Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Individualizing Criminal Law’S Justice Judgments: Shortcomings In The Doctrines Of Culpability, Mitigation, And Excuse, Paul H. Robinson, Lindsay Holcomb

All Faculty Scholarship

In judging an offender’s culpability, mitigation, or excuse, there seems to be general agreement that it is appropriate for the criminal law to take into account such things as the offender’s youthfulness or her significantly low IQ. There is even support for taking account of their distorted perceptions and reasoning induced by traumatic experiences, as in battered spouse syndrome. On the other hand, there seems to be equally strong opposition to taking account of things such as racism or homophobia that played a role in bringing about the offense. In between these two clear points, however, exists a large collection …

Epistemological Aspects Of Hope, Matthew A. Benton

SPU Works

Hope is an attitude with a distinctive epistemological dimension: it is incompatible with knowledge. This chapter examines hope as it relates to knowledge but also to probability and inductive considerations. Such epistemic constraints can make hope either impossible, or, when hope remains possible, they affect how one’s epistemic situation can make hope rational rather than irrational. Such issues are especially relevant to when hopefulness may permissibly figure in practical deliberation over a course of action. So I consider cases of second-order inductive reflection on when one should, or should not, hope for an outcome with which one has a long …

The Ethical Composition Of Every Bite, Rylee Charbeneau

Undergraduate Research

While the physical process of eating fulfills a natural human instinct, food choice continues to fill us with anxiety. Driven by a burgeoning awareness of the many factors involved in our food choices and the impact our meals have upon the environment, ourselves, and others, we are increasingly being forced to make the right eating choices. This poses a complex moral question: how are we to eat? The purpose of this project was to research perspectives that address this question to find an achievable and applicable solution to this uncertainty. This research compares the ideas of Peter Singer and Michael …

Knowledge, Hope, And Fallibilism, Matthew A. Benton

SPU Works

Hope, in its propositional construction "I hope that p," is compatible with a stated chance for the speaker that not-p. On fallibilist construals of knowledge, knowledge is compatible with a chance of being wrong, such that one can know that p even though there is an epistemic chance for one that not-p. But self-ascriptions of propositional hope that p seem to be incompatible, in some sense, with self-ascriptions of knowing whether p. Data from conjoining hope self-ascription with outright assertions, with first- and third-person knowledge ascriptions, and with factive predicates suggest a problem: when …

A New Peircean Response To Radical Skepticism, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The radical skeptic argues that I have no knowledge of things I ordinarily claim to know because I have no evidence for or against the possibility of being systematically fed illusions. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in pragmatic responses to skepticism inspired by C.S. Peirce. This essay challenges one such influential response and presents a better Peircean way to refute the skeptic. The account I develop holds that although I do not know whether the skeptical hypothesis is true, I still know things I ordinarily claim to know. It will emerge that although this reply appears similar …

Findlay Stark, Culpable Carelessness: Recklessness And Negligence In The Criminal Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

All Faculty Scholarship

Culpable Carelessness by Findlay Stark is a careful and considered contribution to the 'punishment for negligence' debate. As well as providing a comprehensive overview of the doctrinal and theoretical aspects of recklessness and negligence in the criminal law, it also offers novel insights for scholars already steeped in these debates. An additional methodological strength is that Stark takes seriously the connection between theory and law, offering useful potential jury instructions on recklessness and negligence.

Knowing How: A Computational Approach, Joseph A. Roman

Student Publications

With advances in Artificial Intelligences being achieved through the use of Artificial Neural Networks, we are now at the point where computers are able to do tasks that were previously only able to be accomplished by humans. These advancements must cause us to reconsider our previous understanding of how people come to know how to do a particular task. In order to unpack this question, I will first look to an account of knowing how presented by Jason Stanley in his book Know How. I will then look towards criticisms of this view before using evidence presented by the existence …

Scientific Fictionalism And The Problem Of Inconsistency In Nietzsche, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this article, I begin to develop Nietzsche’s scientific fictionalism in order to make headway toward resolving a central interpretive issue in his epistemology. For Nietzsche knowledge claims are falsifications. Presumably, this is a result of his puzzling view that truths are somehow false. I argue that Nietzsche thinks knowledge claims are falsifications because he embraces a scientific fictionalist view according to which inexact representations, which are false, can also be accurate, or true, and that this position is not inconsistent.

Defeatism Defeated, Max Baker-Hytch, Matthew A. Benton

SPU Works

Many epistemologists are enamored with a defeat condition on knowledge. In this paper we present some implementation problems for defeatism, understood along either internalist or externalist lines. We then propose that one who accepts a knowledge norm of belief, according to which one ought to believe only what one knows, can explain away much of the motivation for defeatism. This is an important result, because on the one hand it respects the plausibility of the intuitions about defeat shared by many in epistemology; but on the other hand, it obviates the need to provide a unified account of defeat which …

Diseases, Patients And The Epistemology Of Practice: Mapping The Borders Of Health, Medicine And Care, Michael Loughlin, Robyn Bluhm, Jonathan Fuller, Stephen Buetow, Kirstin Borgerson, Benjamin R. Lewis, Brent M. Kious

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy at the bedside'? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions - about what we should do in any given situation - are embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case (metaphysics), what it …

Knowing Knowledge, Noel Fitzpatrick

Articles

The position of the Art Academy in relation to third level education seems to be on the agenda in a number of ways at the moment. Recently at IMMA there was a panel discussion on the topic of “Art Academy+Knowing” in the context of the I Know You exhibition which is takign place there at the moment, but also within the wider sector there seems to be a sequence of alliances between the tradition Art College and third level education. The movement towards more integration of the stand alone Art Colleges and third level education is high on the agenda …

Circular Justification And Explanation In Aristotle, Owen Goldin

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Abstract Aristotle’s account of epistēmē is foundationalist. In contrast, the web of dialectical argumentation that constitutes justification for scientific principles is coherentist. Aristotle’s account of explanation is structurally parallel to the argument for a foundationalist account of justification. He accepts the first argument but his coherentist accounts of justification indicate that he would not accept the second. Where is the disanalogy? For Aristotle, the intelligibility of a demonstrative premise is the cause of the intelligibility of a demonstrated conclusion and causation is asymmetric. Within the Posterior Analytics itself, Aristotle does not account for this, but elsewhere he develops the resources …

False Negatives, Steven Luper

Philosophy Faculty Research

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 …

Consuming Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests: The Role Of Genetic Literacy And Knowledge Calibration, Yvette E. Pearson, Yuping Liu-Thompkins

Philosophy Faculty Publications

As direct-to-consumer marketing of medical genetic tests grows in popularity, there is an increasing need to better understand the ethical and public policy implications of such products. The complexity of genetic tests raises serious concerns about whether consumers possess the knowledge to make sound decisions about their use. This research examines the effects of educational intervention and feedback on consumers' genetic literacy and calibration -- the gap between consumers' actual knowledge and how much they think they know. The authors find that consumers' genetic knowledge was generally low and that people tended to underestimate their knowledge level. Furthermore, consumers' perceived …

What Is A Human Person? An Exploration & Critique Of Contemporary Perspectives, Emmanuel Cumplido

Senior Honors Projects

What is a Human Person? An Exploration and Critique of Physicalist Perspectives

Emmanuel Cumplido

Faculty Sponsor: Donald Zeyl, Philosophy

Answers to the question “What is a human person?” that have garnered the allegiance of people throughout millennia fall under two broad categories: “physicalism” and “dualism”. One of the earliest renditions of physicalism was the philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists. In their view, all of reality could be explained through two principles: atoms and empty space. As a consequence, people were thought to be nothing but assemblages of atoms in space. Plato’s Phaedo presents one of the earliest philosophical endorsements …

The Case Of The Dangerous Detective, Ronald S. Green, D. E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Credit Theories And The Value Of Knowledge, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

One alleged advantage of credit theories of knowledge is that they are capable of explaining why knowledge is essentially more valuable than mere true belief. I argue that credit theories in fact provide grounds for denying this claim and therefore are incapable of overcoming the 'value problem' in epistemology. Much of the discussion revolves around the question of whether true belief is always epistemically valuable. I also consider to what extent, if any, my main argument should worry credit theorists.

Combating Anti Anti-Luck Epistemology, Brent J C Madison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

One thing that nearly all epistemologists agree upon is that Gettier cases are decisive counterexamples to the tripartite analysis of knowledge; whatever else is true of knowledge, it is not merely belief that is both justified and true. They now agree that knowledge is not justified true belief because this is consistent with there being too much luck present in the cases, and that knowledge excludes such luck. This is to endorse what has become known as the ‘anti-luck platitude’.

But what if generations of philosophers have been mistaken about this, blinded at least partially by a deeply entrenched professional …

Aristotle On [Part Of] The Difference Between Belief And Imagination, Ian Mccready Flora

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In book 3, chapter 3 of his On the Soul, Aristotle gives several arguments meant to demonstrate the type non-identity of belief and imagination. Each of these arguments rewards study, but this discussion will focus on one in particular, perhaps the most puzzling. The argument concerns the relation between truth and control. Belief is connected with truth and falsehood in a way that imagination is not, and that in turn means that we can control what we imagine in a way that we cannot control what we believe. Here is Aristotle’s argument in full:

(1) It’s clear as well …

Aristotle's Abstract Ontology, Allan Bäck

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle has a metaphysics of individual substances, substrata persisting through time that are neither in nor said of a subject. That I do not dispute. However, when we move from the individual to the universal, from perception to knowledge, Aristotle has a metaphysics of relations. This I will try to sketch out here.

Aristotle appeals to abstraction at key places in his philosophy. Somehow abstraction gets us to the first principles and to the objects of the most fundamental sciences. Somehow universals are abstracted from singulars and have no transcendent existence.

Aristotle never states his theory of abstraction formally or …

An Internal Connection Between Logic And Rhetoric, And A Legitimate Foundation For Knowledge, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

It has often been argued that a theory that tries to justify itself fully is either viciously circular or produces an infinite regress of justifications. Thinking that tries to establish ultimate foundations for itself seems in the end to base itself on nothing but its own insistence that it is right. As a result it offers no real knowledge. As Robert Almeder notes, for example, a strong appeal attaches to arguments such as that "there is no non-question-begging way to answer questions such as 'Are you justified in believing your definition of justification?'"

Between The Bounds Of Experience And Divine Intuition: Kant’S Epistemic Limits And Hegel’S Ambitions, James Kreines

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

Hegel seeks to overturn Kant's conclusion that our knowledge is restricted, or that we cannot have knowledge of things as they are in themselves. Understanding this Hegelian ambition requires distinguishing two Kantian characterizations of our epistemic limits: First, we can have knowledge only within the “bounds of experience”. Second, we cannot have knowledge of objects that would be accessible only to a divine intellectual intuition, even though the faculty of reason requires us to conceive of such objects. Hegel aims to drive a wedge between these two characterizations, showing that we can have knowledge beyond Kant's bounds of experience, yet …

Epistemic Analysis And The Possibility Of Good Informants, James Mcbain

Faculty Submissions

Edward Craig has proposed that epistemology should eschew traditional

conceptual analysis in favor of what he calls “conceptual synthesis.” He

proposes we start not from the finding of necessary and sufficient conditions

that match our intuitions; rather we start from considerations on what the

concept of knowledge does for us. In this paper I will explore one aspect of

Craig’s proposal – the good informant. It is this aspect that is central to

Craig’s epistemic method and perhaps most problematic. I will evaluate this

concept by first articulating three initial worries that some have had about

the concept and then …

Form And Flux In The Theaetetus And Timaeus, David P. Hunt

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The subject of this essay is the "Heraclitean" flux in the Theaetetus and its role in the discussion of the first definition of knowledge, particularly in light of the flux doctrine that Plato propounds in the Timaeus. There are two principal interpretive approaches to the argument in this part of the Theaetetus, and the question whether its theory of flux is, to any appreciable degree, Plato's own view is perhaps the central issue dividing the two camps. Though the Timaeus has been cursorily cited by the one camp, and as cursorily dismissed by the other, I believe that a closer …

Theistic Belief And Positive Epistemic Status: A Comparison Of Alvin Plantinga And William James, David J. Baggett

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Aristotle On Knowledge, Nous And The Problems Of Necessary Truth, Thomas Kiefer

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper, I argue that nous for Aristotle concerns necessary truths. (1) Nous is the solution to the dilemma raised in Posterior Analytics I.3. (2) Knowledge and nous have necessary truths as their subject matter, and are identical to this subject matter. (3) This position creates two problems concerning (i) the innateness of knowledge and nous, and (ii) the mind-dependency of necessary truths. (4) The end of DA III.5 reveals an attempt to solve (i) and (ii): The necessary truths of knowledge and nous are for us innate in a certain way, appear to come to be and pass …

Dialectic And Definition In Aristotle's Topics, May Sim

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The middle term between dialectic and being is definition. Definitions are formulae of essences or substances. Thus, one’s view of substance will depend on one’s view of definition: what a definition is, and how it is acquired. Further, insofar as definitions are arrived at through dialectic, definitions depend on dialectic. That is, the specific procedure of dialectic shapes the mode of definition, and the mode of definition shapes the notion of being. Not only does dialectic shape being through definition, but being and knowledge of it also determines dialectic. In short, these three things go together: dialectic, definition and being. …

The Philosophical Economy Of Plato's Psychology: Common Concepts In The Timaeus, Dorothea Aline Frede

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Plato's insistence that the eternal immobile model is “the real thing” and the mobile world only an image is to stress the sincerity of his conviction that the intelligible pattern, the unchangeable network of principles, must be the foundation of the physical reality. Only because there is such a fundamentum in re can we have concepts that allow us to understand and explain the world. Without such really existing concepts our thinking would be nothing, it would be a groping for stability in a changing world that could at best provide similarities without any fix point to determine their nature. …

Failure And Expertise In The Ancient Conception Of An Art, James Allen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The ancient notion of an art (τέχνη) embraced a wide range of pursuits from handicrafts like shoemaking and weaving to more exalted disciplines not excluding philosophy (cf. Plato Gorgias 486b; Hippolytus Refutatio. 570,8 DDG; Sext. Emp. Μ II13). Nevertheless, there was a sufficient amount of agreement about what was expected of an art to permit debates about whether different practices qualified as arts. According to the conception which made these debates possible, an art is a body of knowledge concerning a distinct subject matter which enables the artist to achieve a definite type of beneficial result. Obviously, the failure of …

Episteme And Logos In Plato's Later Thought, Alexander Nehamas

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

"What is knowledge?" Plato does try to answer this question, asked at the beginning of the Theaetetus, but the answer is not in the dialogue itself, either negatively (as Cornford argued) or positively (as Fine suggested). His answer is partially given in the Sophist and Statesman: the project of definition has been shown to involve the mastery of the whole field to which the object of definition belongs, and hence a science of the field in question. The dramatic sequels to the Theaetetus are also its doctrinal complements. By making knowledge the object of knowledge, Plato was able to …