Download or read book Seemings written by Kevin McCain and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-19 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents new research on the epistemology of seemings. It features original essays by leading epistemologists on the nature and epistemic import of seemings and intuitions. Seemings and intuitions are often appealed to in philosophical theorizing. In fact, epistemological theories such as phenomenal conservatism and dogmatism give pride of place to seemings. Such views insist that seemings are of central importance to theories of epistemic justification. However, there are many questions about seemings that have yet to be answered satisfactorily. What kinds of seemings are there? How do seemings justify? Are seemings connected to truth? Do they play a significant role in inquiry? The chapters in this volume offer a range of useful arguments and fresh ideas about seemings, the nature of justification and evidential support, intuitions, inquiry, and the nature of inference. Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in epistemology and philosophy of mind.

Download or read book Seemings and the Foundations of Justification written by Blake McAllister and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-25 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All justified beliefs ultimately rest on attitudes that are immediately justified. This book illuminates the nature of immediate justification and the states that provide it. Simply put, immediate justification arises from how things appear to us—from all and only our "seemings." The author defends each aspect of this "seemings foundationalism," including the assumption of foundationalism itself. Most notably, the author draws from common sense philosopher Thomas Reid to present new and improved arguments for phenomenal conservatism and gives the first systematic argument that seemings alone are capable of immediately justifying. The discussion delves deeply into the nature of seemings and how it is that their assertive phenomenal character makes them (and them alone) capable of immediately justifying. Along the way, the author makes novel contributions to perennial debates such as: internalism versus externalism, deontologism and epistemic blame, epistemic circularity, and the common sense response to skepticism. Seemings and the Foundations of Justification will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in epistemology, Thomas Reid, or the common sense tradition.

Download or read book Seemings and Justification written by Chris Tucker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-09 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You believe that there is a book (or a computer screen) in front of you because it seems visually that way. I believe that I ate cereal for breakfast because I seem to remember eating it for breakfast. And we believe that torturing for fun is morally wrong and that 2+2=4 because those claims seem intuitively obvious. In each of these cases, it is natural to think that our beliefs are not only based on a seeming, but also that they are justifiably based on these seemings-at least assuming there is no relevant counterevidence. These considerations have prompted many to endorse some version of dogmatism or phenomenal conservatism. These views hold that, in the absence of defeaters, a seeming that P provides justification to believe P. The main difference is that dogmatism is restricted to some domain, often perception, and phenomenal conservatism is intended to apply to all seemings. Critics worry that such views run into problems with traditional Bayesianism and that they are too permissive, in part because of their implications regarding cognitive penetration. The primary aim of this book is to understand how seemings relate to justification and whether some version of dogmatism or phenomenal conservatism can be sustained. In addition to addressing each of these issues, this volume also addresses a wide range of related topics, including intuitions, the nature of perceptual content, access internalism, and the epistemology of testimony and disagreement.

Download or read book Seemings and Epistemic Justification written by Luca Moretti and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines phenomenal conservatism, one of the most influential and promising internalist conceptions of non-inferential justification debated in current epistemology and philosophy of mind. It also explores the significance of the findings of this examination for the general debate on epistemic justification. According to phenomenal conservatism, non-inferential justification rests on seemings or appearances, conceived of as experiences provided with propositional content. Phenomenal conservatism states that if it appears to S that P, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has some justification for believing that P. This view provides the basis for foundationalism and many ordinary epistemic practices. This book sheds new light on phenomenal conservatism by assessing objections to it and examining epistemological merits and advantages attributed to it. In a nutshell, phenomenal conservatism is actually compatible with Bayesian reasoning, and it is unaffected by bootstrapping problems and challenges that appeal to the cognitive penetrability of perception. Nevertheless, appearance-based justification proves unstable or elusive and its anti-septical bite is more limited than expected. These difficulties could be surmounted if phenomenal conservatism were integrated with a theory of inferential justification. The book appeals to scholars and postgraduates in the field of epistemology and philosophy of mind who are interested in the rational roles of appearances.

Download or read book Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings by Henry Maudsley written by Henry Maudsley and published by . This book was released on 1886 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings written by Henry Maudsley and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Priori Justification written by Albert Casullo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-03-13 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major divide in contemporary epistemology is between those who embrace and those who reject a priori knowledge. Albert Casullo provides a systematic treatment of the primary epistemological issues associated with the controversy. By freeing the a priori from traditional assumptions about the nature of knowledge and justification, he offers a novel approach to resolving these issues which assigns a prominent role to empirical evidence. He concludes by arguing that traditional approaches to the a priori, which focus primarily on the concepts of necessity and analyticity, are misguided.

Download or read book Felt Meanings of the World written by Quentin Smith and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a critical dialogue with the metaphysical tradition from Plato to Hegel to contemporary schools of thought, the author convincingly argues that traditional rationalist metaphysics has failed to accomplish its goal of demonstrating the existence of a divine cause and moral purpose of the world. To replace the defective rationalist metaphysics, the author builds a new metaphysics on the idea that moods and affects make manifest the world's felt meanings; he argues that each feature of the world is a felt meaning in the sense that each feature is a source of a feeling-response, if and when it appears. The author asserts that we must synthesize our two ways of knowing - poetic evocations and exact analyses - in order to decide which mood or affect is the appropriate appreciation of any given feature of the world. Smith gives evocative and exact explications of such features as the world's temporality, appearance, and mind-independency, as these features appear in the appropriate recitations.

Download or read book Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition written by Michael Bergmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radical skepticism endorses the extreme claim that large swaths of our ordinary beliefs, such as those produced by perception or memory, are irrational. The best arguments for such skepticism are, in their essentials, as familiar as a popular science fiction movie and yet even seasoned epistemologists continue to find them strangely seductive. Moreover, although most contemporary philosophers dismiss radical skepticism, they cannot agree on how best to respond to the challenge it presents. In the tradition of the 18th century Scottish philosopher, Thomas Reid, Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition joins this discussion by taking up four main tasks. First, it identifies the strongest arguments for radical skepticism, namely, underdetermination arguments, which emphasize the gap between our evidence and our ordinary beliefs based on that evidence. Second, it rejects all inferential or argument-based responses to radical skepticism, which aim to lay out good noncircular reasoning from the evidence on which we base our ordinary beliefs to the conclusion that those beliefs are probably true. Third, it develops a commonsense noninferential response to radical skepticism with two distinctive features: (a) it consciously and extensively relies on epistemic intuitions, which are seemings about epistemic goods, such as knowledge and rationality, and (b) it can be endorsed without difficulty by both internalists and externalists in epistemology. Fourth, and finally, it defends this commonsense epistemic-intuition-based response to radical skepticism against a variety of objections, including those connected with underdetermination worries, epistemic circularity, disagreement problems, experimental philosophy, and concerns about whether it engages skepticism in a sufficiently serious way.

Download or read book Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion Volume 6 written by Jonathan Kvanvig and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion is an annual volume offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this longstanding area of philosophy that has seen an explosive growth of interest over the past half century. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board, it publishes exemplary papers in any area of philosophy of religion.

Download or read book Appearance and Explanation written by Kevin McCain and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phenomenal Conservatism (the view that an appearance that things are a particular way gives one prima facie justification for believing that they are that way) is a promising, and popular, internalist theory of epistemic justification. Despite its popularity, it faces numerous objections and challenges. For instance, epistemologists have argued that Phenomenal Conservatism is incompatible with Bayesianism, is afflicted by bootstrapping and cognitive penetration problems, does not guarantee that epistemic justification is a stable property, does not provide an account of defeat, and is not a complete theory of epistemic justification. This book shows that Phenomenal Conservatism is immune to some of these problems, but not all. Accordingly, it explores the prospects of integrating Phenomenal Conservatism with Explanationism (the view that epistemic justification is a matter of explanatory relations between one's evidence and propositions supported by that evidence). The resulting theory, Phenomenal Explanationism, has advantages over Phenomenal Conservatism and Explanationism taken on their own. Phenomenal Explanationism is a highly unified, comprehensive internalist theory of epistemic justification that delivers on the promises of Phenomenal Conservatism while avoiding its pitfalls.

Download or read book Daniel Dennett written by Andrew Brook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-21 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Philosophy in Focus will offer a series of introductory volumes of newly commissioned essays to many of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the current age.Author of books such as Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel C. Dennett has reached a huge general and professional audience that extends beyond philosophy to the study of consciousness , the development of the child's mind, cognitive ethnology, explanation in the social sciences, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory. This volume is the only truly introductory collection that explores the implications of Dennett's work.

Download or read book Externalism about Knowledge written by Luis R. G. Oliveira and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-02 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Externalism about knowledge is thriving in contemporary epistemology. Nonetheless, externalism is too often caricatured as merely reliabilism, too often reduced to simply externalism about justification, and rarely considered as a cohesive family of related but importantly different views. Externalism About Knowledge addresses all of these issues by bringing new essays from leading externalist epistemologists working on seven different branches of this tradition: process reliabilism, tracking views, safety views, virtue epistemology, proper functionalism, naturalized epistemology, and knowledge first epistemology. This collection highlights their unity, their differences, their interconnections, and their most recent challenges, developments, and extensions.

Download or read book Awareness and the Substructure of Knowledge written by Paul Silva Jr and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To say that someone is aware of a fact is a commonplace expression, not at all a philosopher's term of art. It is often used to criticize, excuse, admonish, and inform others. Such uses of the expression presuppose the existence of a state of awareness that one can be in or fail to be in with regard to some fact. Here lies the phenomenon of factual awareness. It is conventional in epistemology to treat 'S is aware of the fact that p' as either expressing the same thought as 'S knows that p' or at least entailing it. Learning of the failure of conventional views is often both surprising and theoretically fruitful. This book presents a comprehensive case against the view that factual awareness just is knowledge or even essentially related to knowledge: factual awareness is not identical to, and it does not entail, knowing, being in a position to know, or being capable of knowing. It provides a systematic exploration of the relation between knowledge and factual awareness, arguing that knowledge is but one species of factual awareness and that we can understand the possession of objective reasons, the normativity of knowledge, and the nature of knowledge in terms of factual awareness. In this way, the state of factual awareness is, structurally and substantively, a more basic type of state than knowledge. If correct, this undermines a number of ways in which knowledge has been regarded as coming 'first' in recent epistemology.

Download or read book Believing in Accordance with the Evidence written by Kevin McCain and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores evidentialism, a major theory of epistemic justification. It contains more than 20 papers that examine its nuances, its challenges, as well as its future directions. Written by leading and up-and-coming epistemologists, the papers cover a wide array of topics related to evidentialism. The contributors present both sides of the theory: some are advocates of evidentialism, while others are critics. This provides readers with a comprehensive, and cutting-edge, understanding of this epistemic theory. Overall, the book is organized into six parts: The Nature of Evidence, Understanding Evidentialism, Problems for Evidentialism, Evidentialism and Social Epistemology, New Directions for Evidentialism, and Explanationist Evidentialism. Readers will find insightful discussion on such issues as the ontology of evidence, phenomenal dogmatism, how experiences yield evidence, the new evil demon problem, probability, norms of credibility, intellectual virtues, wisdom, epistemic justification, and more. This title provides authoritative coverage of evidentialism, from the latest developments to the most recent philosophical criticisms. It will appeal to researchers and graduate students searching for more information on this prominent epistemological theory.

Download or read book Contemporary Debates in Epistemology written by Matthias Steup and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect introduction to contemporary epistemology, completely overhauled for its third edition In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, pairs of specially commissioned essays defend opposing views on some of today’s most compelling epistemological issues and problems. Offering a unique blend of accessibility and originality, this timely volume brings together fresh debates on hotly contested issues to provide readers with the opportunity to engage in comparative analysis of constantly changing and developing epistemological concepts. Now in its third edition, Contemporary Debates in Epistemology features up-to-date coverage of the latest developments in the field. Entirely new essays examine questions of epistemic normativity and knowledge, the relationship between belief and credence, the possibility of internalist epistemology, epistemic instrumentalism, norms of assertion, the use of thought experiments in epistemology, and more. Presents a rigorous yet accessible introduction to the major topics in contemporary epistemology Contains head-to-head chapters offering forceful advocacy of opposing philosophical stances Focuses on core areas of epistemology Uses a lively debate format that sharply defines the issues and encourages further discussion All-new chapters provide fully updated coverage of new and emerging topics in epistemology Part of the Wiley-Blackwell Contemporary Debates in Philosophy series, Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Third Edition, remains an essential resource for advanced undergraduate philosophy majors, graduate students in philosophy, and epistemologists who want to keep current with contemporary epistemological debates.

Download or read book The Epistemic Role of Consciousness written by Declan Smithies and published by Philosophy of Mind. This book was released on 2019 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification. Smithies builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His position combines two key claims. The first is phenomenal mentalism, which says that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenally individuated facts about your mental states. The second is accessibilism, which says that epistemic justification is luminously accessible in the sense that you're always in a position to know which beliefs you have epistemic justification to hold. Smithies integrates these two claims into a unified theory of epistemic justification, which he calls phenomenal accessibilism. The book is divided into two parts, which converge on this theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part 1 argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part 2 argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and philosophy of mind.