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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: Why do our intuitive knowledge ascriptions shift when a subject's practical interests are mentioned? Many efforts to answer this question have focused on empirical linguistic evidence for context sensitivity in knowledge claims, but the empirical psychology of belief formation and attribution also merits attention. The present paper examines a major psychological factor (called "need-for-closure") relevant to ascriptions involving practical interests. Need-for-closure plays an important role in determining whether one has a settled belief; it also influences the accuracy of one's cognition. Given these effects, it is a mistake to assume that high- and low-stakes subjects provided with the same initial evidence are perceived to enjoy belief formation that is the same as far as truth-conducive factors are concerned. This mistaken assumption has underpinned contextualist and interest-relative invariantist treatments of cases in which contrasting knowledge ascriptions are elicited by descriptions of subjects with the same initial information and different stakes. The paper argues that intellectualist invariantism in fact yields the best treatment of such cases.Nagel, Jennifer. Epistemic Anxiety and Adaptive Invariantism2010, Philosophical Perspectives 24: 407-435.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: Do we apply higher epistemic standards to subjects with high stakes? This paper argues that we expect different outward behavior from high-stakes subjects - for example, we expect them to collect more evidence than their low-stakes counterparts - but not because of any change in epistemic standards. Rather, we naturally expect subjects in any condition to think in a roughly adaptive manner, balancing the expected costs of additional evidence collection against the expected value of gains in accuracy. The paper reviews a body of empirical work on the automatic regulation of cognitive effort in response to stakes, and argues that we naturally see high- and low-stakes subjects as experiencing different levels of 'epistemic anxiety', and anticipate different levels of cognitive effort from them for this reason. If unresolved epistemic anxiety always bars an ascription of knowledge, then we can explain our responses to cases involving shifting stakes without positing any variation in the standards of intuitive knowledge ascription.Comment: Nagel is one of the prominent epistemologists who bring relevant psychological researches to philosophical debates. In this paper, Nagel proposes a psychological account of intuitive judgments of pair of cases that are used to motivate subject sensitive invariantism. And she defends a view called "adaptive invariantism", a kind of moderate invariantism. The paper is very useful for courses on methodology of philosophy and teachings on pragmatic encroachement for courses on epistemology.
Nagel, Jennifer. Intuitions and Experiments: A Defense of the Case Method in Epistemology2012, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (3): 495-527.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: Many epistemologists use intuitive responses to particular cases as evidence for their theories. Recently, experimental philosophers have challenged the evidential value of intuitions, suggesting that our responses to particular cases are unstable, inconsistent with the responses of the untrained, and swayed by factors such as ethnicity and gender. This paper presents evidence that neither gender nor ethnicity influence epistemic intuitions, and that the standard responses to Gettier cases and the like are widely shared. It argues that epistemic intuitions are produced by the natural 'mindreading' capacity that underpins ordinary attributions of belief and knowledge in everyday social interaction. Although this capacity is fallible, its weaknesses are similar to the weaknesses of natural capacities such as sensory perception. Experimentalists who do not wish to be skeptical about ordinary empirical methods have no good reason to be skeptical about epistemic intuitions.Comment: Nagel is one of the prominent epistemologists who bring relevant psychological researches to philosophical debates. In this excellent paper, Nagel discusses the legitimacy of using pre-theoretical epistemic intuitions in epistemological theorizing in the light of findings in cognitive science. It is very useful for teachings on experimental philosophy in courses on epistemology or methodology of philosophy. It can be used together with Stephen (2013)'s response "Do different groups have different epistemic intuitions? a reply to Jennifer Nagel".
Nagel, Jennifer. Knowledge as a mental state2013, In: Gendler, Tamar (ed), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Volume 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 275-310-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: In the philosophical literature on mental states, the paradigmatic examples of mental states are beliefs, desires, intentions, and phenomenal states such as being in pain. The corresponding list in the psychological literature on mental state attribution includes one further member: the state of knowledge. This article examines the reasons why developmental, comparative and social psychologists have classified knowledge as a mental state, while most recent philosophers - with the notable exception of Timothy Williamson - have not. The disagreement is traced back to a difference in how each side understands the relationship between the concepts of knowledge and belief, concepts which are understood in both disciplines to be closely linked. Psychologists and philosophers other than Williamson have generally have disagreed about which of the pair is prior and which is derivative. The rival claims of priority are examined both in the light of philosophical arguments by Williamson and others, and in the light of empirical work on mental state attribution.Comment: This is a good teaching material on knowledge first. There is a recent response to this paper written by Aidan McGlynn ("Mindreading knowledge", 2016) which can be used together in teaching in order to create a nice dynamic of debate.
Nagel, Jennifer. Knowledge and reliability, Kornblith, Hilary & McLaughlin, Brian (eds.), Alvin Goldman and his Critics. Blackwell.-
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Added by: Jie GaoAbstract:
Internalists have criticised reliabilism for overlooking the importance of the subject's point of view in the generation of knowledge. This paper argues that there is a troubling ambiguity in the intuitive examples that internalists have used to make their case, and on either way of resolving this ambiguity, reliabilism is untouched. However, the argument used to defend reliabilism against the internalist cases could also be used to defend a more radical form of externalism in epistemology.Comment: This paper defends reliabilism from criticisms according to which our intuition tells against reliabilism. It is suitable for an introductory epistemology course, sessions on reliabilism or epistemic externalism.
Narayan, Uma. Undoing the ‘Package Picture’ of Cultures2004, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 25 (4): 1083-1086.-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Nadia Mehdi
Abstract: Many feminists of color have demonstrated the need to take into account differences among women to avoid hegemonic gender-essentialist analyses that represent the problems and interests of privileged women as paradigmatic. As feminist agendas become global, there is growing feminist concern to consider national and cultural differences among women. However, in attempting to take seriously these cultural differences, many feminists risk replacing gender-essentialist analyses with culturally essentialist analyses that replicate problematic colonialist notions about the cultural differences between "Western culture" and "non-Western cultures" and the women who inhabit them (Narayan 1998). Seemingly universal essentialist generalizations about "all women" are replaced by culture-specific essentialist generalizations that depend on totalizing categories such as "Western culture,' "non-Western cultures," "Indian women," and "Muslim women." The picture of the "cultures" attributed to these groups of women remains fundamentally essentialist, depicting as homogeneous groups of heterogeneous peoples whose values, ways of life, and political commitments are internally diverge.Comment: This text can be used to teach about the pitfalls of imperialist feminism such as Susan M. Okin's as well as gender and cultural essentialism. It would also be excellent on any courses that attempt to discuss cultural value or cultural heritage as it complicates the idea of cultures as discrete, bounded and unified entities.
Narayanan, Arvind. The Limits of the Quantitative Approach to Discrimination2022, James Baldwin Lecture Series-
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael Greer
Introduction: Let’s set the stage. In 2016, ProPublica released a ground-breaking investigation called Machine Bias. You’ve probably heard of it. They examined a criminal risk prediction tool that’s used across the country. These are tools that claim to predict the likelihood that a defendant will reoffend if released, and they are used to inform bail and parole decisions.Comment (from this Blueprint): This is a written transcript of the James Baldwin lecture, delivered by the computer scientist Arvind Narayanan, at Princeton in 2022. Narayanan's prior research has examined algorithmic bias and standards of fairness with respect to algorithmic decision making. Here, he engages critically with his own discipline, suggesting that there are serious limits to the sorts of quantitative methods that computer scientists recruit to investigate the potential biases in their own tools. Narayanan acknowledges that in voicing this critique, he is echoing claims by feminist researchers from fields beyond computer science. However, his own arguments, centered as they are on the details of the quantitative methods he is at home with, home in on exactly why these prior criticisms hold up in a way that seeks to speak more persuasively to Narayanan's own peers in computer science and other quantitative fields.
Neander, Karen. Teleological Theories of Mental Content2012, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy-
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Added by: Jamie Collin
Abstract: Teleological theories of mental content try to explain the contents of mental representations by appealing to a teleological notion of function. Take, for example, the thought that blossoms are forming. On a representational theory of thought, this thought involves a representation of blossoms forming. A theory of content aims among other things to tell us why this representation has that content; it aims to say why it is a thought about blossoms forming rather than about the sun shining or pigs flying or nothing at all. In general, a theory of content tries to say why a mental representation counts as representing what it represents. According to teleological theories of content, what a representation represents depends on the functions of the systems that produce or use the representation. The relevant notion of function is said to be the one that is used in biology and neurobiology in attributing functions to components of organisms (as in "the function of the pineal gland is secreting melatonin" and "the function of brain area MT is processing information about motion"). Proponents of teleological theories of content generally understand such functions to be what the thing with the function was selected for, either by ordinary natural selection or by some other natural process of selection.Comment: This would be useful in a course in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of biology, or any course in which naturalistic accounts of mental content are relevant. The entry is detailed and quite lengthy. It also serves as an excellent source of further reading. Suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduates.
Nederpelt, Rob, Fairouz Kamareddine. Logical reasoning: a first course2004, Nederpelt, R. P. (Rob P. ) & Kamareddine, F. D. (2004) Logical reasoning: a first course. London: King’s College Publications.-
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Added by: Sophie Nagler, Contributed by: Sophie NaglerPublisher’s Note:
This book describes how logical reasoning works and puts it to the test in applications. It is self-contained and presupposes no more than elementary competence in mathematics. Comment: An introduction to sentential and first-order logic with a mixed philosophical and computational focus; rigorous presentation of the formalism interspersed with brief philosophical reflections on concepts, practical exercises, and pointers at technical 'real-world' applications.
2001, Cambridge University Press.-
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Added by: Berta Grimau
Publisher's Note: Structural proof theory is a branch of logic that studies the general structure and properties of logical and mathematical proofs. This book is both a concise introduction to the central results and methods of structural proof theory, and a work of research that will be of interest to specialists. The book is designed to be used by students of philosophy, mathematics and computer science. The book contains a wealth of results on proof-theoretical systems, including extensions of such systems from logic to mathematics, and on the connection between the two main forms of structural proof theory - natural deduction and sequent calculus. The authors emphasize the computational content of logical results. A special feature of the volume is a computerized system for developing proofs interactively, downloadable from the web and regularly updated.Comment: This book can be used both in a general course on proof theory for advanced Undergraduates or for Masters students, and for specialized courses - for example, a course on natural deduction. Chapters 1-4 can be used as background reading of a general course. Chapter 1, 5 and 8 could be used in a course on natural deduction. The presentation is self-contained and the book should be readable without any previous knowledge of logic.
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Nagel, Jennifer. Knowledge Ascription and the Psychological Consequences of Changing Stakes
2008, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86: 279-294.
Comment: Nagel is one of the prominent epistemologists who bring relevant psychological researches to philosophical debates. In this paper, Nagel proposes a psychological account of intuitive judgments of pair of cases that are used to motivate subject sensitive invariantism. The paper is very useful for courses on methodology of philosophy and teachings on pragmatic encroachment in courses on epistemology.