Epistemology Commons^™

Your Anonymous Words Matter: The Harms Of Internet Anonymity And Its Inhibiting Effects On Producing Knowledge, Sena Selby

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper, I will argue against Karen Frost-Arnold’s claim that internet anonymity has more epistemic benefit than epistemic harm for online communities. I will first outline her arguments that anonymity poses epistemic benefits for speakers of marginalized communities, who often rely on anonymity to share their experience and testimony without fear of repercussions, such as testimonial injustice, backlash, and even physical harm. I will then consider objections to Frost-Arnold’s account made by others, including the idea that anonymous testimony is not reliable. I will show how this objection alone is insufficient against Frost-Arnold’s claim. Then, I will offer my …

How Is The Christian Virtue Of Detachment Epistemically Transformative?, Simon C. Summers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to understand how the Christian virtue of detachment, understood as the proper ordering of one’s desires toward God, contributes to epistemic transformation. In order to achieve this result, I rely on the work of the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, beginning by mapping out his conception of detachment and demonstrating how it helps one to overcome competing desires and find their true self. Following this, I offer an account of the type of epistemic transformation required to access some theistic knowledge in order to connect Merton’s views on the topic with those of modern-day philosophers and show the …

Plurality And Epistemic Injustice: A Neo-Arendtian Reading Of Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice, David Casciola

West Chester University Master’s Theses

In this thesis I bring the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Miranda Fricker into conversation. Specifically, I argue that through Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice (EI) we are able to see more clearly the importance of testimony—lexis as an aspect of Action for Arendt—in Arendt’s socio-political framework. Arendt divides the world into the Private, Social, and Public as separate realms of human activity (Labor, Work, and Action respectively); it is in the Public where we are able to appear and express our plurality. According to Arendt this is the only space where equality must be ensured. However, in using …

Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation analyzes how increased mainstream awareness of climate change and other complex environmental phenomena transforms some of the basic tools we use to understand the world, including notions of agency, evidence, and causality. More specifically, this project highlights numerous contemporary literary and cultural narratives that formally and thematically depict impromptu systems of action and comprehension developed by humans confronting the unique forms of information overload that result from damaged and rapidly changing environments. Following critics like Ulrich Beck, Rob Nixon, and Stacy Alaimo, I suggest our current era of ecological instability and destructive environmental practices dictate what I refer …

Traveling Epistemology, Or An Intersection Between Ethics And Epistemology Through The Philosophy Of Pragmatism., Pablo Patricio Olivas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The concept of traditional epistemology carries with it values and expectations that are rarely talked about. Based on the critiques of traditional epistemology by the pragmatist tradition, there is an opportunity to think of an alternative to the traditional view of epistemology as solely a theory of knowledge based on theories like the correspondence theory of truth. The concept of traveling epistemology serves as an alternative that questions the values of traditional epistemology, where things like certainty, and authority are expected in conjunction with a view of knowledge that rests on a mind-independent reality. Traveling epistemology offers a view that …

Life In The Multiverse: Bringing Chaos Out Of Order?, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper was given as the opening keynote address at the International Conference on Religion and Film at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on June 8, 2022, and is here presented in that form.

My thanks go to those who organized the conference for Vrije Universiteit, notably Professor Johan Roeland and Miranda van Holland.

Knowledge Through Divine Light: Ghazali’S Notions Of Mystical Cognition, Maisara Maasoum Marzouk

The Undergraduate Research Journal

Illumination, or knowledge through divine light, is a type of mystical cognition that Abu Hamid Ghazali regarded to be the cause of his rescue from his famous skeptical crisis. According to him, this type of divine knowledge is the apex of knowledge, to which all other sciences are subordinate. The receptive organ of this knowledge is the heart, a divine and cognitive subtlety that is distinct though related to the physical heart. Such is done by removing the veils that obstruct divine light from reaching it by means of the science of unveiling. The disclosure of knowledge that occurs once …

History, Cognition And Nostromo: Conrad’S Explorations Of Torture, Trauma, And The Human Rage For Order, Richard Ruppel

English Faculty Articles and Research

Focusing on Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, this essay historicizes the treatment of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder, demonstrating how Conrad anticipated our current understanding and treatment of the illness. The second part of the essay addresses Nostromo’s treatment of historiography. Part three is concerned with epistemology and the relationship between neurological discoveries concerning the gap between perception and consciousness, relating those discoveries to Conrad’s use of delayed decoding.

The Pathology And Etiology Of Philosophy, Lydia Tucke

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

While much time is spent theorizing about philosophical concepts and theories, little thought has been given to the philosophy and psychology of philosophy itself. I argue that philosophy (or the act of philosophizing) should be considered a form of anxiety. I will examine whether or not philosophy should be evaluated as a mental disorder as well. Finally, I will explore the ways in which one can cope with the anxiety seen in philosophizing.

To Integrate Or To Assimilate: An Epistemic Analysis Of Racial Segregation In Education, Nandini Mittal

CMC Senior Theses

Color has been the demarcating factor in systematically separating particularly Black and white communities, insofar as barring access to education, housing, transportation, and basic civil rights. In the fight against segregation, and a movement towards integration, the area that this we have notoriously failed in is education. This paper is an opportunity to combine the practical with the epistemological (relating to beliefs about knowledge acquisition and validity) and question the hidden or coded elements that are associated with social integration. Where do we draw the line between the social integration and assimilation? I will be exploring the concept of epistemological …

A Kantian View Of Transgenderism, Michael S. Mendoza

Liberty Theological Review

• The recent popularity of sex reassignment surgery is logically untenable and immoral when understood in the light of Kantian philosophy. From a Kantian perspective of synthetic a priori judgments, I argue that a biological male cannot rationally claim to “feel like a woman inside.” As a male, any female is part of the noumenal world and cannot be known apart from perception. The statement “I feel like a woman inside” assumes all women feel the same on the inside. Kant’s explanation of the noumenal and phenomenal excludes the possibility of knowing that all women or men feel the same inside …

The Evolution Of Defeaters: A Taxonomy, Erica Nicolas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It has been widely argued that reasons for a belief come in degrees but not much literature has focused on the idea that defeaters for justification toward those beliefs also come in degrees. The aim of this paper is to explore epistemic defeasibility and construct a taxonomy for epistemic defeaters. This paper argues that epistemic defeaters undergo an evolutionary process before becoming what they are commonly labeled, such as rebutting and undercutting. I argue that within some stages of this process, there can be different degrees of defeat. This paper focuses on defeaters for justification, expands on the account of …

Philosophy In Prisons And The Cultivation Of Intellectual Character, Duncan Pritchard

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

There have recently been a series of prominent projects in the UK that aim to bring philosophy into the heart of prison education. The aim of this paper is to consider a possible rationale for this pedagogical development. A distinction is drawn between a content and a sensibility approach to teaching philosophy, where the latter is primarily concerned not with teaching a particular subject matter but rather with developing a certain kind of critical expertise. It is argued that the sensibility conception of teaching philosophy dovetails with an influential account of the epistemic aim of education in terms of the …

The Vector Of Scientific Disciplinarity: An Exploration Of Scientific Disciplines And The Future Of Interdisciplinary Research, Emma K. Garrison

Senior Theses

The disciplinarity of science and the future of interdisciplinarity in science is deeply connected with understanding the scope of scientific practice as well as the demarcation and organization of scientific disciplines. These topics, explored through the structure of their subjects, theories, methods, and interpretation, lead to the conclusion that science and its disciplines are largely defined by the integration of philosophical principles into the ethos of the practices rather than by any specific criteria. The ways in which different disciplines behave and interpret philosophies impact how those disciplines are organized and categorized, resulting in deep philosophical and perspective divides between …

Circle Of Circles: Rethinking Idealism Through Hegel's Epistemology, Sila Ozkara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation’s central thesis is that Hegel’s approach to knowledge and philosophy is “circular”. A “circle of circles”, Kreis von Kreisen, an image Hegel regularly uses throughout his corpus, has sustained a steady wonder in his commentators. Nevertheless, it has not been studied with rigor adequate to its extensive importance, which spans his philosophical career and frames his engagement with the history of philosophy and the philosophy of his time. Due attention to Hegel’s concept of circles provides a robust frame for grasping his philosophical project, idealism, and account of knowledge. The content of each of Hegel’s works is the …

Warrant And Non-Function: A Critique Of The Sensus Divinitatis In Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology, Lukas Merrell

Theses

In recent years, there has been a surge in attempting to demonstrate how a theistic belief can be held rationality apart from classical proofs. Championed by philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Reformed Epistemology attempts to defend a God-belief as properly basic, which is therefore justified and warranted apart from traditional argumentation. With this in view, he put forward a position of religious epistemology that attempts to show how a GB can be on par with other beliefs we have on a daily basis that are considered rational, even if devoid of argumentation. In this paper I focus …

Motivation And The Primacy Of Perception : Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology Of Knowledge, Peter Antich

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of motivation advances a compelling alternative to the empiricist and rationalist assumptions that underpin modern epistemology.

Arguing that knowledge is ultimately founded in perceptual experience, Peter Antich interprets and defends Merleau-Ponty’s thinking on motivation as the key to establishing a new form of epistemic grounding. Upending the classical dichotomy between reason and natural causality, justification and explanation, Antich shows how this epistemic ground enables Merleau-Ponty to offer a radically new account of knowledge and its relation to perception. In so doing, Antich demonstrates how and why Merleau-Ponty remains a vital resource for today’s epistemologists.

Wisdom, Not Veritism, Shane Ryan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this response to Pritchard's "In Defence of Veritism", I defend the view that it is wisdom rather than truth that is fundamental in epistemology. Given that recent philosophical discussions of the nature of wisdom may be unfamiliar to some epistemologists, a brief overview of these discussions is provided and that which is relevant for the subsequent discussion in this piece is highlighted. I explain that scholars working on the topic tend to accept that wisdom comprises at least one familiar epistemic standing and that, unlike other epistemic goods, wisdom is thought to be tied to a narrowly specified content. …

Building Bridges: Epistemic Violence And Mother–Daughter Pedagogies From The U.S.–Mexico Border, Tanya J. Gaxiola Serrano, Elvia Serrano

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Living in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands, residents have intimately learned about the impact of the militarized policing of the physical border on their lives. While not often discussed, the policing transcends the border institution and targets the ways of knowing of People and Immigrants of Color. This essay features pláticas between two Mexican women educators from the border, la frontera, to challenge epistemic violence on the lives of U.S. Chicanas/Latinas. Intergenerational pedagogies of a mother–daughter dyad from the Tijuana–San Diego region serve as exemplars of the survival and resistance found in the borderlands. The narratives highlight their unique experiences, one as …

Medieval Thinking In The 21st Century: Crystal Balls, Black Swans, And Darwin's Finches In The Time Of Corona, George Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Twenty years into the 21st Century, a sizable swath of the world populace thinks, makes decisions, and defines itself in a conflicted and contradictory chimera. Millions of individuals make use of cutting-edge technologies while simultaneously throwing salt over their shoulders and consulting with the local ‘healer’ about any number of illnesses--to caricaturize, a sort of medieval-thinker-tech-savvy orientation. It is here affirmed that the practical consequences of this agentic amalgamation, modes of thinking, and “being in the world” are counterproductive at best and self-defeating at worst, resulting in much uncertainty and leading to, for example, mixed messages in public health …

Probability Of Naturalism And Metanormative Realism, Curtis Howd

Theses

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution can be mobilized to provide epistemological challenges to metanormative realism. It is argued that, since natural selection selects for behaviors adequate for survival and fecundity, our psychologies must be shaped by this same process. A-type challenges point to the improbability of the vast number of true normative beliefs given that they evolved to track survival and fecundity, not truth. B-type debunking arguments point to the improbability of the hypothesis that evolution would track truth given that there are a multitude of defeaters for this hypothesis. I will argue that both a-type and b-type arguments fail to …

Flower Unfurling: Buddhist Modernism And The Early Writing Of James Joyce, Erin Garrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the history of the references to Buddhism in Stephen Hero, James Joyce’s first and unpublished novel, through the author’s previous writing, his sources, and his context, in order to determine how—if at all—the tradition bore upon his earliest depiction of consciousness. Acknowledging that Joyce habitually revisited and refined earlier ideas and prose, it attends to previous essays, notebooks, book reviews, conversations, letters, epiphanies, poems, and autobiographical prose; to available material, bibliographical, and biographical evidence about the specific volumes and performances to which Joyce had access; to language and paratext—including advertisements, introductions, and appended essays—in those volumes; …

Decolonizing Climate Discourse And Legitimating Indigenous Wisdom: Toward An Ecosystemic Episteme, Caitlin Robison

Honors Program Theses

Devoted to redefining western capitalist epistemologies through recognition and acceptance of Indigenous wisdom in modern sociopolitical structures, I use this paper to expose theoretical and material flaws in western neoliberal capitalism as an implicitly colonial knowledge system incapable of sufficiently addressing the climate crisis. Here, colonialism is broadly understood as ideological and/or material practices of exploitation and domination within social, cultural, economic, and ecological frameworks. Colonialism, in this paper, is further characterized by having particular philosophical commitments to notions of binarism, individualism, and consumerism which reveal capitalism’s structure and function as neocolonial by nature. Most evidently, today’s global climate crisis …

Stakes-Sensitive Testimonial Injustice: Prejudicial Thresholds For Belief In Testimony Of Sexual Assault, Grace Kelleher

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I expand on Miranda Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice by advancing an additional model of testimonial injustice. This model, called stakes-sensitive testimonial injustice posits that an individual may incur an epistemic harm when his or her testimony is measured against a threshold for belief that has been unjustly influenced due to prejudiced stakes considerations on the part of the hearer. In particular, I focus on our society’s tendency to hold the statements of women who testify about their experiences of sexual assault to high thresholds for belief and posit that this tendency stems from a biased understanding …

The Noxious Market Of Division 1 College Football, Bryan Carlen

CMC Senior Theses

This paper is made up of four sections. The first will explain Satz’ framework for identifying and treating noxious markets, as well as how it was developed, and the second will make the case for viewing D1 football as a labor market. The second section will lay out who’s involved, what their incentives are, and what they must do to earn these incentives. The third section will then apply Satz’ framework to the market at hand, as well as address a gap in her theory regarding her concept of weak agency. The paper will then conclude with policy guidelines that, …

Functional Corporate Knowledge, Mihailis Diamantis

William & Mary Law Review

The line between guilt and innocence often turns on what a defendant knew. Although the law’s approach to knowledge may be relatively straightforward for individuals, its doctrines for corporate defendants are fraught with ambiguity and opportunities for gamesmanship. Corporations can spread information thinly across employees so that it is never “known.” And prosecutors can exploit legal uncertainties to bring knowledge-based charges where corporations were merely negligent in how they handled information. Whereas knowledge as a mens rea has unique practical and normative properties that vary with a corporation’s size and industry, corporate law treats knowledge just like any other mental …

Qualia, The Heart Of The Mind-Body Problem And Epistemology’S Quagmire, Allison Mangan

Augsburg Honors Review

Qualia are layered and complex, a labyrinth of a concept, rife with debate as to their existence, state, and what they mean for our understanding of knowledge, relationship with the world, and ourselves. Thoughtful exploration into the complexities of what qualia are and how they relate to the mind-body problem will be wrestled with though research applied within this paper.

The Epistemic And Psychological Mechanisms Perpetuating Racism Within The Criminal Justice System, Danielle Walker

Theses

Abstract

Many attempts have been made by philosophers, political activists, psychologists, historians, social advocates, and others to explain the mechanisms at play in the perpetuation and resulting manifestations of systemic and institutional racism. On one side of the debate there lies a theory that there is an epistemic failure at the root of racial bias towards Blacks, white ignorance, a collective amnesia regarding what has and does take place in society, as it pertains to their oppression and isolation, like the view of philosopher Charles W. Mills. According to Mills, this type of ignorance, or non-knowing, is a cognitive phenomenon …

Glancing Back At The Camel’S Hump: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Saudi Family Therapists’ Dual Epistemologies, Rana M. F. Banaja

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Since family therapy was brought only recently to Saudi Arabia, studies exploring the field in this context are few. This dissertation will be the first to focus on the self of the Saudi Arabian family therapist (SAFT). In particular, it will be the first to pay close attention to SAFTs’ ways of dealing with the differing and, perhaps, incompatible epistemologies of Saudi culture and religion on one side, and systemic thinking and family therapy on the other. This study seeks to shed a phenomenological light on what informs SAFTs and what influences their work. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), I …

Counterfactual Conditional Analysis Using The Centipede Game, Ahmed Bilal

CMC Senior Theses

The Backward Induction strategy for the Centipede Game leads us to a counterfactual reasoning paradox, The Centipede Game paradox. The counterfactual reasoning proving the backward induction strategy for the game appears to rely on the players in the game not choosing that very same backward induction strategy. The paradox is a general paradox that applies to backward induction reasoning in sequential, perfect information games. Therefore, the paradox is not only problematic for the Centipede Game, but it also affects counterfactual reasoning solutions in games similar to the Centipede Game. The Centipede Game is a prime illustration of this paradox in …