Displaying: 41-60 of 7863 documents

0.082 sec

41. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Bogdan Creţu Literature and Knowledge. A new Version of an Old Story
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper tries to discuss some of the theories concerning the relation between literature and knowledge. On the one hand, most of the time, philosophers donot believe in the force of literature to generate knowledge. On the other, litterateurs are more optimistic, considering that there is a specific kind of knowledge that literature (sometimes they emphasize: only literature) is able to deliver. These are the two antagonistic theories I have to arbitrate in this paper. In my opinion, literature is an ally of science and philosophy and it can provide a large amount of knowledge about some aspects of reality that cannot be put into concepts. Some examples like dreams and love regarded both by philosophers and writers try to demonstrate that sometimes only literature can conquer some territories of the human mind and sensibility. At the end, the paper asserts, along with Peter Swirski, that interdisciplinarity is a compulsory condition if we want to take advantage from the whole knowledge that sciences, as well as arts, among which literature is to be mentioned, can offer us. The conclusion is borrowed from Milan Kundera’s Art of the Novel: Knowledge is the literature’s only morality.
42. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Richard Fumerton An Ontologically Liberating Skepticism?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper I explore what I take to be the best hope for a physicalist ontolology of mind from within the framework of a radical empiricism about bothknowledge and thought. That best hope is related to the view that Chalmers calls panprotopsychism. In short, the argument is that a rather radical skepticism about the external world opens the door to what might strike some as odd ontological possibilities concerning the exemplification of phenomenal properties in the brain. The conclusion will be of small comfort to traditional physicalists and, as we shall see, it is in the end, probably misleading to characterize the view as a version of physicalism at all.
43. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Pierre Le Morvan Healthy Skepticism and Practical Wisdom
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper explores and articulates an alternative to the two main approaches that have come to predominate in contemporary philosophical discussionsof skepticism. These we may call the ‘Foil Approach’ and the ‘Bypass Approach’ respectively. On the Foil Approach, skepticism is treated as a problem to be solved, or challenge to be met, or threat to be parried; skepticism’s value, insofar as it is deemed to have one, accrues from its role as a foil contrastively illuminating what is required for knowledge and justified belief. On the Bypass Approach, skepticism is bypassed as a central concern of epistemology. In this paper, I articulate an alternative to both these approaches, one that explores when skepticism is healthy and when it is not. I call it the ‘Health Approach’ to skepticism.
44. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Notes to Contributors
45. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Michael Jenkins The Origin of the ‘Gettier’ Problem: Socrates and The Theaetetus
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This article discusses the origin of what has become known as the Gettier Problem. It examines the claim put forward, though not expounded or defended, by J.Angelo Corlett in Analyzing Social Knowledge that the basis for Edmund Gettier’s article “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” was originally argued for in Plato’sTheaetetus. In his article, Gettier argues that the Justified True Belief condition is not sufficient for knowledge. However, Corlett questions the originality of this argument. This article examines Gettier’s article followed by the Theatetus. After which, the two articles are compared, and the claim is shown to be correct in accusing Gettier of failing consider the full work of the Theaetetus. Socrates also argued that the Justified True Belief condition was not sufficient for knowledge. However, this article concludes by arguing that Socrates went further with his examination than Gettier did. Socrates not only put forward the claim that this condition was insufficient for knowledge, he also tried to supply answers to the problem.
46. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Bogdan Baghiu Ancient Epistemology
47. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Notes on the Contributors
48. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 1
Richard D. Vulich Peer-Hood
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
When one is involved in a disagreement with another individual it is important to know how much weight to give to the disputant's testimony. I argue that itis not necessary to have background information about the individual with whom one is disagreeing in order for one to rationally regard the disputant as an epistemic peer. I contrast this view with an alternative view according to which it is only rational to regard a disputant as a peer in cases where one has background information to indicate that the disputant is a peer. I show that unless we make some implausible assumptions about the truth-effectiveness of reconsideration, it is better to regard unknown disputants as peers because doing so increases the ratio of true to total beliefs in one's belief set.
49. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Alex Bundy In Defense of Epistemic Abstemiousness
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The principle of suspension says that when you disagree with an epistemic peer about p, you should suspend judgment about p. In “Epistemic Abstainers, Epistemic Martyrs, and Epistemic Converts,” Scott F. Aikin, Michael Harbour, Jonathan Neufeld, and Robert B. Talisse argue against the principle of suspension, claiming that it “is deeply at odds with how we view ourselves as cognitive agents.” I argue that their arguments do not succeed.
50. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Vincent F. Hendricks, John Symons Limiting Skepticism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Skeptics argue that the acquisition of knowledge is impossible given the standing possibility of error. We present the limiting convergence strategy forresponding to skepticism and discuss the relationship between conceivable error and an agent’s knowledge in the limit. We argue that the skeptic must demonstrate that agents are operating with a bad method or are in an epistemically cursed world. Such demonstration involves a significant step beyond conceivability and commits the skeptic to potentially convergent inquiry.
51. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Richard David-Rus Explanation Through Scientific Models: Reframing the Explanation Topic
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Once a central topic of philosophy of science, scientific explanation attracted less attention in the last two decades. My aim in this paper is to argue for a newsort of approach towards scientific explanation. In a first step I propose a classification of different approaches through a set of dichotomic characteristics. Taken into account the tendencies in actual philosophy of science I see a local, dynamic and non-theory driven approach as a plausible one. Considering models as bearers of explanations will provide a proper frame for such an approach. In the second part I make some suggestions for a working agenda that will further articulate a sketchy account of explanation through models proposed by Hartmann and Frigg.
52. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Notes to Contributors
53. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Gerard Leonid Stan Truth and the Critique of Representation
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The correspondence theory of truth was regarded for many centuries as the correct position in the problem of truth. The main purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which antirepresentationalist arguments devised by the pragmatists can destabilise the correspondence theory of truth. Thus, I identified three types of antirepresentationalist arguments: ontological, epistemological and semantic. Then I tried to outline the most significant varieties for each type of argument. Finally, I evaluated these counterarguments from a metaphilosophical perspective. The point I endeavoured to make is that these arguments are decisive neither in supporting the pragmatist theory of truth, nor in proving the failure of the correspondence theory of truth. Actually, we are dealing with two distinct modes of looking at the same problem, two theoretical approaches based on different sets of presuppositions. By examining the presuppositions of the classical theory of truth, the pragmatists engage in a theoretical undertaking with therapeutical qualities: they contributed significantly to the critical evaluation of a series of dogmas. The belief in the power of the human mind to mirror reality exactly as it is was one of these dogmas.
54. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Mark McBride A Puzzle for Dogmatism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I want to consider a puzzle in the realm of confirmation theory. The puzzle arises from consideration of reasoning with an argument, given certain epistemological commitments. Here is the argument (preceded by the stipulated justification for the first premise):(JUSTIFICATION FOR 1) The table looks red.(EK) (1) The table is red.(2) If the table is red, then it is not white with red lights shining on it.(3) The table is not white with red lights shining on it.(EK) – the easy knowledge argument – has received much epistemological scrutiny of late. My aim, in this discussion note, is to set out an example, leading to the puzzle, putatively troubling for dogmatism. The puzzle takes the form of a pair of arguments which I take to be extractable from the recent work of a number of prominent epistemologists. My aim is modest: I seek not novelty, but rather merely to tie together accessibly some interesting recent work towards the formal end of epistemology which bears on cruxes at the heart of traditional epistemology.
55. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Logos & Episteme. Aims and Scope
56. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Viorel Ţuţui Democracy and Moral Conflict
57. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Jeremy Fantl Infinitism and Practical Conditions on Justification
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper brings together two recent developments in the theory of epistemic justification: practical conditions on justification, and infinitism (the view thatjustification is a matter of having an infinite series of non-repeating reasons). Pragmatic principles can be used to argue that, if we’re looking for an ‘objective’ theory of the structure of justification – a theory that applies to all subjects independently of their practical context – infinitism stands the only chance at being the correct theory.
58. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Gerard Leonid Stan A New Vision on Physis
59. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Zoltán Vecsey Vagueness, Ignorance, And Epistemic Possibilities
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The correspondence theory of truth was regarded for many centuries as the correct position in the problem of truth. The main purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which anti-representationalist arguments devised by the pragmatists can destabilise the correspondence theory of truth. Thus, I identified three types of antirepresentationalist arguments: ontological, epistemological and semantic. Then I tried to outline the most significant varieties for each type of argument. Finally, I evaluated these counterarguments from a metaphilosophical perspective. The point I endeavoured to make is that these arguments are decisive neither in supporting the pragmatist theory of truth, nor in proving the failure of the correspondence theory of truth. Actually, we are dealing with two distinct modes of looking at the same problem, two theoretical approaches based on different sets of presuppositions. By examining the presuppositions of the classical theory of truth, the pragmatists engage in a theoretical undertaking with therapeutical qualities: they contributed significantly to the critical evaluation of a series of dogmas. The belief in the power of the human mind to mirror reality exactly as it is was one of these dogmas.
60. Logos & Episteme: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Nicholas Rescher What Einstein Wanted
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Einstein envisioned a clear difference between a bottom-up physics that moves from observations to the conjecture of explanatory generalizations, and a top-down physics that deploys intuitively natural principles (especially of economy and elegance) to explain the observations. Einstein’s doubts regarding standard quantum mechanics thus did not simply lie in this theory’s use of probabilities. Rather, what he objected to was their status as merely phenomenological quantities configured to accommodate observation, and thereby lacking any basis of derivation from considerations of general principle.