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Brown, Jessica. Contextualism and warranted assertibility manoeuvres
2006, Philosophical Studies 130 (3): 407-435.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: Contextualists such as Cohen and DeRose claim that the truth conditions of knowledge attributions vary contextually, in particular that the strength of epistemic position required for one to be truly ascribed knowledge depends on features of the attributor's context. Contextualists support their view by appeal to our intuitions about when it's correct (or incorrect) to ascribe knowledge. Someone might argue that some of these intuitions merely reflect when it is conversationally appropriate to ascribe knowledge, not when knowledge is truly ascribed, and so try to accommodate these intuitions even on an invariantist view. DeRose (Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, 1998; Philosophical Review, 2002) argues that any such 'warranted assertibility manoeuvre', or 'WAM', against contextualism is unlikely to succeed. Here, I argue that his objections to a WAM against contextualism are not persuasive and offer a pragmatic account of the data about ascriptions of knowledge.

Comment: This paper defends the warranted assertibility manoeuvres, a prominent pragmatic criticism to epistemic contextualism. It is useful as a central or a further reading material for teachings on contextualism in an upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology.

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Brown, Jessica. Experimental Philosophy, Contextualism and SSI
2013, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: 86 (2): 233-261.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: I will ask the conditional question: if folk attributions of "know" are not sensitive to the stakes and/or the salience of error, does this cast doubt on contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI)? I argue that if it should turn out that folk attributions of knowledge are insensitive to such factors, then this undermines contextualism, but not SSI. That is not to say that SSI is invulnerable to empirical work of any kind. Rather, I defend the more modest claim that leading versions of SSI are not undermined by one particular kind of experimental result, namely the recent suggestion that knowledge attributions are insensitive to the stakes.

Comment: Suitable for an upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology for multiple purposes. It is good as a further reading for sessions on contextualism, pragmatic encroachment, philosophical methodology, and the use of experimental philosophy in epistemological theorizing.

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Brown, Jessica. Subject­-Sensitive Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm for Practical Reasoning
2008, Nous 42(2): 167-189.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Introduction: It is increasingly popular to suggest that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, or reasoning about what to do (e.g. Hawthorne 2004, Stanley 2005). This idea is central to the defence of a new version of invariantism - 'subject-sensitive invariantism' - on which whether the true belief that p is knowledge not only depends on such factors as one's evidence, and the reliability of the belief-producing process, but also the stakes or how important it is that p be true (the view is also known as 'sensitive moderate invariantism' (Hawthorne 2004) and 'interest relative invariantism' (Stanley 2005)). I will argue against the idea that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, whether that is understood as a necessity or sufficiency claim. Instead, I will argue that the epistemic standards for practical reasoning vary contextually.

Comment: This paper nicely elucidates the debates on pragmatic encroachment in epistemology and presents main objections to the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. It is useful for teachings on pragmatic encroachment and the knowledge norm of practical reasoning in an upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology.

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Bryan, Jenny. Likeness and Likelihood in the Pre-Socratics and Plato
2012, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Publisher’s Note:

The Greek word eoikos can be translated in various ways. It can be used to describe similarity, plausibility or even suitability. This book explores the philosophical exploitation of its multiple meanings by three philosophers, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato. It offers new interpretations of the way that each employs the term to describe the status of his philosophy, tracing the development of this philosophical use of eoikos from the fallibilism of Xenophanes through the deceptive cosmology of Parmenides to Plato's Timaeus. The central premise of the book is that, in reflecting on the eoikos status of their accounts, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato are manipulating the contexts and connotations of the term as it has been used by their predecessors. By focusing on this continuity in the development of the philosophical use of eoikos, the book serves to enhance our understanding of the epistemology and methodology of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato's Timaeus.

Comment: This book offers useful conceptual resources for making sense of the epistemologies of two major Presocratic philosophers, Xenophanes and Parmenides, as well as Plato. It also has much to offer on questions about the relationship between myth/story-telling and argumentation in ancient Greek philosophical methodology. While parts of the book go into significant detail regarding certain terminological issues in ancient Greek, the author for the most part makes it easy to follow what is at stake philosophically in these discussions, making them accessible even to those with little or no background in ancient Greek.

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Bryan, Jenny. The Pursuit of Parmenidean Clarity
2020, Rhizomata, 8(2), pp. 218–238.
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Added by: Lea Cantor
Abstract:

This paper reconsiders the debates around the interpretation of Parmenides’ Being, in order to draw out the preconceptions that lie behind such debates and to scrutinize the legitimacy of applying them to a text such as Parmenides’ poem. With a focus on the assumptions that have driven scholars to seek clarity within the notoriously ambiguous verse of the poem, I ask whether it is possible to develop an analysis of Parmenides’ Being that is sympathetic both to his clear interest in argument, logic, knowledge and truth and to his ambiguous expression and cultural and literary resonances.

Comment: This article offers a critical overview of recent debates concerning Parmenides' philosophy, which it does a good job of summarizing for the reader without presupposing much knowledge about the Presocratics. The article clearly identifies a number of tacit interpretive assumptions underlying dominant readings of Parmenides' poem, highlighting the complexities involved in reconstructing Parmenides' philosophical motivations within his proper cultural milieu. This article can easily be integrated into introductory courses on Parmenides and/or Presocratic philosophy.

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Buchak, Lara. Can it be Rational to Have Faith?
2012, in Jake Chandler & Victoria Harrison (eds.) Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press: 225-247.
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: This paper provides an account of what it is to have faith in a proposition p, in both religious and mundane contexts. It is argued that faith in p doesn't require adopting a degree of belief that isn't supported by one's evidence but rather it requires terminating one's search for further evidence and acting on the supposition that p. It is then shown, by responding to a formal result due to I.J. Good, that doing so can be rational in a number of circumstances. If expected utility theory is the correct account of practical rationality, then having faith can be both epistemically and practically rational if the costs associated with gathering further evidence or postponing the decision are high. If a more permissive framework is adopted, then having faith can be rational even when there are no costs associated with gathering further evidence

Comment: A great paper for an intermediate philosophy of religion course, especially because many arguments from students are to the contrary: it's irrational to believe in God when we don't have satisfactory evidence. It could be nice to set up a debate centering around this paper. It could work particularly well towards the end of the course.

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Chakravartty, Anjan. Introduction: Ancient Skepticism, Voluntarism, and Science
2015, International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 5 (2):73-79
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Matthew Watts
Abstract: In this introduction, I motivate the project of examining certain resonances between ancient skeptical positions, especially Pyrrhonism, and positions in contemporary epistemology, with special attention to recent work in the epistemology of science. One such resonance concerns the idea of suspension of judgment or belief in certain contexts or domains of inquiry, and the reasons for (or processes eventuating in) suspension. Another concerns the question of whether suspension of belief in such circumstances is voluntary, in any of the senses discussed in current work on voluntarism in epistemology, which informs recent discussions of how voluntarism regarding epistemic stances may shed light on positions like scientific realism and antirealism. The aim of this special issue is thus to explore certain analogies and disanalogies between ancient and contemporary debates about skepticism, and to consider whether and to what extent the former can provide insight into the latter.

Comment: This text offers motivation for examining ancient skeptical positions in relation to contemporary epistemology, especially epistemology of science.

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Chapman, Robert, Carel, Havi. Neurodiversity, epistemic injustice, and the good human life
2022, Journal of Social Philosophy
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Alan Walter Jurgens
Abstract:

Autism has typically been framed as inherently harmful and at odds with both subjective happiness and objective flourishing. In recent decades, however, the view of autism as inherently harmful has been challenged by neurodiversity proponents, who draw on social and relational models of disability to reframe the harm autistic people face as arising out of the interaction between being autistic and disabling environments. Here we build on the neurodiversity perspective by arguing that autistic thriving has been rendered both invisible and unthinkable by interlocking forms of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. On the view we propose, rather than autism being at odds with the possibility of living a good life as such, We argue that our mainstream conceptions of the good life have excluded autistic manifestations of happiness and flourishing. This leads to an epistemic catch-22-like paradoxical situation whereby one can be recognised as autistic or as thriving, but not both. We then propose four ameliorative strategies that support moving towards broader conceptions of the good human life which will allow us to recognise not just autistic, but also other neurodivergent ways, of living a good human life.

Comment: Provides an overview of epistemic injustice faced by neurodivergent individuals both in their daily lives, but also in research done on neurodiversity. Also discusses issues with the medical model of medical and psychiatric diagnoses.

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Cheng, Eugenia. Mathematics, Morally
2004, Cambridge University Society for the Philosophy of Mathematics.
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Added by: Fenner Stanley Tanswell
Abstract:

A source of tension between Philosophers of Mathematics and Mathematicians is the fact that each group feels ignored by the other; daily mathematical practice seems barely affected by the questions the Philosophers are considering. In this talk I will describe an issue that does have an impact on mathematical practice, and a philosophical stance on mathematics that is detectable in the work of practising mathematicians. No doubt controversially, I will call this issue ‘morality’, but the term is not of my coining: there are mathematicians across the world who use the word ‘morally’ to great effect in private, and I propose that there should be a public theory of what they mean by this. The issue arises because proofs, despite being revered as the backbone of mathematical truth, often contribute very little to a mathematician’s understanding. ‘Moral’ considerations, however, contribute a great deal. I will first describe what these ‘moral’ considerations might be, and why mathematicians have appropriated the word ‘morality’ for this notion. However, not all mathematicians are concerned with such notions, and I will give a characterisation of ‘moralist’ mathematics and ‘moralist’ mathematicians, and discuss the development of ‘morality’ in individuals and in mathematics as a whole. Finally, I will propose a theory for standardising or universalising a system of mathematical morality, and discuss how this might help in the development of good mathematics.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Cheng is a mathematician working in Category Theory. In this article she complains about traditional philosophy of mathematics that it has no bearing on real mathematics. Instead, she proposes a system of “mathematical morality” about the normative intuitions mathematicians have about how it ought to be.

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Chiu, Wai Wai. Zhuangzi’s Knowing-How and Skepticism
2018, Philosophy East and West 68(4), pp. 1062-1084
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Added by: Lea Cantor
Abstract:

A common interpretation of the Zhuangzi holds that the text is skeptical only about propositional knowledge and not practical knowledge. It is argued here that this interpretation is problematic, for two reasons. The first is that there is no motivation for Zhuangzi to criticize propositional knowledge, given some general pre-Qin epistemological assumptions. The second is that Zhuangzi explicitly criticizes a certain kind of practical knowledge. It is then explained how Zhuangzi's skepticism can co-exist with the idea of "great knowledge."

Comment: This is a useful article for anyone interested in the question of scepticism in the Zhuangzi - a foundational text in the Daoist tradition of classical Chinese philosophy. The article is written in a way that is accessible to those with little or no background in the Zhuangzi, Daoism, or classical Chinese. However, some basic knowledge of classical Chinese philosophy as a whole is required to follow the argument of the paper. The paper offers a useful overview of a number of scholarly controversies surrounding the scope and nature of Zhuangzi's scepticism, and how they relates to interpretive issues surrounding the so-called 'skills stories' of the Zhuangzi.

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Churchland, Patricia. Epistemology in The Age of Neuroscience
1987, Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987): 546-83.
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Added by: Jamie Collin
Abstract: Comment: Churchland argues that advances in neuroscience should should bring about reform in a number of central areas of philosophy. Formal logic does not model human reasoning, formal semantics cannot account for how human language is meaningful, there are no foundations of knowledge, there is no a priori knowledge, and true belief is not a goal of human nervous systems.

Comment: This would be useful in a course on epistemology (in particular, a section on naturalised epistemology), the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of biology or metaphilosophy. Though the paper touches on foundational issues in philosophy, it is a relatively straightforward read and an excellent conversation starter. Suitable for undergraduates of all levels, but also appropriate for graduate-level courses.

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Coliva, Annalisa. Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology
2015, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Publisher's Note: Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology provides a novel account of the structure of epistemic justification. Its central claim builds upon Wittgenstein's idea in On Certainty that epistemic justifications hinge on some basic assumptions and that epistemic rationality extends to these very hinges. It exploits these ideas to address major problems in epistemology, such as the nature of perceptual justifications, external world skepticism, epistemic relativism, the epistemic status of basic logical laws, of the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, of our belief in the existence of the past and of other minds, and the nature of testimonial justification. Along the way, further technical issues, such as the scope of the Principle of Closure of epistemic operators under known entailment, the notion of transmission failure, and the existence of entitlements are addressed in new and illuminating ways.

Comment: In this interesting book, Annalisa Coliva develops an account of the structure of justification inspired by Wittgenstein's epistemology (Ch.1-3), argues a constitutivism about epistemic rationality (Ch.4) and reveals its significance for many contemporary problems (Ch.5). Ch.1 involves a overview of three dominant views of perceptual warrants: liberalism, conservativism and moderatism, so it could be a useful reading material for teachings on epistemic justification and perceptual warrant. Ch.4 can be used as a further reading for topics on epistemic rationality, Wittgenstein's epistemology and external world skepticism.

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Coliva, Annalisa. Moore and Wittgenstein: Scepticism, Certainty, and Common Sense
2010, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Publisher's Note: Does scepticism threaten our common sense picture of the world? Does it really undermine our deep-rooted certainties? This book offers an answer to these questions through a comparative study of the epistemological work of two key figures in the history of analytic philosophy: G. E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein. While historically accurate and engaging with scholarly work in this area, the book also puts forward novel interpretations of their works and brings out their relevance to present-day debates both in epistemology and philosophy of language.

Comment: This book is a useful and sustained examination of a variety of themes in Wittgenstein's On Certainty, the very late compilation of remarks inspired by G.E. Moore's engagement with scepticism and idealism in "A Defence of Common Sense," "Proof of an External World" and a few other papers. Among the topics considered are the strategies of Moore's arguments, ordinary and philosophical uses of language, differing interpretations of Moore, externalism, internalism and contextualism, Wittgenstein's objections to Moore, meaning and use, language games, Cartesian and Humean sceptical arguments, the epistemic and semantic status of so-called "hinge" propositions, epistemic relativism, and a comparison of Wittgenstein's and Moore's views with those of subsequent philosophers. It thus constitutes a very good reading or even central text for a course on Moore's epistemology, Wittgenstein's epistemology and external world skepticism.

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Collins, Patricia Hill. Transforming the inner circle: Dorothy Smith’s challenge to sociological theory
1992, Sociological Theory 10 (1):73-80.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Corbin Covington
Abstract: "Women have been largely excluded from the work of producing the forms of thought and the images and symbols in which thought is expressed and ordered," suggests sociologist Dorothy E. Smith. "We can imagine women's exclusion organized by the formation of a circle among men who attend to and treat as significant only what men say." In this male discourse, "what men were doing was relevant to men, was written by men about men for men . . . this is how a tradition is formed" (Smith 1987, p. 18). Smith's perspective aptly describes the outer circle that delineates sociology from other equally male-centered disciplines, but it also characterizes the important inner circle of sociological theory lying at the center of the field.

Comment:

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Crary, Alice. The Methodological is Political: What’s the Matter with ‘Analytic Feminism’?
2018, Radical Philosophy, 47–60
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael Greer
Abstract: A core insight of some important second wave feminist writings is that, in order to qualify as truly ‘feminist’, a movement has to be politically radical. For example, there is a powerful articulation of this theme, to mention one noteworthy site, in the work of bell hooks. A guiding preoccupation of hooks’ thought, as far back as the early eighties, is to underline the pernicious and intellectually flawed character of the supposedly ‘feminist’ postures of ‘bourgeois white women’ in the U.S. whose efforts are directed toward the politically superficial goal of claiming the social privileges of bourgeois white men. hooks shows that there is no way to ‘overcome barriers that separate women from one another’ without ‘confronting the reality of racism’. She describes how the forms of gender-based subordination experienced by privileged white women are inextricable from racist and classist social mechanisms that elevate these women above women who are non-white and poor, and how the sexist obstacles that poor and non-white women encounter are in turn permeated by racism and classism. hooks concludes that if ‘feminism’ is to be dedicated to identifying and resisting sexist oppression, it needs to – in her words – ‘direct our attention to systems of domination and the interrelatedness of sex, race and class oppression.

Comment (from this Blueprint): In this 2018 article Alice Crary launches a critique against analytic feminists for employing what she terms a "neutral conception of reason," which pretends that the best form of reason is one free from feelings, biases, and value, as if one may employ reason from a "view from nowhere." To the contrary, Crary thinks there is no view from nowhere, and that feminist philosophy's insistence on the important of lived experience is synonymous with it's recognition that reasoning is done from a particular social location and is always-already "ethically" valenced: one's lived experiences and affects saturate one's ethically-loaded point of view, and this is recruited for feminist ends! To illustrate this point, Crary considers Miranda Fricker's 2007 book Epistemic Injustice, which we see elsewhere on this reading list. According to Fricker's neutral conception of reason, testimonial epistemic injustice is remedied by neutralizing stereotypical prejudice in one's judgments of credibility. On Crary's reading, however, there is no neutral space of reason. Crary argues for a methodological radicalism (as opposed to what she terms Fricker's methodological conservativism) which begins with ethically-loaded perspectives on the world. Indeed, she thinks this is how we can make sense of the consciousness-raising Fricker is interested in: Crary points out that "in order to get the patterns of [problematic] behaviour constitutive of [...] abuse adequately into focus, we need to look upon the social world from a particular ethically-loaded perspective" (57).

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