It is well known that the process of scientific inquiry, according to Peirce, is drivenby three types of inference, namely abduction, deduction, and induction. What isbehind these labels is, however, not so clear. In particular, the common identificationof abduction with Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) begs the question,since IBE appears to be covered by Peirce's concept of induction, not that of abduction.Consequently, abduction ought to be distinguished from IBE, at least on Peirce's account. The main aim of the paper, (...) however, is to show that this distinction is most relevant with respect to current problems in philosophy of science and epistemology (like attempts to supply suitable notions of realism and truth as well as related concepts like coherence and unification). In particular, I also try to show that (and in what way) Peirce's inferential triad can function as a method that ensures both coherence and correspondence. It is in this respect that his careful distinction between abduction and induction (or IBE) ought to be heeded. (shrink)

Bovens and Hartmann (Bayesian Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) propose to analyze coherence as a confidence-boosting property. On the basis of this idea, they construct a new probabilistic theory of coherence. In this paper, I will attempt to show that the resulting measure of coherence clashes with some of the intuitions that motivate it. Also, I will try to show that this clash is not due to the view on coherence as a confidence-boosting property or to the general features (...) of the model that Bovens and Hartmann use to analyze coherence. It will turn out that there is at least one other measure that is similarly based on the concept of a confidence-boosting property, but does not have the same counterintuitive results. (shrink)

Bovens and Hartmann propose to analyze coherence as a confidence-boosting property. On the basis of this idea, they construct a new probabilistic theory of coherence. In this paper, I will attempt to show that the resulting measure of coherence clashes with some of the intuitions that motivate it. Also, I will try to show that this clash is not due to the view on coherence as a confidence-boosting property or to the general features of the model that Bovens and Hartmann (...) use to analyze coherence. It will turn out that there is at least one other measure that is similarly based on the concept of a confidence-boosting property, but does not have the same counterintuitive results. (shrink)

Epistemic relativism rejects the idea that claims can be assessed from a universally applicable, objective standpoint. It is greatly disdained because it suggests that the real ‘basis’ for our views is something fleeting, such as ‘‘the techniques of mass persuasion’’ (Thomas Kuhn 1970) or the determination of intellectuals to achieve ‘‘solidarity’’ (Rorty 1984) or ‘‘keep the conversation going’’ (Rorty 1979). But epistemic relativism, like skepticism, is far easier to despise than to convincingly refute, for two main reasons. First, its definition (...) is unclear, so we cannot always tell where relativism leaves off and other views, such as skepticism or subjectivism, begin. Consequently, it can be difficult to tell when a criticism has done enough. Second, the grounds for relativism are unclear, which can make it hard to know how to attack it or whether we have dismantled all of the ways of supporting it. (shrink)

Objections to reliabilist theories of knowledge and justification have looked insuperable. Reliability is a property of the process of belief formation. But the generality problem apparently makes the specification of any such process ambiguous. The externalism of reliability theories clashes with strongly internalist intuitions. The reliability property does not appear closed under truth-preserving inference, whereas closure principles have strong intuitive appeal. And epistemic paradoxes, like the preface and the lottery, seem unavoidable if knowledge or justification depends on the frequency with (...) which a process generates true beliefs. The present theory has the conceptual resources to meet these challenges. It requires that a justificatory belief-formation process be intentionally applied. It distinguishes the justification of beliefs from that of the believer. And it avoids a frequency interpretation of reliability by introducing a notion of the normalcy of conditions under which processes are intentionally used. (shrink)

How is epistemic justification related to knowledge? Is it, as widely thought, constitutive of knowledge? Is it merely a means to knowledge, or merely a means to something else, such as truth? In a recent article in this journal, Hofmann (2005, Synthese, 146(3), 357–369) addresses these questions in attempting to defend an important argument articulated by Sartwell (1992, The Journal of Philosophy, 89(4), 167–180) and reconstructed and criticized by Le Morvan (2002, Erkenntnis: An International Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 56(2), 151–168). (...) This Sartwellian argument purported to show that, since epistemic justification is of merely instrumental value, it is not constitutive of knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Hofmann’s defense of Sartwell fails, but that its failure brings to light some important lessons concerning the nature of justification and its relationship to truth and knowledge. (shrink)

Guided by an account of the norms governing justificatory conversations, I propose that person-level epistemic justification is a matter of possessing a certain ability: the ability to provide objectively good reasons for one's belief by drawing upon considerations which one responsibly and correctly takes there to be no reason to doubt. On this view, justification requires responsible belief and is also objectively truth-conducive. The foundationalist doctrine of immediately justified beliefs is rejected, but so too is the thought that coherence in (...) one's total belief system is sufficient, or indeed necessary, for justification. The problem of the regress is solved by exploiting the 'localist' idea that in order to possess the ability to justify any given belief, one only needs to be in a position to draw upon appropriate justified background beliefs to provide good reasons for holding the belief; one needn't be able to defend the relevant background beliefs, and so on, all at one sitting. (shrink)

In this article, I am concerned with the ethical foundations of behavior therapy, that is, with the normative ethics and the meta-ethics underlying behavior therapy. In particular, I am concerned with questions concerning the very possibility of providing an ethical justification for things done in the context of therapy. Because behavior therapists must be able to provide an ethical justification for various actions (if the need arises), certain meta-ethical views widely accepted by behavior therapists must be abandoned: in particular, one (...) must give up ethical subjectivism, ethical skepticism, and ethical relativism. An additional task is to show how it is possible to provide a nonsubjective, nonskeptical, and nonrelativistic moral justification for an ethical statement. Although this is a monumental task, I provide a rough sketch of such a model, one that is congenial to the value judgments underlying behavior therapy. (shrink)

In 'The Weakness of Strong Justification' Wayne Riggs claims that the requirement that justified beliefs be truth conducive (likely to be true) is not always compatible with the requirement that they be epistemically responsible (arrived at in an epistemically responsible manner)1. He supports this claim by criticising Alvin Goldman's view that if a belief is strongly justified, it is also epistemically responsible. In light of this, Riggs recommends that we develop two independent conceptions of justification, one that insists upon the (...) requirement that beliefs be truth conducive and another that insists that they be epistemically responsible. It will then, on his view, be possible to properly evaluate beliefs with regard to each conception of justification. Riggs, however, is mistaken in supposing that the two epistemic requirements are independent. If a belief is responsibly arrived at, it is therefore likely to be true. He is thus also mistaken in supposing that the two epistemic requirements are incompatible. This mistake arises because Riggs assumes that justification is possible or, at least, that it involves standards that are akin to our own. Moreover, once this assumption is made explicit, we can see why a notion of justification that connects epistemic practice with likely truth is significant. (shrink)

I clarify and defuse an argument for skepticism about justification with the aid of some results from recent linguistic theory. These considerations illuminate debates about the structure of justification.

Theories of moral, and more generally, practical reasoning sometimes draw on the notion of coherence. Admirably, Paul Thagard has attempted to give a computationally detailed account of the kind of coherence involved in practical reasoning, claiming that it will help overcome problems in foundationalist approaches to ethics. The arguments herein rebut the alleged role of coherence in practical reasoning endorsed by Thagard. While there are some general lessons to be learned from the preceding, no attempt is made to argue against (...) all forms of coherence in all contexts. Nor is the usefulness of computational modelling called into question. The point will be that coherence cannot be as useful in understanding moral reasoning as coherentists may think. This result has clear implications for the future of Machine Ethics, a newly emerging subfield of AI. (shrink)

Special issue. With contributions by Luc Bovens and Stephan Hartmann, David Glass, Keith Lehrer, Erik Olsson, Tomoji Shogenji, Mark Siebel, and Paul Thagard.

As part of an exceptionally lucid analysis of the Lottery Paradox, Dana Nelkin castigates the solutions to that paradox put forward by Laurence Bonjour and Sharon Ryan. According to her, these are “so finely tailored to lottery-like cases that they are limited in their ability to explain [what seem the intuitively right responses to such cases]”. She then offers a solution to the Lottery Paradox that allegedly has the virtue of being independently motivated by our intuitions regarding certain non-lottery-like cases. (...) This note argues that Nelkin fails to show that her solution applies to other than lottery-like cases or in any event that it is more general than Bonjour’s and Ryan’s solutions. (shrink)

As part of an exceptionally lucid analysis of the Lottery Paradox, Dana Nelkin castigates the solutions to that paradox put forward by Laurence Bonjour and Sharon Ryan. According to her, these are “so finely tailored to lottery-like cases that they are limited in their ability to explain [what seem the intuitively right responses to such cases]”. She then offers a solution to the Lottery Paradox that allegedly has the virtue of being independently motivated by our intuitions regarding certain non-lottery-like cases. (...) This note argues that Nelkin fails to show that her solution applies to other than lottery-like cases or in any event that it is more general than Bonjour’s and Ryan’s solutions. (shrink)

On the basis of arguments showing that none of the most influential analyses of Moore's paradox yields a successful resolution of the problem, a new analysis of it is offered. It is argued that, in attempting to render verdicts of either inconsistency or self‐contradiction or self‐refutation, those analyses have all failed to satisfactorily explain why a Moore‐paradoxical proposition is such that it cannot be rationally believed. According to the proposed solution put forward here, a Moore‐paradoxical proposition is one for which (...) the believer can have no non‐overridden evidence. the arguments for this claim make use of some of Peter Klein's views on epistemic defeasibility. It is further suggested that this proposal may have important meta‐epistemological implications. (shrink)

One consequence of the later Wittgenstein's influential critique of epistemological foundationalism has been to convince many contemporary philosophers that the ideal of universal and necessary cognitive grounds for moral or political norms is illusory. Recent neo-Wittgensteinian accounts of practical reason attempt to formulate a conception of a post-foundational politics in which a political ethos can be legitimate, rational or just even if its informing practices and cognitive standards lack foundational justification. Against these appropriations of Wittgenstein, I argue that his account (...) challenges foundationalism only by generating epistemological relativism at both the first-order level of belief systems and at the second-order level of the comparative evaluation of first-order belief systems and their non-comparable forms of justification. The result is a polytheism of forms of reason which imperils the methodological ideal of a non-relativistic practice of moral-political criticism. (shrink)

The best extant statement of the epistemic regress problem makes assumptions that are too strong. An improved version assumes only that that reasons require support, that no proposition is supported only by endless regresses of reasons, and that some proposition is supported. These assumptions are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent. Attempts to explain support by means of unconceptualized sensations, contextually immunized propositions, endless regresses, and holistic coherence all require either additional reasons or an external condition on support that is arbitrary (...) from the believer's own point of view. (shrink)

“Naturalized epistemology” is a recent attempt to transform the theory of knowledge into a branch of natural science. Traditional epistemologists object to this proposal on the grounds that it eliminates the distinctively philosophical content of epistemology. In this thesis, I argue that traditional philosophers are justified in their reluctance to accept naturalism, but that their ongoing inability to refute it points to deeper problems inherent in traditional epistemology. I establish my thesis first by critiquing three versions of naturalism, showing that (...) each version either fails to implement its objectives consistently or starts from dubious objectives. “Optimistic naturalism” attempts to use naturalistic methods to give positive answers to traditional epistemological questions (such as by affirming that our beliefs can be justified). This fails because the form of traditional questions requires the concept “belief,” a concept that I argue naturalistic methodology cannot countenance (because of the severe constraints of naturalistic semantic theory). “Pessimistic naturalism,” the version advocated by Quine, is more consistent with naturalistic methodology, but fails because hidden behind its conclusions are assumptions (such as the underdetermination thesis) that cannot themselves be naturalized in the full context of scientific evidence. A final attempt to naturalize epistemology, deflationary naturalism, dispenses with traditional questions entirely, urging that the terms “knowledge” and “justification” be taken as mere pragmatic devices whose use can, nevertheless, be studied scientifically. Curiously, this view fails to take account of important facts about the actual use of those terms, as studied by psychologists. In the end, despite problems with each of these versions, traditional philosophers can learn something from their encounter with naturalism. In the course of showing how various naturalistic doctrines cannot themselves be naturalized, I identify the flaws in traditional epistemology (such as its reliance on a priorism, and its resulting inability to articulate a workable empirical foundationalist theory of justification) that make naturalism harder to challenge. These flaws must be corrected if philosophers are to preserve the autonomy of their discipline. (shrink)

Wissen kann sich nicht in wahrer Meinung erschöpfen. Das ist ein in der Diskussion um ei- nen adäquaten Wissensbegriff fast einhellig akzeptierter Gemeinplatz. Der Grund dafür ist ein- fach und auf den ersten Blick einleuchtend. Unserem normalen Gebrauch des Wortes „Wissen“ zufolge würden wir von jemandem, der aufgrund bloßen Ratens zu der Überzeugung kommt, daß beim nächsten Spiel die Roulettekugel auf der Zahl 34 liegen bleibt, auch dann nicht sagen, er habe gewußt, daß es so kommen werde, wenn das Ergebnis (...) tatsächlich eintritt. Wir unter- scheiden zufällig wahre Überzeugungen von solchen, die nicht zufällig, sondern z.B. aufgrund sorgfältigen Überlegens zustandegekommen sind. Nur im zweiten Fall sprechen wir von Wis- sen; bloß zufällig wahre Überzeugungen haben keinen Anspruch auf diesen Ehrentitel. „Bloß zufällig wahr“ nennen wir Überzeugungen, die auf eine Weise zustande gekommen sind, die mit ihrer Wahrheit nichts zu tun hat: durch Raten, Vorahnungen, Überredung usw. (shrink)

In this paper, I show the complementarity of foundationalism and coherentism with respect to any efficient system of beliefs by means of a distinction between two types of proposition drawn from an analogy with an axiomatic system. This distinction is based on the way a given proposition is acknowledged as true, either by declaration (F-proposition) or by preservation (C-proposition). Within such a perspective, i.e., epistemological complementarism, not only can one see how the usual opposition between foundationalism and coherentism is irrelevant, (...) but furthermore one can appreciate the reciprocal relation between these two theories as they refer to two separate epistemological functions involved in the dynamics of constituting and expanding an epistemic system. (shrink)

Internalists and externalists in epistemology continue to disagree about how best to understand epistemic concepts such as justification or warrant or knowledge. But there has been some movement towards agreement. Two of the most prominent rationales for the internalist position have been subjected to severe criticism by externalists: the idea that justification should be understood deontologically and the thought that justification consists in having a reason in the form of another belief. It would not be accurate to say that all (...) internalists have responded to such criticism by distancing themselves from these rationales for their position. Nevertheless some have. But despite the growing disenchantment with these two motivations for internalism, internalists continue to find the externalist position extremely unattractive. One main reason for this persistent resistance to externalism is a third rationale that is, perhaps, the most influential of the driving forces behind internalism. (shrink)

The abductivist reply to skepticism is the view that commonsense explanations of the patterns and regularities that appear in our sensory experiences should be rationally preferred to skeptical explanations of those same patterns and regularities on the basis of explanatory considerations. In this article I critically examine Laurence BonJour’s rationalist version of the abductivist position. After explaining why BonJour’s account is more defensible than other versions of the view, I argue that the notion of probability he relies upon is deeply (...) problematic, that he incorporates an implausible double-standard concerning a priori and a posteriori justification, and that his view is vulnerable to skepticism about the a priori. I suggest that some of these problems are due to idiosyncratic commitments BonJour makes and that abductivists would be better off without them. I conclude with some suggestions about how to improve BonJour’s abductivist response to skepticism. (shrink)

Recent critics of Sellars's argument against the Given attack Sellars's conclusion that sensations cannot play a role in the justification of observation beliefs. I maintain that Sellars can concede that sensations play a role in justifying observation reports without being forced to concede that they have the foundational status of an epistemic Given. However, Sellars's own arguments that observation reports rest, in some sense, on other empirical beliefs are not sufficiently well-developed; nor are his comments concerning internalism, which is crucial (...) to his attack on the Given. As a result, both of these aspects of Sellars's epistemology have been attacked, and their significance has gone unrecognized by many philosophers. In this paper, I will try to fill in some of the missing pieces, so that we can see that not only are Sellars's theses concerning internalism and epistemic priority correct, but they represent a devastating attack on the Given, even if Sellars concedes that sensation can play a role in justifying observation beliefs. In short, we will see that these recent arguments in support of the Given have not succeeded in reviving it. The Given remains a myth. (shrink)

There is widespread suspicion that there is a principled conflict between epistemic internalism and content externalism (or anti-individualism). Despite the prominence of this suspicion, it has rarely been substantiated by explicit arguments. However, Duncan Pritchard and Jesper Kallestrup have recently provided a prima facie argument concluding that internalism about knowledge and externalism about content are incompatible. I criticize the incompatibilist argument and conclude that the purported incompatibility is, at best, prima facie. This is, in part, because several steps in the (...) argument are faulty and, in part, because there are promising responses available to the compatibilists. (shrink)

In at least some cases of justified perceptual belief, our perceptual experience itself, as opposed to beliefs about it, evidences and thereby justifies our belief. While the phenomenon is common, it is also mysterious. There are good reasons to think that perceptions cannot justify beliefs directly, and there is a significant challenge in explaining how they do. After explaining just how direct perceptual justification is mysterious, I considerMichael Huemers (Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, 2001) and Bill Brewers (Perception and (...) Reason, 1999) recent, but radically different, attempts to eliminate it. I argue that both are unsuccessful, though a consideration of their mistakes deepens our appreciation of the mystery. (shrink)

I interpret and defend Sellars’ intemalist view of perceptual justification which argues that perceivers have evidence for their perceptual beliefs that includes a higher-order belief about the circumstances in which those beliefs arise, and an epistemic belief about the reliability of beliefs that are formed in those circumstances. The pattem of inference that occurs in ordinary cases of perception is elicited.I then defend this account of perceptual evidence against 1) AIston’s objection that ordinary perceivers are not as critical and reflective (...) as this view requires them to be; and 2) the charge that intemalism leads to various forms of infinite regress and circular reasoning. It is granted that subjects must have further grounds for their justifying reasons, and an attempt is made to identify these second-order reasons. In particular, I argue that epistemic beliefs are grounded in the perceiver’s awareness that his present experience-cum-conditions fits into a larger pattem of similar past experiences that were reliably connected with their objects. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to develop a notion of responsibility (semantic responsibility) that is to the notion of belief what epistemic responsibility is to the notion of justification. 'Being semantically responsible' is shown to involve the fulfilment of cognitive duties which allow the agent to engage in the kind of reason-laden discourses which render her beliefs appropriately sensitive to correction. The concept of semantic responsibility suggests that the notion of belief found in contemporary philosophical debates about content implicitly encompasses (...) radically different classes of beliefs. In what follows I make those different types explicit, and sketch some implications for naturalisation projects in semantics and for accounts of the (putative) non-conceptual content of perceptual experiences. (shrink)

Questions concerning the nature of representation and what representations are about have been a staple of Western philosophy since Aristotle. Recently, these same questions have begun to concern neuroscientists, who have developed new techniques and theories for understanding how the locus of neurobiological representation, the brain, operates. My dissertation draws on philosophy and neuroscience to develop a novel theory of representational content.

This paper argues that Sosa’s virtue perspectivism fails to combine satisfactorily internalist and externalist features in a single theory. Internalism and externalism are reconciled at the price of creating a Gettier problem at the level of “reflective” or second-order knowledge. The general lesson to be learned from the critique of virtue perspectivism is that internalism and externalism cannot be combined by bifurcating justification and knowledge into an object-level and a meta-level and assigning externalism and internalism to different levels.

Content externalism about memory says that the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past environment. I defend externalism about memory by arguing that neither philosophical nor psychological considerations stand in the way of accepting the context dependency of memory that follows from externalism.

Gli approcci della tradizione filosofica alla morale si fondano prevalentemente su concetti e teorie metafisiche e teologiche. Tra i concetti etici tradizionali, il più importante è la Teoria del Comando Divino (DCT). Secondo la DCT, Dio dà fondamenti morali all’umanità attraverso la sua creazione e attraverso la Rivelazione. Moralità e Divinità sono inseparabili fin dalle civiltà più remote. Questi concetti si inseriscono in un quadro teologico e sono accettati principalmente dalla maggior parte dei seguaci delle tre tradizioni abramitiche: ebraismo, cristianesimo (...) e islam: la parte più considerevole della popolazione umana. Tenendo come fondamento la fede e la Rivelazione, le Teorie del Comando Divino non sono strettamente soggette alla dimostrazione. Gli oppositori alla concezione della morale del Comando Divino, fondata sull'impossibilità di dimostrare i suoi presupposti metafisici e religiosi, hanno tentato per molti secoli (anche se senza successo) di sminuirne l'importanza. Sostenevano che esso non presenta prove materiali e coerenza logica e, per questo motivo, non può essere preso in considerazione per scopi scientifici o filosofici. È solo una convinzione e, come tale, dovrebbe essere intesa. Oltre a queste opposizioni estreme, molti altri concetti contravvengono alle teorie del Comando Divino, in un modo o nell'altro, in parte o del tutto. Dalla filosofia greca classica fino ai giorni nostri, molti filosofi e scienziati sociali sostengono che la moralità è solo un costrutto e quindi culturalmente relativo e culturalmente determinato. Tuttavia, ciò apre la strada a molte altre discussioni e impone la sfida di determinare il significato della cultura, quali elementi della cultura siano moralmente determinanti e, infine, i confini di tale relatività. I deterministi morali affermano che tutto ciò che riguarda il comportamento umano, inclusa la moralità, è determinato una volta che il libero arbitrio non esiste. Più recentemente, i pensatori moderni hanno sostenuto che esiste una scienza rigorosa della moralità. Tuttavia, pur spiegando numerosi fatti e prove, il metodo scientifico da solo non può illuminare l’intero contenuto e il pieno significato dell’etica. La comprensione della morale richiede una percezione più ampia e un accordo tra i filosofi, cosa che essi non hanno mai raggiunto. Queste domande hanno molte configurazioni diverse a seconda di ciascun filone filosofico e danno origine ad analisi complesse e dibattiti infiniti finché molti di essi sono reciprocamente conflittuali. L'universo e l'atmosfera che coinvolgono questa ricerca sono i domini di tutti questi conflitti concettuali, osservati da un punto di vista oggettivo ed evolutivo. Indipendentemente da questa circostanza e dalla sua intrinseca importanza; tuttavia, queste domande sono lontane dall’approccio metodologico di una discussione analitica sulla morale oggettiva, che è, in effetti, lo scopo e la portata di questo lavoro. Dovremmo rivisitare brevemente queste importanti teorie tradizionali perché questo lavoro ospita uno studio comparativo e i suoi presupposti differiscono profondamente da tutte le teorie tradizionali. -/- Diventa quindi necessario offrire al lettore elementi di confronto diretti e specifici per una critica valida, dispensando ricerche interruttive. Tuttavia, anche rivisitando le teorie tradizionali, a questo scopo di esposizione comparativa e critica, esse verranno tenute ai margini delle nostre preoccupazioni primarie come “aliena materia”. Indipendentemente dalla validità di alcuni o tutti gli elementi di questa discussione e dal loro significato come universo filosofico della nostra ricerca, lo scopo di questo lavoro è dimostrare e giustificare l’esistenza e il significato degli archetipi morali preistorici sorti direttamente dal contesto sociale fondamentale e corrispondenti bisogni e sforzi per la sopravvivenza. Tali archetipi sono la definizione del fondamento essenziale dell'etica, la sua aggregazione all'inconscio collettivo e la corrispondente logica di organizzazione e trasmissione agli stadi evolutivi del genoma umano e dei diversi rapporti spazio-temporali, indipendentemente da qualsiasi esperienza contemporanea dei singoli individui. Il sistema definito da questi archetipi compone un modello sociale umano evolutivo. È questa una posizione meta etica? Sì. Inoltre, come in ogni ragionamento meta etico, bisognerebbe cercare attentamente i percorsi migliori e più coerenti, come offre la Filosofia Analitica. Pertanto, questo lavoro dovrebbe ragionevolmente dimostrare che la morale non è un prodotto culturale degli uomini civilizzati o delle società moderne. Pur essendo soggetto a molteplici aggregazioni e sottrazioni culturali, i suoi fondamenti essenziali sono archetipici e non sono mai strutturalmente mutati. Questo ragionamento induce che la moralità sia un primo attributo dell'“homo sapiens”; non è una proprietà né un accidente: integra l'essenza umana e appartiene all'identità ontologica umana. I fenomeni umani sono un processo continuo, che gioca il suo ruolo tra determinazione casuale e libero arbitrio, e dobbiamo chiederci come è iniziata la moralità e come è arrivata a noi nel presente. (shrink)

En un escrito de juventud de Peirce publicado en 1868 para el Journal of Speculative Philosophy, titulado “Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimen for Man”, el autor norteamericano intenta mostrar por qué carecemos de la capacidad para reconocer cogniciones inmediatas y por qué, a falta de tal facultad, no es posible sostener la existencia de ese tipo de cogniciones; de ahí se desprende su postura anticartesiana y antifundacionista: si no hay cogniciones inmediatas, entonces todas las cogniciones están determinadas por cogniciones previas (...) y, en consecuencia, no hay cogniciones infalibles. Esta concepción del joven Peirce según la cual toda cognición está lógica o inferencialmente determinada por una cognición previa implicaría, entonces, que toda cognición, a su vez, determinaría lógicamente a una cognición posterior. Al seguir esta tesis obtenemos, en consecuencia, una doble determinación, a saber, la de una cognición(n) siendo determinada por otra cognición(n-1) anterior, y la de esa misma cognición(n) determinando a una cognición(n+1) posterior. La tesis de la doble determinación daría lugar, por tanto, no solo a una regresión infinita de determinaciones, sino también a una progresión infinita de determinaciones. [...] Aún hoy sigue abierta la discusión acerca de si en su madurez intelectual y en los albores de su vejez Peirce continuó sosteniendo sus tesis anticartesiana y antifundacionista, de sus escritos de juventud, en relación con la determinablidad de las cogniciones previas, y si aún, en sus escritos de madurez, renunció a la tesis de la progresión infinita de determinaciones. Pero no es mi interés aquí tomar partido en esta discusión. En este escrito me concentraré solamente en dos problemas: a saber, la indeterminabilidad del significado y la explicación del error, y mostraré cómo podría ser posible enfrentarlos adoptando algunos conceptos del pragmaticismo. (shrink)

This open access book provides the first explicit case study for an application of the method of reflective equilibrium (RE), using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. It thereby makes an important and original contribution to questions of philosophical method and methodology. The book shows step-by-step how RE is applied, and develops a methodological framework which will be useful for everyone who wishes to use reflective equilibrium. With respect to precautionary principles, the book demonstrates how a rights-based precautionary (...) principle can be constructed and defended. The case study succeeds in demonstrating that RE can be successfully applied and puts real constraints on the justification process. This is all the more remarkable as the case study was designed as an open-ended process, without presupposing any specific results. This book will be highly relevant both to people interested in philosophical methodology and epistemology, as well as to researchers who are interested in using philosophical methods and tools and applying them to practical problems. (shrink)

The thesis aims at developing approaches to transport policy decisions, based on suggestions and ideas originating from moral philosophy and philosophical decision theory. Paper I analyzes the Swedish transport policy goals, and the problem of combining policygoals with welfare economics. A problem of circularity arises as the Swedish transport policygoals are conflicting, and hence must be subject to trade-offs, while several of the goals themselves entail statements on how to prioritize or restrain goals in case of conflict. Paper II analyzes (...) rationality in road safety policy. Problematic features are identified and discussed. The paper argues that the Swedish road safety goal is rational, since it is actionguiding and achievement-inducing. Paper III includes a model of rational choice under risk with biased risk perception. Under certain plausible conditions, a regulator should raise the population’s risk exposure. By deteriorating the environment the regulator can motivate drivers to choose behaviour that is less biased. Paper IV provides a formal representation of goal systems. The focus is on three properties:consistency, conflict, and coherence. It is argued that consistency is adequately regarded as a property relative to the decision situation or, more specifically, the set of alternatives that the agent faces. Conflict is adequately regarded as a relation over subsets of a given goal systemand should likewise be regarded as relative to the set of alternative that the agent faces. Coherence is given a probabilistic interpretation, based on a support relation over subsets of goal systems. Paper V investigates problems associated with standard deontic logic. A deontic predicate is derived, which avoids some of the major paradoxes in the area. In particular, paradoxes occurring when one obligation is derived by logical necessity from another obligation are dealt with. (shrink)

This thesis develops a novel framework for explaining delusions. In Chapter 1, I introduce the two fundamental challenges posed by delusions: the evidence challenge lies in explaining the flagrant ways delusions flout evidence; and the specificity challenge lies in explaining the fact that patients’ delusions are often about a few specific themes, and patients rarely have a wide range of delusional or odd beliefs. In Chapter 2, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of current theories of delusions, which typically appeal (...) to one or both of two factors: anomalous experience and reasoning abnormality. I argue that anomalous experience can help explain the specificity of delusions, but has difficulties in addressing the evidence challenge; reasoning abnormality can help address the evidence challenge, but has difficulties in explaining the specificity of delusions. This suggests that there may be an important factor that has not been captured by current theories of delusions. To search for this missing factor, in Chapter 3, I turn to normal believing. Inspired by the literature on Cartesian clarity and phenomenal dogmatism, I develop a dual-force framework of believing, according to which beliefs can be understood as the results of the interaction between the justificatory force and causal force of evidence and the justificatory force and causal force of clear experience, in which something clearly seems to be so to the subject. This framework suggests that the missing factor may be the clear experience with its distinctive phenomenal clarity that compels assent. In Chapter 4, I return to delusions, and argue that the dualforce framework can help us to get a better grip on some personal descriptions of delusions; make progress in addressing the evidence and specificity challenges of delusions; and shed new light on the underpinnings of delusions. In the end, I conclude with some remaining questions for future study. (shrink)

This thesis is a collection of three self-contained papers on related themes in the area of formal and social epistemology. The first paper explores the possibility of measuring the coherence of a set with multiplicative averaging. It has been pointed out that all the existing probabilistic measures of coherence are flawed for taking the relevance between a set of propositions as the primary factor which determines the coherence of the set. What I show in this paper is that a group (...) of measures, namely the confirmation-based ones, can be saved from this problem if we adopt a nonlinear averaging function to measure the coherence of a set. The second paper discusses how people should conciliate in disagreements. Some epistemologists take linear averaging as the only way of conciliating and claim that conciliating leads to fallacious results. In the paper, I show that the problem is not conciliating, but taking linear averaging as the only way to conciliate. Since there is no reason for us to insist on conciliating with linear averaging, we can adopt nonlinear averaging functions for conciliating and thereby avoid the formal deficiencies. The third paper focuses on the pragmatic results of taking conciliating as a general strategy in disagreements. There is a potential dilemma about conciliating: if everyone always conciliates, it is likely for an epistemic bubble to arise. If everyone refuses to conciliate, an epistemic echo chamber may appear. A possible way of solving the dilemma is to develop a diachronic strategy which tells people how to both conciliate and update their estimate of their interlocutors’ reliability. Although the three papers differ in the subject, they jointly offer some unifying reflections on the way we approach philosophical problems with formal tools. From 5 the first two papers, we see that a formal analysis of a philosophical position is incomplete if philosophers fail to consider a sufficiently wide range of formal tools. The third paper, on the contrary, shows that we should change the ordinary way of modelling a notion if required. This thesis concludes by proposing a pluralistic view of formal methods in formal epistemology. (shrink)

While there is no shortage of philosophical literature discussing knowledge by acquaintance, there is a surprising dearth of work about theories of epistemic justification based on direct acquaintance. This paper explores a basic framework for a thoroughly general account of epistemic justification by acquaintance. I argue that this approach to epistemic justification satisfies two importance aspects of justification. After sketching how the acquaintance approach can meet both objective and subjective aspects for epistemic justification, I will outline how this general account (...) of justification by acquaintance can be applied to the analysis of justification for many types of beliefs. Finally, some of the objections to the acquaintance approach will be considered and answered. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to one of the most intriguing theory that was invented by medieval theologians and philosophers in order to explain the nature of God. I am not personally keen on the theological dimension of this idea, I would rather like to focus on its promising philosophical usefulness and its explanatory power. For the very long time I was hesitating what aspect of this theory to choose as the most interesting and most illuminating. I eventually made a decision (...) that there is still a very important and unsolved problem with 'pure experience' that has nothing to do with any concepts and theories; that is totally direct and devoid of any mediating factors. It seems to be very interesting to shed a little bit of light on it and combine it with what is at first sight such an old-fashioned theory as the theory of transcendental. My paper is divided into three sections. In the first of them will consider some difficulties connected with the problem of pure experience. In the second part the theory of transcendentals is outlined. The third section contains the application of the theory of transcendental to the problem of pure experience. (shrink)

Why think that conscious experience of reality is any more epistemically valuable than testimony about it? I argue that conscious experience of reality is epistemically valuable because it provides cognitive contact with reality. Cognitive contact with reality is a goal of experiential inquiry which does not reduce to the goal of getting true beliefs or propositional knowledge. Such inquiry has awareness of the truth-makers of one’s true beliefs as its proper goal. As such, one reason why conscious experience of reality (...) is more epistemically valuable than testimony about reality is that it gives us more epistemic goods than only true belief or propositional knowledge. I defend this view from two rival accounts. First, that while conscious experience of reality has greater value than testimony, its value is only eudaimonic. Second, that while it has greater epistemic value than testimony, this value is not distinctive: for it only promotes truth better than testimony. (shrink)

Phenomenal Conservatism is an ethics of belief that has received considerable support in recent years. One of the main arguments for it is the Self-Defeat Argument. The argument claims that the denial of Phenomenal Conservatism is self-defeating. The argument is at present highly controversial, with both supporters and critics. Critics have failed to discern the real problems with the argument: (I) that there are reasons to deny Phenomenal Conservatism that avoid the self-defeat in question and (II) the conclusion of the (...) Self-Defeat Argument, even if true, is still compatible with our properly denying Phenomenal Conservatism. I spell out these problems in more detail here. (shrink)

In this thesis, I elaborate and defend Donald Davidson's account of knowing one's own mental states that exhibit first-person authority. To that end, I place Davidson's account among others in the philosophical landscape concerning self-knowledge. Next, I examine his response to philosophical challenges that arise from mental content externalism and self-deception. Finally, I draw some insights froms Davidson's account to the broader aims of epsitemology.