This work offers a provocative new historical and systematic interpretation of the epistemological doctrines of three twentieth-century giants: Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Pietersma argues ...that these three philosophers, while connected by their phenomenological doctrines, have underappreciated and interestingly-linked views on the theory of knowledge.
Why did such highly abstract ideas as truth, knowledge, or justice become so important to us? What was the point of coming to think in these terms? In The Practical Origins of Ideas, Matthieu Queloz ...presents a philosophical method designed to answer such questions: the method of pragmatic genealogy. Pragmatic genealogies are partly fictional, partly historical narratives exploring what might have driven us to develop certain ideas in order to discover what these do for us. The book uncovers an under-appreciated tradition of pragmatic genealogy which cuts across the analytic–continental divide, running from the state-of-nature stories of David Hume and the early genealogies of Friedrich Nietzsche to recent work in analytic philosophy by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker. However, these genealogies combine fictionalizing and historicizing in ways that even philosophers sympathetic to the use of state-of-nature fictions or real history have found puzzling. To make sense of why both fictionalizing and historicizing are called for, the book offers a systematic account of pragmatic genealogies as dynamic models serving to reverse-engineer the points of ideas in relation not only to near-universal human needs, but also to socio-historically situated needs. This allows the method to offer us explanation without reduction and to help us understand what led our ideas to shed the traces of their practical origins. Far from being normatively inert, moreover, pragmatic genealogy can affect the space of reasons, guiding attempts to improve our conceptual repertoire by helping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having.
Since Socrates, and through Descartes to the present day, the problems of self-knowledge have been central to philosophy's understanding of itself. Today the idea of ''first-person authority''--the ...claim of a distinctive relation each person has toward his or her own mental life--has been challenged from a number of directions, to the point where many doubt the person bears any distinctive relation to his or her own mental life, let alone a privileged one. In Authority and Estrangement, Richard Moran argues for a reconception of the first-person and its claims. Indeed, he writes, a more thorough repudiation of the idea of privileged inner observation leads to a deeper appreciation of the systematic differences between self-knowledge and the knowledge of others, differences that are both irreducible and constitutive of the very concept and life of the person.
This book offers a defence of Wrightean epistemic entitlement, one of the most prominent approaches to hinge epistemology. It also systematically explores the connections between virtue epistemology ...and hinge epistemology. According to hinge epistemology, any human belief set is built within and upon a framework of pre-evidential propositions – hinges – that cannot be justified. Epistemic entitlement argues that we are entitled to trust our hinges. But there remains a problem. Entitlement is inherently unconstrained and arbitrary: We can be entitled to any hinge proposition under the right circumstances. In this book, the author argues that we need a non-arbitrariness clause that protects entitlement from defeat. This clause, he argues, is to require epistemic virtue. Virtuous cognitive dispositions provide the non-arbitrariness clause that protects entitlement from defeat. The epistemic character of the agent who holds a particular set of hinges tells us something about the hinges’ epistemic status. Conversely, epistemic virtues are cognitive dispositions and capacities that rely on hinge propositions – without trusting in some hinges, we would be unable to exercise our virtues. Trust Responsibly will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on epistemology, Wittgenstein, and virtues.
This book is the first complete survey and critical appraisal of the large body of research that has appeared during approximately the last decade concerning the analysis of knowing. Robert K. Shope ...pays special attention to the social aspects of knowing and proposes a new formulation of the fundamental structure of the Gettier problem.
Originally published in .
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Descartes thought that we could achieve absolute certainty by starting with radical doubt. He adopts this strategy in the Meditations on First Philosophy, where he raises sweeping doubts with the ...famous dream argument and the hypothesis of an evil demon. But why did Descartes think we should take these exaggerated doubts seriously? And if we do take them seriously, how did he think any of our beliefs could ever escape them? Janet Broughton undertakes a close study of Descartes's first three meditations to answer these questions and to present a fresh way of understanding precisely what Descartes was up to. Broughton first contrasts Descartes's doubts with those of the ancient skeptics, arguing that Cartesian doubt has a novel structure and a distinctive relation to the commonsense outlook of everyday life. She then argues that Descartes pursues absolute certainty by uncovering the conditions that make his radical doubt possible. She gives a unified account of how Descartes uses this strategy, first to find certainty about his own existence and then to argue that God exists.Drawing on this analysis, Broughton provides a new way to understand Descartes's insistence that he hasn't argued in a circle, and she measures his ambitions against those of contemporary philosophers who use transcendental arguments in their efforts to defeat skepticism. The book is a powerful contribution both to the history of philosophy and to current debates in epistemology.
Defining and explaining how Self-Knowledge enhances the application of different knowledge types when used both independently and collectively, Self-Knowledge and Knowledge Management Applicationsis ...essential reading for professionals and students across multiple disciplines from business and management to strategy and technology.
The internalism-externalism debate is one of the oldest debates in epistemology. Internalists assert that the justification of our beliefs can only depend on facts internal to us, while externalists ...insist that justification can depend on additional, for example environmental, factors. In this book Clayton Littlejohn proposes and defends a new strategy for resolving this debate. Focussing on the connections between practical and theoretical reason, he explores the question of whether the priority of the good to the right (in ethics) might be used to defend an epistemological version of consequentialism, and proceeds to formulate a new 'deontological externalist' view. His discussion is rich with insights and will be valuable for a wide range of readers in epistemology, ethics and practical reason.
This book goes beyond a simple study of Newman’s thought and work and seeks to apply his deductions to modern value conflicts. Although it will be of particular relevance to academic readers with ...some prior knowledge of Newman’s works, it may also be of wider interest to students of history, philosophy, theology and spirituality. More generally, its unusual focus on Newman’s epistemology and philosophical deductions, and how these relate to present-day dilemmas, should also attract interest from his many non-academic followers and devotees.
