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Added by: Laura Jimenez
Abstract: The "expertise defense" is the claim that philosophers have special expertise that allows them to resist the biases suggested by the findings of experimental philosophers. Typically, this defense is backed up by an analogy with expertise in science or other academic fields. Recently, however, studies have begun to suggest that philosophers' intuitions may be just as subject to inappropriate variation as those of the folk. Should we conclude that the expertise defense has been debunked? In this paper, the author argues that the analogy with science still motivates a default assumption of philosophical expertise; however, the expertise so motivated is not expertise in intuition, and its existence would not suffice to answer the experimentalist challenge. She suggests that there are deep parallels between the current methodological crisis in philosophy and the decline of introspection-based methods in psychology in the early twentieth century. The comparison can give us insight into the possible future evolution of philosophical methodology.Nagasawa, Yujin. God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Novel Approach to Knowledge Arguments2008, Cambridge University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Tyron Goldschmidt
Publisher's Note: In God and Phenomenal Consciousness, Yujin Nagasawa bridges debates in two distinct areas of philosophy: the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of religion. First, he introduces some of the most powerful arguments against the existence of God and provides objections to them. He then presents a parallel structure between these arguments and influential arguments offered by Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson against the physicalist approach to phenomenal consciousness. By appealing to this structure, Nagasawa constructs novel objections to Jackson's and Nagel's arguments. Finally, he derives, from the failure of these arguments, a unique metaphysical thesis, which he calls 'non-theoretical physicalism'. Through this thesis, he shows that although this world is entirely physical, there are physical facts that cannot be captured even by complete theories of the physical sciences.Comment: Fitting for courses on Philosophy of Religion or Philosophy of Mind
Nagel, Jennifer. Epistemic Intuitions2007, Philosophy Compass 2(6): 792-819.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: We naturally evaluate the beliefs of others, sometimes by deliberate calculation, and sometimes in a more immediate fashion. Epistemic intuitions are immediate assessments arising when someone's condition appears to fall on one side or the other of some significant divide in epistemology. After giving a rough sketch of several major features of epistemic intuitions, this article reviews the history of the current philosophical debate about them and describes the major positions in that debate. Linguists and psychologists also study epistemic assessments; the last section of the paper discusses some of their research and its potential relevance to epistemology.Comment: This is a good introductory article on epistemic intuitions (intuitions interesting to epistemologists). It is useful for teachings on epistemology, philosophical methodology and experimental philosophy.
Nagel, Jennifer. Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction2014, Oxford: Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Publisher's Note: Human beings naturally desire knowledge. But what is knowledge? Is it the same as having an opinion? Highlighting the major developments in the theory of knowledge from Ancient Greece to the present day, Jennifer Nagel uses a number of simple everyday examples to explore the key themes and current debates of epistemology.Comment: As a contribution to the Oxford "very short introduction" seriers, this book is written to general public. This introductory book stands out due to its clarity, accessibility and coverage of topics. It might fall short of being a proper textbook for an epistemology course, but it constitutes a very good reading for all new-comers to epistemology. So it might be recommended as a further reading for a lower level undergraduate courses on epistemology or as an introduction to philosophy.
Nagel, Jennifer. Knowledge Ascription and the Psychological Consequences of Thinking about Errors2010, Philosophical Quarterly 60 (239): 286-306.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Abstract: Epistemologists generally agree that the stringency of intuitive ascriptions of knowledge is increased when unrealized possibilities of error are mentioned. Non-sceptical invanantists (Williamson, Hawthorne) think it a mistake to yield in such cases to the temptation to be more stringent, but they do not deny that we feel it. They contend that the temptation is best explained as the product of a psychological bias known as the availability heuristic. I argue against the availability explanation, and sketch a rival account of what happens to us psychologically when possibilities of error are raised.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 that motivate epistemic contextualism for defending invariantism. The paper is very useful for courses of methodology of philosophy and teachings on contextualism in courses on epistemology.
Nagel, Jennifer. Knowledge Ascription and the Psychological Consequences of Changing Stakes2008, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86: 279-294.-
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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.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.
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.
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Nado, Jennifer. Philosophical expertise and scientific expertise
2015, Philosophical Psychology 28(7):1026-1044.
Comment: This paper offers a thought provoking introduction to issues related to philosophical intuitions, experimental philosophy, and philosophical methodology in general. It is not an easy read, but can serve for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.