part One (The Gray and the Black), an implicit critique of neoliberal capitalism and its assault on the humanities through the pseudo-scientific and pseudo-empirical biases of academic and professional disciplines. Initially surveying the shift from Cultural Ecology to Cultural Studies to Cognitive Capitalism, the essays of Part Two (What is “Franciscan” Ontology?) return to certain lost causes in the historical development of modernity and post-modernity, foremost the recourse to artistic production as both a …


Women, The Novel, And Natural Philosophy, 1660-1727, Karen Gevirtz Mar 2014

Women, The Novel, And Natural Philosophy, 1660-1727, Karen Gevirtz

Karen Bloom Gevirtz

Women, the Novel, and Natural Philosophy, 1660-1727 shows how early women novelists drew on debates about the self generated by the 'scientific' revolution to establish the novel as a genre and literary omniscience as a point of view. These writers such as Aphra Behn, Jane Barker, Eliza Haywood, and Mary Davys used, tested, explored, accepted, and rejected ideas about the self in their works to represent the act of knowing and what it means to be a knowing self. Karen Bloom Gevirtz agues that as they did so, they developed structures for representing authoritative knowing that contributed to the development …


Dretske On Knowledge Closure, Steven Luper Mar 2014

Dretske On Knowledge Closure, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


The Knower, Inside And Out, Steven Luper Mar 2014

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 Mar 2014

Epistemic Relativism, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


Restorative Rigging And The Safe Indication Account, Steven Luper Mar 2014

Restorative Rigging And The Safe Indication Account, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

Typical Gettieresque scenarios involve a subject, S, using a method, M, of believing something, p, where, normally, M is a reliable indicator of the truth of p, yet, in S’s circumstances, M is not reliable: M is deleteriously rigged. A different sort of scenario involves rigging that restores the reliability of a method M that is deleteriously rigged: M is restoratively rigged. Some theorists criticize (among others) the safe indication account of knowledge defended by Luper, Sosa, and Williamson on the grounds that it treats such cases as knowledge. But other theorists also criticize the safe indication account because it …


Epistemic Closure Principle, Steven Luper Mar 2014

Epistemic Closure Principle, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


What Skeptics Don't Know Refutes Them, Steven Luper Mar 2014

What Skeptics Don't Know Refutes Them, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


Doxastic Skepticism, Steven Luper Mar 2014

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 …


Indiscernability Skepticism, Steven Luper Mar 2014

Indiscernability Skepticism, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


The Easy Argument, Steven Luper Mar 2014

The Easy Argument, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

Suppose Ted is in an ordinary house in good viewing conditions and believes red, his table is red, entirely because he sees his table and its color; he also believes not-white, it is false that his table is white and illuminated by a red light, because not-white is entailed by red. The following three claims about this table case clash, but each seems plausible: 1. Ted’s epistemic position is strong enough for him to know red. 2. Ted cannot know not-white on the basis of red. 3. The epistemic closure principle, suitably restricted, is true. Stewart Cohen has called this …


The Reliabilist Theory Of Rational Belief, Steven Luper Mar 2014

The Reliabilist Theory Of Rational Belief, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


False Negatives, Steven Luper Mar 2014

False Negatives, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

In Philosophical Explanations, Robert Nozick suggested that knowing that some proposition, p, is true is a matter of being “sensitive” to p’s truth-value. It requires that one’s belief state concerning p vary appropriately with the truth-value of p as the latter shifts in relevant possible worlds. Nozick fleshed out this sketchy view with a specific analysis of what sensitivity entails. Famously, he drew upon this analysis in order to explain how common-sense knowledge claims, such as my claim to know I have hands, are true, even though we do not know that skeptical hypotheses are false. His explanation hinged on …


Belief And Rationality, Curtis Brown, Steven Luper Feb 2014

Belief And Rationality, Curtis Brown, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


Naturalized Epistemology, Curtis Brown, Steven Luper Feb 2014

Naturalized Epistemology, Curtis Brown, Steven Luper

Steven Luper

No abstract provided.


Epistemological-Scientific Realism And The Onto-Relationship Of Inferentially Justified And Non-Inferentially Justified Beliefs, Max Lewis Edward Andrews Jan 2014

Epistemological-Scientific Realism And The Onto-Relationship Of Inferentially Justified And Non-Inferentially Justified Beliefs, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Max L.E. Andrews

The traditional concept of knowledge is a justified true belief. The bulk of contemporary epistemology has focused primarily on that task of justification. Truth seems to be a quite obvious criterion—does the belief in question correspond to reality? My contention is that the aspect of ontology is far too separated from epistemology. This onto-relationship of between reality and beliefs require the epistemic method of epistemological realism. This is not to diminish the task of justification. I will then discuss the role of inference from the onto-relationships of free invention and discovery and whether it is best suited for a foundationalist …


On The Possibility Of Inductive Knowledge, Raam P. Gokhale Jan 2013

On The Possibility Of Inductive Knowledge, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

In this paper, we utilize a disjunction of familiar inductive beliefs—the disjunction being deductively valid—to show that we most likely have inductive knowledge, the likelihood depending on the usual inductive considerations like size and robustness of the sample, etc., i.e. on what it should depend on, not the usual 'philosophical' culprits like the old and new riddles of induction. While this is in itself philosophically significant, the implications of this for a justification of induction are also explored. Induction will be found to be supported but not justified by the proposed example. Lastly, to address this lacuna, and deriving support …


The Persistent Problem Of The Lottery Paradox: And Its Unwelcome Consequences For Contextualism, Travis Timmerman Dec 2012

The Persistent Problem Of The Lottery Paradox: And Its Unwelcome Consequences For Contextualism, Travis Timmerman

Travis Timmerman

This paper attempts to show that contextualism cannot adequately handle all versions of ‘The Lottery Paradox.” Although the application of contextualist rules is meant to vindicate the intuitive distinction between cases of knowledge and nonknowledge, it fails to do so when applied to certain versions of “The Lottery Paradox.” In making my argument, I first briefly explain why this issue should be of central importance for contextualism. I then review Lewis’ contextualism before offering my argument that the lottery paradox persists on all contextualist accounts. Although I argue that the contextualist does not fare well, hope nevertheless remains. For, on …


The Turn To Epistemology In The 14th Century: Two Underlying Motives, Henrik Lagerlund Dec 2011

The Turn To Epistemology In The 14th Century: Two Underlying Motives, Henrik Lagerlund

Henrik Lagerlund

No abstract provided.


Just-If-Ication, Raam P. Gokhale Feb 2011

Just-If-Ication, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

A Discussion of Scientific Reasoning


How The Conception Of Knowledge Influences Our Educational Practices: Toward A Philosophical Understanding Of Epistemology In Education, James Magrini Oct 2010

How The Conception Of Knowledge Influences Our Educational Practices: Toward A Philosophical Understanding Of Epistemology In Education, James Magrini

James M Magrini

This paper explores how the conception and valuation of the knowledge within our educational practices determines the planning, writing, and implementation of the curriculum. There is a pressing need for educators to philosophically and systematically understand the relationship between the foundational epistemological beliefs that ground a curriculum and its relationship to forming the notions of competency, pedagogy, and the methods for evaluating and assessing student progress. These issues are not only relevant, but crucial when attempting to justify a particular conception of education, which relates directly to the student's potential for intellectual growth and social development. It may be argued …


Know Thyself, Raam P. Gokhale Sep 2010

Know Thyself, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

An Imagined Dialog on Eastern and Western Philosophy and the Nature of Knowledge


Opinion Polls And Presidential Campaign In Colombia, Fernando Estrada Mar 2010

Opinion Polls And Presidential Campaign In Colombia, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

The polls, these surveys do not withstand any rigorous testing. And contrary to expand the formation of public opinion, impaired. To overcome this defect should propose means fewer surveys and more discussions. Presidential campaigns should seek democratic enlargement, and a less massive media exposure to foot the surveys. Simplify


Reconstruction Of Concept Of Paradigm In Thomas S. Kuhn, Fernando Estrada Mar 2010

Reconstruction Of Concept Of Paradigm In Thomas S. Kuhn, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This article aims to discuss an evaluation of the concept of paradigm of T. Kuhn in his representative work: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ERC, [Ku96] and the complementary version by W. Stegmüller, Structure and dynamics of theories EDT, [Steg83]. This refined interpretation of the concept of paradigm allows for a more complete set of central Kuhnian concept.


Carnap Model (Cm) Visual Field, Fernando Estrada Feb 2010

Carnap Model (Cm) Visual Field, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

The present paper proposes an interpretation theoretical model of the Aufbau of Rudolf Carnap, this interpretation contributes to upgrade the project original carnapiano, in the sense of conferring to the constitutional program of construction logical, less committed analytic equipment with an ontology or clearly defined epistemology. The setting in phenomenal logical reconstruction practice is elaborated for the visual field as a model whose potential user is a fellow ideal percipient, and, a subject epistemic that operates in the same way that a scheduled computer when he has been given basic phenomenal information and some algorithms logical