Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Epistemology Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Epistemology

How Should Ai Talk About Us? Llms And Social Generics, Tiffany A. Zhu Jan 2026

How Should Ai Talk About Us? Llms And Social Generics, Tiffany A. Zhu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

How should AI-generated speech balance epistemic aims, such as precision and accuracy, with ethical and social considerations? This paper examines a subtle yet consequential aspect of LLM-driven communication: the use of generic generalizations that convey information about social groups (e.g., “immigrants work low-wage jobs”). While central to human epistemic and pedagogical practices, generics are theorized to reinforce stereotypes, essentialism, and injustice. Using ChatGPT-3.5 as a case study, I uncover tendencies for AI chatbots to inconsistently hedge and refuse generics, including those that reflect well-documented social structural patterns, such as “women are more likely to get attacked while walking alone at …


A New Peircean Response To Radical Skepticism, Justin Remhof Jan 2018

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 …


Locke On Empirical Knowledge, Nathan Rockwood Jan 2018

Locke On Empirical Knowledge, Nathan Rockwood

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper explores two related issues concerning LockeÕs account of epistemic justification for empirical knowledge. One issue concerns the degree of justification needed for empirical knowledge. Commentators almost universally take Locke to hold a fallibilist account of justification, whereas I argue that Locke accepts infallibilism. A second issue concerns the nature of justification. Many (though not all) commentators take Locke to have a thoroughly internalist conception of justification for empirical knowledge, whereas I argue that he has a (partly) externalist conception of justification: it is the fact that sensation is caused by an external object that justifies our belief in …


Scientific Fictionalism And The Problem Of Inconsistency In Nietzsche, Justin Remhof Jan 2016

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.


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 Jan 2015

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 …


Parasitism And Disjunctivism In Nyāya Epistemology, Matthew Dasti Jan 2012

Parasitism And Disjunctivism In Nyāya Epistemology, Matthew Dasti

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This article examines a number of arguments I collectively term arguments from parasitism, which Nyāya employs to illustrate that rational reflection, the institution of language, and even error itself presuppose a ground-level basis of veridical cognitive interaction with the world. It further suggests that by such arguments, coupled with its stress on the inerrancy of pramāṇ as, Nyāya anticipates and supports the contemporary philosophical movement known as (epistemological) disjunctivism.


Review Of Timothy O'Leary And Christopher Falzon's (Eds.) Foucault And Philosophy, Ladelle Mcwhorter Jan 2011

Review Of Timothy O'Leary And Christopher Falzon's (Eds.) Foucault And Philosophy, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

"Philosopher" was a label that Michel Foucault sometimes resisted, especially in the earlier decades of his career, but Timothy O'Leary and Christopher Falzon have assembled an excellent anthology of articles demonstrating Foucault's engagement with and contributions to contemporary philosophical practice throughout his life's work. The book examines and situates Foucault's work in relation to several major strands of philosophical tradition. It consists of an introduction and one paper each by the editors and an additional nine papers by well-known Foucault scholars including Gary Gutting, Jana Sawicki, Amy Allen, and Paul Patton, among others. There is no lack of interpretive disagreement …


Evolution And The Second Law Of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating To Non-Technicians, Alexander Schreiber, Steven Gimbel Jan 2010

Evolution And The Second Law Of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating To Non-Technicians, Alexander Schreiber, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Given the degree of disbelief in the theory of evolution by the wider public, scientists need to develop a collection of clear explanations and metaphors that demonstrate the working of the theory and the flaws in antievolutionist arguments. This paper presents tools of this sort for countering the anti-evolutionist claim that evolutionary mechanisms are inconsistent with the second law of thermodynamics. Images are provided to replace the traditional misunderstanding of the law, i.e., “everything always gets more disordered over time,” with a more clear sense of the way in which entropy tends to increase allowing a thermally isolated system access …


Erde, Gary Shapiro Jan 2009

Erde, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

E bezeichnet alles, was diesseitig ist, sich auf den Körper und das Natürliche bezieht, in Abgrenzung zu den Vorstellungen von einer anderen, höheren Welt, die die Religion und Philosophie des Westens beherrscht haben. Daher ermahnt Zarathustra seine Zuhörer, nicht den Kopf in den Sand der himmlischen Dinge zu stecken, sondern einen ,,einen Erden-Kopf, der der E Sinn schafft" (Za I, Von den Hinterweltlern) zu haben. Zuweilen bezeichnet E die konkrete Umgebung der Menscheit auf diesem Planeten und das zukünftige Heim → des Übermenschen genauer.


"This Is Not A Christ": Nietzsche, Foucault, And The Genealogy Of Vision, Gary Shapiro Jan 2000

"This Is Not A Christ": Nietzsche, Foucault, And The Genealogy Of Vision, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is nothing surprising about linking the names of Nietzsche and Foucault, something that Foucault himself frequently did. We know that the practices of archaeology and genealogy owe much to On the Genealogy of Morals; and in The Order of Things Foucault celebrates Nietzsche for being able to look beyond the epoch of "man and his doubles,'' thinking of the Obermensch as designating that which is beyond man, and for serving, along with Mallarme, as one of the prophets of the hegemony of language in the emerging episteme of the postmodern world. Here I want to focus on other affinities, …


Peirce And Hegel On Absolute Meaning, Gary Shapiro Jan 1981

Peirce And Hegel On Absolute Meaning, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

When Peirce's philosophy is approached in terms of his theory of meaning, it is usual to think of the connections between the pragmatic maxim and the more reductive accounts of classical empiricism or modern operationalism. The point of this paper is to suggest that this angle of approach is narrow and makes several aspects of Peirce's philosophy difficult to understand; on the positive side, I want to show how both the glories and miseries of Peirce's philosophical endeavor are thrown into high relief by noting his affinities and breaks with Hegel's dialectical theory of meaning. Peirce himself often pointed to …