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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Self-Knowledge In A Natural World, Jeremy Cushing
Self-Knowledge In A Natural World, Jeremy Cushing
Open Access Dissertations
In this dissertation, I reconcile our knowledge of our own minds with philosophical naturalism. Philosophers traditionally hold that our knowledge of our own minds is especially direct and authoritative in comparison with other domains of knowledge. I introduce the subject in the first chapter. In the second and third chapters, I address the idea that we know our own minds directly. If self-knowledge is direct, it must not be grounded on anything more epistemically basic. This creates a puzzle for all epistemologists. For the naturalist, the puzzle is especially tricky. To say that self-knowledge has no epistemic ground threatens the …
Counterpossibles, Barak Krakauer
Counterpossibles, Barak Krakauer
Open Access Dissertations
Counterpossibles are counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents. The problem of counterpossibles is easiest to state within the "nearest possible world" framework for counterfactuals: on this approach, a counterfactual is true (roughly) when the consequent is true in the "nearest" possible world where the antecedent is true. Since counterpossibles have necessarily false antecedents, there is no possible world where the antecedent is true. On the approach favored by Lewis, Stalnaker, Williamson, and others, counterpossibles are all trivially true. I introduce several arguments against the trivial approach. First, it is counter-intuitive to think that all counterpossibles are true. Second, if all counterpossibles …