Download or read book Brute Rationality written by Joshua Gert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-08-19 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an account of normative practical reasons and the way in which they contribute to the rationality of action. Rather than simply 'counting in favour of' actions, normative reasons play two logically distinct roles: requiring action and justifying action. The distinction between these two roles explains why some reasons do not seem relevant to the rational status of an action unless the agent cares about them, while other reasons retain all their force regardless of the agent's attitude. It also explains why the class of rationally permissible action is wide enough to contain not only all morally required action, but also much selfish and immoral action. The book will appeal to a range of readers interested in practical reason in particular, and moral theory more generally.

Download or read book Rationality and Decision Making written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume Rationality and Decision Making: From Normative Rules to Heuristics analyses rational and irrational decision making by individuals as well as by groups. The contributors adopt methodological, logical, linguistic, psychological, historical, and evolutionary perspectives.

Download or read book Normative Bedrock written by Joshua Gert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joshua Gert presents an original and ambitious theory of the normative. Expressivism and non-reductive realism represent two very widely separated poles in contemporary discussions of normativity. But the domain of the normative is both large and diverse; it includes, for example, the harmful, the fun, the beautiful, the wrong, and the rational. It would be extremely surprising if either expressivism or non-reductive realism managed to capture all—or even the most important—phenomena associated with all of these notions. Normative Bedrock defends a response-dependent account of the normative that accommodates the kind of variation in response that some non-reductive realists downplay or ignore, but that also allows for the sort of straightforward talk of normative properties, normative truth, and substantive normative disagreement that expressivists have had a hard time respecting. One of the distinctive features of Gert's approach is his reliance, throughout, on an analogy between colour properties and normative properties. He argues that the appropriate response to a given instance of a normative property may often depend significantly on the perspective one takes on that instance: for example, whether one views it as past or future. Another distinctive feature of Normative Bedrock is its focus on the basic normative property of practical irrationality, rather than on the notion of a normative reason or the notion of the good. This simple shift of focus allow for a more satisfying account of the link between reasons and motivation, and helps to explain why and how some reasons can justify far more than they can require, and why we therefore need two strength values to characterize the normative capacities of practical reasons.

Download or read book Epistemic Risk and the Demands of Rationality written by Richard Pettigrew and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How much does rationality constrain what we should believe on the basis of our evidence? According to this book, not very much. For most people and most bodies of evidence, there is a wide range of beliefs that rationality permits them to have in response to that evidence. The argument, which takes inspiration from William James' ideas in 'The Will to Believe', proceeds from two premises. The first is a theory about the basis of epistemic rationality. It's called epistemic utility theory, and it says that what it is epistemically rational for you to believe is what it would be rational for you to choose if you were given the chance to pick your beliefs and, when picking them, you were to care only about their epistemic value. So, to say which beliefs are permitted, we must say how to measure epistemic value, and which decision rule to use when picking your beliefs. The second premise is a claim about attitudes to epistemic risk, and it says that rationality permits many different such attitudes. These attitudes can show up in epistemic utility theory in two ways: in the way you measure epistemic value; and in the decision rule you use to pick beliefs. This book explores the latter. The result is permissivism about epistemic rationality: different attitudes to epistemic risk lead to different choices of prior beliefs; given most bodies of evidence, different priors lead to different posteriors; and even once we fix your attitudes to epistemic risk, if they are at all risk-inclined, there is a range of different priors and therefore different posteriors they permit.

Download or read book African Philosophy and the Epistemic Marginalization of Women written by Jonathan O. Chimakonam and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-20 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the underexplored notion of epistemic marginalization of women in the African intellectual place. Women's issues are still very much neglected by governments, corporate bodies and academics in sub-Saharan Africa. The entrenched traditional world-views which privilege men over women make it difficult for the modern day challenges posed by the neglect of the feminine epistemic perspective, to become obvious. Contributors address these issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives, demonstrating what philosophy could do to ameliorate the epistemic marginalization of women, as well as ways in which African philosphy exacerbates this marginalization. Philosophy is supposed to teach us how to lead the good life in all its ramifications; why is it failing in this duty in Africa where the issue of women’s epistemic vision is concerned? The chapters raise feminist agitations to a new level; beginning from the regular campaigns for various women’s rights and reaching a climax in an epistemic struggle in which the knowledge-controlling power to create, acquire, evaluate, regulate and disseminate is proposed as the last frontier of feminism.

Download or read book Normative Pluralism written by Mathea Slåttholm Sagdahl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The potential conflicts between morality and self-interest lie at the heart of ethics. These conflicts arise because both moral and prudential considerations apply to our choices. A widespread assumption in philosophical ethics is that by weighing moral and prudential reasons against each other, we can compare their relative weights and determine what we ought to do in the face of such conflicts. While this assumption might seem innocuous and fruitful, a closer examination suggests that it lacks both justification and the necessary content that would allow it to do the normative work it promises. In this book, Mathea Slåttholm Sagdahl grapples with these cases of conflict, but argues that there may be no simple answer to the question of what we ought to do all things considered. Sagdahl argues against the assumption of comparability and defends an alternative pluralist theory of normativity where morality and prudence form two separate and incommensurable normative standpoints, much like in Henry Sidgwick's "Dualism of Practical Reason." This type of view has tended to be quickly dismissed by its opponents, but Sagdahl argues that the theory is in fact a well-motivated theory of normativity and that the typical objections that tend to target it are much weaker than they are usually thought to be.

Download or read book The Brute Within written by Hendrik Lorenz and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2006-04-06 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hendrik Lorenz presents a comprehensive study of Plato's and Aristotle's conceptions of non-rational desire. They see this as something that humans share with animals, and which aims primarily at the pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Lorenz explores the cognitive resources that both philosophers make available for the explanation of such desires, and what they take rationality to add to the motivational structure of human beings. In doing so, he exposes a remarkable degree of continuity between Plato's and Aristotle's thought in this area. He also sheds fresh light, not only on both philosophers' theories of motivation, but also on how they conceive of the mind, both in itself and in relation to the body.

Download or read book The philosophical basis of theism written by Samuel Harris and published by . This book was released on 1883 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Science of Correct Thinking written by Fr. Celestine N. Bittle and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1935, the author of this book has attempted to treat the most fundamental department of philosophy—logic—by combining the advantages of both textbooks and monographs, and by avoiding undue complication and technicality. Through the use of simple language and numerous illustrations, Fr. Bittle endeavoured to render the subject understandable, and as such this book is intended as a textbook or as supplementary reading in classwork, or as an introduction to philosophy for the general reader. “Philosophy cannot be made easy, but it certainly can be made less difficult. At the same time, the technical side of logic has not been omitted, but has been built up in gradual stages, so that the mind of the student can grow with the subject.”—Fr. Celestine N. Bittle

Download or read book Themes from G E Moore written by Susana Nuccetelli and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2007-11-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These sixteen original essays, whose authors include some of the world's leading philosophers, examine themes from the work of the Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore (1873-1958), and demonstrate his considerable continuing influence on philosophical debate. Part I bears on epistemological topics, such as scepticism about the external world, the significance of common sense, and theories of perception. Part II is devoted to themes in ethics, such as Moore's open question argument, his non-naturalism, utilitarianism, and his notion of organic unities.

Download or read book The Philosophical Basis of Theism An Examination of the Personality of Man to Ascertain His Capacity to Know and Serve God and the Validity of the Principles Underlying the Defence of Theism written by Samuel Harris and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2024-02-29 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Download or read book Wiseman Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1877 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Dublin Review written by Nicholas Patrick Wiseman and published by . This book was released on 1877 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Dublin Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1877 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Principles of Psychology written by Herbert Spencer and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Works written by Herbert Spencer and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Principles of psychology written by Herbert Spencer and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: