In this thesis, I will explore the epistemological evolutionary debunking arguments in meta-ethics. I will defend these arguments by accomplishing two tasks: I will offer the best way to understand the EDA and I will also respond to two strongest objections to the EDA. Firstly, in Part I of this thesis, I will offer my account of how the EDA should be best formulated. I will start from how evolution has significantly influenced our moral beliefs. I will then explain why, (...) due to their evolutionary origin, our moral beliefs are not tracking the moral truth reliably. Furthermore, I will argue that the fact that our moral beliefs are not tracking the moral truth also provides an undercutting and a higher-order defeater for those beliefs. As a result, I will conclude that the epistemic status of our moral beliefs is undermined because of these two kinds of defeaters. Secondly, in Part II of this thesis, I will turn my attention to the two strongest objections to the EDA – the Conceptual Truth Objection and the Third Factor Objection. I will first offer two responses to the Conceptual Truth Objection and, based on these two responses, I will argue that the Conceptual Truth Objection fails as a challenge to the EDA. I will then also argue that there currently doesn’t exist an acceptable version of the Third Factor Objection and it is also unlikely that such a version could be constructed in the future. I will finally conclude that both objections are problematic and they are thus unable to give us reason to doubt the EDA. (shrink)

When we deal with complex things, like human subjects or organizations, we deal with identity – that which makes a person or an organization what it is and distinguishes him/her/it from other persons or organizations, a kind of “self”. Our identity determines how we think about and interact with others. It will be argued in this chapter that the self is constituted relationally. Moreover, when we are in the realm of the self, we are always already in the realm of (...) engaging with and mediating differences – the realm of ethics. The position which will be developed argues that approaching identity as a complex system allows us to resist thinking of identity as an easily identifiable and static entity. Identity is always being constituted within a complex and contingent world, where we have to make choices based on contingent values rather than on universal knowledge or the outcome of rational calculations. As a result, we have to keep in mind that our daily practices always already have an ethical component, and our decisions need to be continually evaluated and re-evaluated in the light of our (and others’) varying identities. (shrink)

This licentiate thesis consists of three essays which all concern the ethics of imprisonment and what constitutes an ethically defensible treatment of criminal offenders. Paper 1 defends the claim that prisoners have a right to privacy. I argue that the right to privacy is important because of its connection to moral agency. For that reasons is the protection of inmates’ right to privacy also warranted by different established philosophical theories about the justification of legal punishment. I discuss the practical implications (...) of this argument. Ultimately I argue the invasion of privacy should be minimized to the greatest extent possible without compromising other important values and rights to safety and security. In defending this position, I argue that respect for inmates’ privacy should be part of the objective of creating and upholding a secure environment to better effect in the long run. Paper 2 discusses whether the collateral harm of imprisonment to the close family members and children of prison inmates may give rise to special moral obligations towards them. Several collateral harms, including decreased psychological wellbeing, financial costs, loss of economic opportunities, and intrusion and control over their private lives, are identified. Two competing perspectives in moral philosophy are applied in order to assess whether the harms are permissible. The first is consequentialist and the second is deontological, and it is argued that both of them fails and therefore it is hard to defend the position that allowing for these harms would be morally permissible, even for the sake of the overall aims of incarceration. Instead, it is argued that these harms imply that imprisonment should only be used as a last resort. Where it is necessary, imprisonment should give rise to special moral obligations towards families of prisoners. Using the notion of residual obligation, these obligations are defended, categorized and clarified. Paper 3 evaluates electronic monitoring from an ethical perspective and discusses whether it could be a promising alternative to imprisonment as a criminal sanction for a series of criminal offenses. EM evaluated from an ethical perspective as six initial ethical challenges are addressed and discussed. It is argued that since EM is developing as a technology and a punitive means, it is urgent to discuss its ethical implications and incorporate moral values into its design and development. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and criticize a number of influential contemporary anti-skeptical strategies inspired by G.E. Moore’s “proof of an external world”. I argue that these accounts cannot represent a valid response to skeptical worries. Furthermore, drawing on Wittgenstein’s criticisms of Moore, I argue that Radical skeptical hypotheses should be considered nonsensical combinations of signs, excluded from our epistemic practices.

State of the art paper on the problem of induction: how to justify the conclusion that ‘all Fs are Gs’ from the premise that ‘all observed Fs are Gs’. The most prominent theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, such as: inductivism, reliabilism, perspective of laws of nature, rationalism, falsificationism, the material theory of induction and probabilistic approaches, according to Carnap, Reichenbach and Bayesianism. In the end, we discuss the new problem of induction of Goodman, raised by the (...) grue predicate. (shrink)

The dissertation examines the nature and epistemic implications of epistemic source circularity. An argument exhibits this type of circularity when at least one of the premises is produced by a belief source the conclusion says is legitimate, e.g. a track record argument for the legitimacy of sense perception that uses premises produced by sense perception. In chapter one I examine this and several other types of circularity, identifying relevant similarities and differences between them. In chapter two I discuss the differences (...) between internalist and externalist analyses of justification. I examine in detail foundationalist and non-foundationalist versions of internalism, and go on to consider how one might characterize externalism: either negatively, by denying particular internalist theses, or positively, in terms of a theory offering different conditions for justification. I discuss the views of reliabilist foundationalists at length. In chapter three I present the internalist objection to externalism that the latter mistakenly permit one to be justified in believing the conclusion of an epistemic source circular inference. I explain the externalists' response that it is not in virtue of their externalism that they permit epistemic source circularity but rather their foundationalism; thus, internalist foundationalists must permit epistemic source circularity as well. I evaluate the positions of several internalists, most of them explicitly foundationalists, and argue that they too cannot avoid permitting epistemic source circularity. In the final chapter I consider whether such circularity is vicious, even though both internalist and externalist foundationalists permit it. I argue that one can sustain an objection to epistemic source circularity by imposing a non-question-begging requirement on justification and explain how respecting this requirement leads one to a non-foundationalist view. I conclude by considering the objection that question-begging leads to a certain arbitrariness in belief formation that should give the foundationalist pause when it comes to determining, at the beginning of inquiry, which beliefs are justified and which are not. The dissertation is primarily concerned with making clear the possible skeptical and non-skeptical positions one can take towards epistemic source circularity. I do not argue for the truth of a particular metaepistemology. (shrink)

In the conclusion to the first book of the Treatise, Hume's skeptical reflections have plunged him into melancholy. He then proceeds through a complex series of stages, resulting in renewed interest in philosophy. Interpreters have struggled to explain the connection between the stages. I argue that Hume's repeated invocation of the four humors of ancient and medieval medicine explains the succession, and sheds a new light on the significance of skepticism. The humoral context not only reveals that Hume conceives of (...) skepticism primarily as a temperament, not a philosophical view or system. It also resolves a puzzle about how Hume can view skepticism as both an illness and a cure. The skeptical temperament can, depending on its degree of predominance, either contribute to or upset the balance of temperaments required for proper mental functioning. (shrink)

I discuss three understandings of the idea of “Knowledge First Epistemology”, i.e. Timothy Williamson’s suggestion that we should take knowledge as a starting point, rather than trying to analyze it. Some have taken this to be a suggestion about the role of the concept of knowledge, but Williamson also seems to be concerned with intuition-based metaphysics. As an alternative, I develop the idea that knowledge may be a social kind that can be understood through a functional analysis in the tradition (...) of Edward Craig. (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.

This paper explores a few of the ways that the Zhuang-Zi can inform contemporary analytic epistemology. I begin, in section 1, by briefly outlining and summarizing the case for my fictionalist interpretation of the text. In section 2, I discuss how the Zhuang-Zi can be brought into productive dialogue with the question of how we should respond to skeptical arguments. Specifically, I argue that the Zhuang-Zi can be reasonably interpreted as exemplifying an approach that is different from dominant contemporary responses (...) to skeptical arguments in three ways: it is fictionalist; it motivates a skeptical perspective rather than a claim; and it accomplishes its aims in an atypical, but nonetheless contextually appropriate, way. However, the Zhuang-Zi is relevant to contemporary debates about skeptical arguments because it can be used: to respond to the same sorts of skeptical arguments that occupy contemporary commentators; to address a number of questions that arise in connection with such arguments; and to suggest important new questions for epistemologists to pursue. (shrink)

Everyday life reasoning and argumentation is defeasible and uncertain. I present a probability logic framework to rationally reconstruct everyday life reasoning and argumentation. Coherence in the sense of de Finetti is used as the basic rationality norm. I discuss two basic classes of approaches to construct measures of argument strength. The first class imposes a probabilistic relation between the premises and the conclusion. The second class imposes a deductive relation. I argue for the second class, as the first class is (...) problematic if the arguments involve conditionals. I present a measure of argument strength that allows for dealing explicitly with uncertain conditionals in the premise set. (shrink)

Davidson’s antisceptical considerations, like Putnam’s, are transcendental in character: they start from facts that the sceptic has to accept, and are intended to show that those facts would not be such if the sceptical hypotheses were true. It is doubtful that these considerations are finally successful. However, I do not think that Davidson was really interested in a detailed refutation of scepticism. His interest focused instead on the context which gives rise to it: the Cartesian image of the relationships between (...) subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and objectivity. Correspondingly, the true value of Davidson’s antisceptical reflections lies in the alternative image that inspires them, in the light of which scepticism no longer appears as an urgent and interesting problem. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should reject G. E. Moore’s anti-skeptical argument as it is presented in “Proof of an External World.” However, the reason I offer is different from traditional objections. A proper understanding of Moore’s “proof” requires paying attention to an important distinction between two forms of skepticism. I call these Ontological Skepticism and Epistemic Skepticism. The former is skepticism about the ontological status of fundamental reality, while the latter is skepticism about our empirical knowledge. Philosophers often assume (...) that Moore’s response to “external world skepticism” deals exclusively with the former, not the latter. But this is a mistake. I shall argue that Moore’s anti-skeptical argument targets an ontological form of skepticism. Thus, the conclusion is an ontological claim about fundamental reality, while the premises are epistemic claims. If this is correct, then the conclusion outstrips the scope of its premises and proves too much. (shrink)

This chapter presents a new semantics for inductive empirical knowledge. The epistemic agent is represented concretely as a learner who processes new inputs through time and who forms new beliefs from those inputs by means of a concrete, computable learning program. The agent’s belief state is represented hyper-intensionally as a set of time-indexed sentences. Knowledge is interpreted as avoidance of error in the limit and as having converged to true belief from the present time onward. Familiar topics are re-examined within (...) the semantics, such as inductive skepticism, the logic of discovery, Duhem’s problem, the articulation of theories by auxiliary hypotheses, the role of serendipity in scientific knowledge, Fitch’s paradox, deductive closure of knowability, whether one can know inductively that one knows inductively, whether one can know inductively that one does not know inductively, and whether expert instruction can spread common inductive knowledge—as opposed to mere, true belief—through a community of gullible pupils. (shrink)

Philosophers of information, according to Luciano Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p 32), study how information should be “adequately created, processed, managed, and used.” A small number of epistemologists have employed the concept of information as a cornerstone of their theoretical framework. How this concept can be used to make sense of seemingly intractable epistemological problems, however, has not been widely explored. This paper examines Fred Dretske’s information-based epistemology, in particular his response to radical epistemological (...) skepticism. We discuss the relationship between information, evidence and knowledge in relation to the problem of skepticism and the options available to an information-based epistemology for dealing with it. (shrink)

Philosophical work on free will, contemporary as well as historical, is inevitably framed by the problem of free will and determinism. One of my goals in what follows is to give a feel for the main lines of that debate in philosophy today. I will also be outlining a particular perspective on free will. Many working philosophers consider themselves Compatibilists; the perspective outlined, building on a number of arguments in the recent literature, is a contemporary form of such a view. (...) It cannot, however, claim to be the contemporary philosophical perspective. There is no such thing. Against a background of the perennial problem of free will and determinism, through ongoing argument and debate, philosophers continue to try to work toward an understanding of precisely what it means for an action to be free. (shrink)

There are many important dimensions of epistemic evaluation, one of which is justification. We don’t just evaluate beliefs for truth, reliability, accuracy, and knowledge, but also for justification. However, in the epistemological literature, there is much disagreement about the nature of justification and how it should be understood. One of the controversies that has separated the contemporary epistemological discourse into two opposing camps has to do with the internalism-externalism distinction. Whereas internalists defend certain core assumptions about justification from the pre-Gettier (...) tradition, externalists generally think that the traditional conception is untenable and should be replaced. In this compilation thesis, I argue for, defend, and develop a particular brand of internalism, both in general and with respect to specific sources of justification. In papers 1 and 2, I defend a couple of well-known arguments for mentalism and accessibilism. Moreover, I also point out how prominent versions of these theses are vulnerable to serious problems (e.g., about over-intellectualization and vicious regresses). Part of my goal in the first couple of papers is to figure out what commitments the internalist should take on in order to avoid the externalist's objections, while at the same time receiving support from considerations that have motivated internalism in the past. In papers 3 and 4, I start from the assumption that mentalism is true and attempt to answer the following questions: 1) which non-factive mental states can play a justification-conferring role with respect to empirical belief? And 2) why does this set of states play the epistemic role it does? In response to question 1, I argue that all and only one's beliefs and perceptual experiences have justificatory relevance. In response to question 2, I argue that one's beliefs and perceptual experiences are one's strongly representational states, and that strongly representational states necessarily provide support to certain empirical propositions. Having done so, I then defend mentalism about scientific evidence from a couple of prominent objections in the recent literature. Lastly, in papers 5 and 6, I argue for a particular brand of internalism about testimonial and memorial justification and show how that position has a dialectical advantage over its main competitors. (shrink)

When investigating the nature of culinary works, it is easy to take for granted that they all share the same ontology. This paper argues that, on the contrary, the ontology of culinary works is really threefold. Some culinary works are edible concrete particulars, or dishes, as many of us may first assume. But others are types, or multiply realisable abstract entities. And, while some of these types are determined by one recipe, others are rather chased after by their indefinitely many (...) recipes. So, there are really three kinds of culinary works; only those belonging to one of the three are edible per se; and, each kind has a very different relationship to recipes. Indeed, it is very doubtful that culinary works consisting in edible concrete particulars are suitable to have one or more recipes: by exploring what are the requirements for being a recipe, the paper also examines under what necessary conditions there is a recipe for preparing a culinary work qua concrete particular. (shrink)

Review of the book: Pritchard, D.. Epistemic Angst. Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.

It is claimed that the radical sceptical problem that is the focus of much of contemporary epistemological discussion in fact divides into two logically distinct subproblems --a formulation that turns on the closure principle, and a second formulation which turns on the underdetermination principle. The Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation is set out, and it is shown how this proposal --at least when properly formulated--can deal with closure-based radical scepticism. It is also claimed, however, that this account (...) fails to gain any purchase on underdetermination-based radical scepticism. The antidote to this latter form of radical scepticism lies elsewhere--with, it is suggested, epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

In the dissertation, I consider the permissibility of a familiar set of responses to wrongdoing in our interpersonal relationships—those responses that constitute the imposition of some cost upon the wrongdoer. Some of these responses are, I argue, properly considered punishing, and some of these instances of punishing are in turn permissible. Punishment as I understand it is a broad phenomenon, common in and to all human relationships, and not exclusively or even primarily the domain of the state. Personal interactions expressive (...) of wrong-reactive attitudes like disappointment, anger, and guilt will sometimes constitute punishment so understood. I consider childhood punishment, self-punishment, and punishment between friends, concluding that punishment in the context of our personal relationships may sometimes be appropriate where undertaken not for the sake of deterrence nor of retributive justice, but for the sake of the aims constitutive of the relationship in which it occurs. (shrink)

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)

Semantic contextualism is often used in order to offer solutions for problems in other branches of philosophy, including epistemology. One of such attempts is epistemic contextualism, according to which the semantic value of the word “knows” changes with the context of its utterance. The aim of this paper is to critically investigate Keith DeRose’s contextualism to see up to what extent does it provide a valid anti-sceptical strategy. I argue that while it can be seen as a good rival for (...) global and Ungerian scepticism, it does not lead to the refutation of other variants of classical scepticism. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of the problem of beliefs about oneself, or so-called de se beliefs: for example, the beliefs that I would express by saying 'I am left-handed' or 'I am in Massachusetts'. The problem arises against the background conception of belief as a propositional attitude, i.e., as a relation between conscious subjects and abstract entities that are either true or false absolutely. ;Many philosophers have recently argued that the intentional objects of one's de se beliefs could not (...) be propositions: since, e.g., I can believe the proposition that Neil Feit is left-handed without believing myself to be left-handed , and I can believe any proposition expressed by a sentence of the form 'the F is left-handed'--where 'the F' is a qualitative description--without believing myself to be left-handed . ;I take the position that the argument is sound, and, after surveying various attempts to solve the problem, I defend the self-ascription view of belief: viz., the view that to have a belief is to ascribe a property to oneself. For example, I believe that I am left-handed simply by self-ascribing the property of being left-handed. ;I defend the view against various objections to it, discuss its relations to other views about the objects of belief and the other attitudes, and maintain that it can account for the acceptance of propositions and for beliefs about particular individuals as well as for beliefs directly about oneself. I argue that belief states are best taken to be self-ascribed properties, and try to solve some problems about de re belief from the perspective of the self-ascription view. (shrink)

Moore's Open Question Arguments are among the most influential arguments in 20th Century metaethical thought. But, surprisingly, there is a fair amount of confusion concerning what the Open Question Arguments actually are, how the Moorean passages should be interpreted, and what they are intended to show. Thus, the early chapters are devoted to clarificatory matters, including the exposing of a variety of contemporary attacks upon Moore's arguments as misguided by indicating where they rest upon faulty interpretations of Moorean passages. Providing (...) what I take to be accurate formulations of Moore's famous arguments, responding to historically important preliminary objections, and, finally, presenting various shortcomings of these arguments constitute the remaining themes of the early chapters. ;Next, I pursue an explanation of what I call the 'Open Question phenomenon': the inclination that many have to endorse Moore's "open question" premises. I survey a variety of popular noncognitivist explanations, arguing that each of them is unsatisfactory. I then present a novel semantic explanation of the phenomenon and use it to construct an augmented Moorean Open Question Argument, one capable of overcoming the shortcomings of Moore's originals. ;The latter chapters are dedicated to an investigation of Moore's preferred normative theory---a version of objective consequentialism. I argue that the standard semantic account of subjunctive conditionals fails to capture the nature of certain subjunctive conditionals relevant to the normative evaluation of alternatives from an objective consequentialist perspective. I then present a modified version of the standard account in an effort to remedy the problem. ;Next, I present a novel objection against all extant versions of objective consequentialism. I then introduce and utilize the concept of an "objective" subjunctive probability in the transformation of a subjective version of consequentialism into an objective version, one capable of dealing with the difficulties posed by the objection. ;I conclude the dissertation with a final chapter in which I defend possibilist versions of consequentialism from a contemporary objection. In doing so, I elucidate a theoretical advantage that possibilist theories have over their subjunctive counterparts. (shrink)

In this dissertation I attempt to develop a better understanding of knowledge and belief. In Chapter 1 I offer an analysis of knowledge-wh . I argue that knowledge-wh ascriptions express that a subject stands in the knowledge relation to a question--where to stand in this knowledge relation to a question is to know an answer to the question. Additionally I adopt a contextualist picture of knowledge- wh . I raise some problems for invariantism about knowledge- wh and I argue that (...) contextualism about knowledge-wh fits nicely with a very natural understanding of the semantics of interrogatives, and the nature of questions. In Chapter 2 consider whether knowledge-how is importantly different from knowledge-wh . I argue that 'knows how' is ambiguous, but on one sense knowledge-how ascriptions should be treated just like the other knowledge ascriptions with interrogative complements. Hence this type of knowledge-how is not fundamentally distinct from knowledge-wh . In Chapter 3 I reconsider various theories about knowledge and knowledge- that ascriptions in light of our conclusions about knowledge- wh ascriptions. It seems that doing so can help adjudicate between contextualism and invariantism about knowledge-that and may help determine which form of contextualism about knowledge-that is the most plausible. In Chapter 4 I consider whether there is some fact about the nature of the attitudes that determines the verb's complement selection. Some have suggested that the embedding behavior of attitude verbs is correlated with the factivity of the attitude verb. I evaluate this suggestion and the possible explanations for the embedding behavior of the various attitude verbs. I attempt to determine the extent to which the factivity of verbs is correlated with their embedding behavior and I attempt to explain why factivity plays such an important role. I argue that these facts can provide important insights into the nature of the attitudes. In Chapter 5 I explore the way in which knowledge and action are related in an important way. I consider the claim that it is appropriate to treat the proposition that p as a reason for action if and only if you know that p . I first present and explain the principle. Next I consider some objections to the proposal, and I argue that none of these objections is successful. I claim that the contrastivist, in particular, has several moves available in the face of the alleged problems with this Reason-Knowledge principle. (shrink)

Is a universal meaning of life (MoL) possible? In this paper I argue for an affirmative answer: Starting out from the MoL's initial definition as "the active and successful pursuit of the ultimate end in life (UEiL)" and another initial definition of the UEiL, I first introduce four UEiL and MoL categories. In the context of their discussion, I add the elements of non-physical relation and universal scope to the definitions of UEiL and MoL (sect. 2). After those more general (...) aspects, the discussion turns to the specifics of mental evolution and evolvedness. In this respect, the concept of traditional organic or physicalistic evolution is expanded to one of 'holistic evolution,' a distinction between holistic evolutionary process, the UEiL of mental evolution and the virtue of mental evolvedness is established, and the definition of as well as the chain of arguments for this paper's universalistic 'mental evolution account' of the MoL is rounded off (sect. 3). (shrink)

This dissertation examines some of ways of evaluating beliefs, relevant to epistemology and to metaphysics. Some problems in normative epistemology are solved by properly relating justified belief, rational belief, and knowledge. Chapter 1 uses this strategy to defend externalism about justified belief. Chapters 3 and 4 defend the view that knowledge is the epistemic standard we aim for our beliefs to meet. Chapter 2 investigates which beliefs are improper because formed in an objectionably circular way. The findings support the Moorean (...) response to Brain-In-a-Vat skepticism, by rebutting the objection from ‘easy knowledge’. The theory of justified belief developed in chapter 1 underwrites the Moorean reply. Chapters 5 and 6 make a non-epistemic way of evaluating beliefs central to metaphysics. To understand relativity or vagueness in a subject-matter, we must hold that being true or false is not the metaphysically serious evaluation of how a belief answers to reality. Either verdict on a borderline case is ‘acceptable’ in the metaphysically serious sense. For a matter to be relative is for the ‘acceptability’ of affirming the proposition to vary between judges. Chapters 5 and 6 sketch an approach to metaphysics built from the notion of ‘metaphysically acceptable judgment’, with chapter 6 concentrating on vagueness, and chapter 5 focusing on relativism about knowledge. Chapter 5 argues that the lottery and preface puzzles manifest central features of our concept of knowledge. The proposed version of relativism about knowledge is the only theory to respect those features. The view of knowledge presented in chapter 5 is not an isolated metaphysical extravagance, as the same framework is needed for the right metaphysics of everything that’s vague. It is worth noting that my solution to the lottery puzzle is metaphysical relativism about knowledge, but my rebuttal of Brain-In-a-Vat skepticism concerns epistemic circularity and belongs to normative epistemology. Much recent work incorrectly assumes that the two puzzles receive the same treatment. (shrink)

The Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels published his essay "On 'Gestalt Qualities'" in 1890. The essay initiated a current of thought which enjoyed a powerful position in the philosophy and psychology of the first half of this century and has more recently enjoyed a minor resurgence of interest in the area of cognitive science, above all in criticisms of the so-called 'strong programme' in artificial intelligence. The theory of Gestalt is of course associated most specifically with psychologists of the Berlin (...) school such as Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka. We shall see in what follows, however, that an adequate philosophical understanding of the Gestalt idea and of Ehrenfels' achievement will require a close examination not merely of the work of the Berlin school but also of a much wider tradition in Austrian and German philosophy in general. (shrink)

Moral nihilism maintains that value judgments cannot be justified. In this paper I argue against two prominent nihilistic theories: error theory and expressivism. First I present a meta-valuation thesis, which holds that it would be more valuable if at least some value judgments were justified. Second I argue for a value-justification thesis, which holds that the greater value of value-justifying theories warrants a rejection of nihilistic theories. This latter thesis requires a pragmatist premise: justified beliefs are the most valuable of (...) possible beliefs. With this premise and a critique of meta-ethical theory choice, I argue that meta-ethical justification proceeds via an atypical form of the method of reflective equilibrium. Since this particular method cannot produce a justification for error theory or expressivism, I conclude that these two forms of moral nihilism should be rejected in favor of more valuable meta-ethical theories. (shrink)

The notion of an ideal reasoner has several uses in epistemology. Often, ideal reasoners are used as a parameter of (maximum) rationality for finite reasoners (e.g. humans). However, the notion of an ideal reasoner is normally construed in such a high degree of idealization (e.g. infinite/unbounded memory) that this use is unadvised. In this dissertation, I investigate the conditions under which an ideal reasoner may be used as a parameter of rationality for finite reasoners. In addition, I present and justify (...) the research program of computational epistemology, which investigates the parameter of maximum rationality for finite reasoners using computer simulations. (shrink)

Many have thought that it is impossible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic that we have knowledge of the external world. This paper aims to show how this could be done. I argue, while appealing only to premises that a skeptic could accept, that it is not rational to believe external world skepticism, because doing so commits one to more extreme forms of skepticism in a way that is self-undermining. In particular, the external world skeptic is ultimately committed to (...) believing a proposition P while believing that she shouldn’t believe P, an irrational combination of beliefs. Suspending judgment on skepticism is also problematic, for similar reasons; and, I argue, rational dilemmas are not possible; so, we should believe that skepticism is false. (shrink)

The following thesis starts from the question «why be moral?» and adresses an action-theoretic strategy for answering this question in the positive by reference to the constitutive natur of actions. In these debates, the epistemology of action has turned into a central issue. The thesis adresses these debates and develops a novel account of the epistemology: an account that may well turn out to provide a ground for the aforementioned constitutivist strategies.

A lengthy reply to several critical discussions of _Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study_ appearing in the _Journal of Philosophy of Life_. The contributors are from a variety of philosophical traditions, including the Anglo-American, Continental and East Asian (especially Buddhist and Japanese) ones.

Let Entitlement Epistemology be the theory of knowledge which says that entitlement—a special kind of unearned warrant to accept or believe—can help us successfully address a range of sceptical arguments. Prominent versions of this theory urge that epistemology should not be concerned with knowledge (and similar externalist states) but rather with justification, warrant, and entitlement (at least insofar as these are conceived of as internalist states). Knowledge does not come first, half-way, or even last in epistemological theorising—rather, it ought to (...) come nowhere. The goal in what follows is two-fold: Firstly, to assess whether this extreme internalist version of Entitlement Epistemology is at all sustainable. (We shall find that it is not.) Secondly, to articulate a version of Entitlement Epistemology which arguably does much better. On the view to be explored, knowledge does not drop out of the epistemological picture: if we allow that there can be warrant for nothing, then there can be knowledge for nothing too. (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)

Our knowledge forms a highly interconnected and dynamically changing body of propositions. One obviously important way that knowledge changes is via rational inference, based either upon new insight into the content of what we already know or upon new knowledge provided by the senses. The most obvious codification of the acceptability of inference driven knowledge growth is the so-called known entailment closure principle, the principle that if S knows that p and knows that p implies q then S knows that (...) q, or, more formally. (shrink)

This Dissertation argues for a care-centrically grounded account of relational personhood and widely realized diachronic personal identity. The moral distinction between persons and non-persons is arguably one of the most salient ethical lines we can draw since many of our most fundamental rights are delineated via the bounds of personhood. The problem with drawing such morally salient lines is that the orthodox, rationalistic definition of personhood, which is widespread within philosophical, medical, and colloquial spheres, excludes, and thereby de-personifies, a large (...) number and a great variety of human beings such as neonates, young children, the elderly who suffer from dementia, individuals with severe cognitive disabilities, and patients in vegetative states. The reconceptualization of personhood necessary for a more inclusive definition ought to originate with an appropriate moral grounding. To this end, this Dissertation grounds the notion of personhood in the care ethical sphere, thereby emphasizing the role of care relations in the maintenance of the moral consideration of vulnerable individuals. This Dissertation argues that grounding the concept of a person in care relations entails a relational account of personhood, which, along with the insights of the Extended Mind and Social Manifestation Theses, leads to an extended and externalized understanding of diachronic identity, which allows fragile people to be held in their personal identities even if they themselves lack the capacities usually associated with moral personhood. As we trace a person’s identity through time, we track the various relational properties, which constitute personal narratives and thus act as a glue that binds such dynamic and often unique properties into stable, trackable narratives. Since care relations are morally relevant on a care-centric account of personhood, what is lost in cases where such care relating ceases is not merely of sentimental value, but of great moral importance as well. Morally meaningful care relations are not replaceable, and, by extension, neither are the narratives that are constituted by such unique and irreplaceable instances of relating. This Dissertation argues that the constitutive care relational nature of personal narratives makes such narratives irreplaceable and is precisely what makes persons so morally precious. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that a correct analysis of knowledge must take empirical data into consideration. The data here provided is from experimental psychology, namely from phenomena involving unconscious cognition.

Evolutionary psychology claims biological inclinations for certain behaviors (e.g., a desire for more frequent sex and more sexual partners by males as compared to females), and the origin of these inclinations in natural selection. Jerry Fodor’s recent book, The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way (2000), grants the nativist case for such biological grounding but disputes the presumed certainty of its origin in natural selection. Nevertheless, there is today a consensus that at least some of the claims of evolutionary psychology are (...) true, and their broad appeal suggests that many see them as easy insights into and possible license for some controversial behaviors. Evolutionary psychologists, on the other hand, caution that an origin in natural selection implies only an inclination for certain behaviors, and not that the behaviors will be true of all people, will lead to happiness or are morally correct. But such cautions can be as facile as the simplistic positions they are intended to counter. A biological basis implies tendencies to behaviors that will be pleasurable when engaged in, and that can be modified to an extent and at a psychic cost that is, at best, not fully understood. Also, while it is true that naturally selected behaviors are not necessarily moral, the implications of current evolutionary psychology cast doubt on any absolute foundation for morality at all, as well as suggesting limits on our ability to fully understand both ourselves and the universe around us. However, this does not mean that our (relative) values or apparent free will are any less real or important for us. (shrink)

If you put chimpanzees from different communities together you can expect mayhem - they are not keen on treating each other nicely. There is closely related species of apes, however, whose members have countless encounters with unrelated specimen on a daily basis and yet almost all get through the day in one piece - that species is us, homo sapiens. But what makes us get along, most of the time? Morality as such is, perhaps surprisingly, not a mainstream research topic (...) in social psychology. Most textbooks in the field do not even mention the term morality at all (and focus on 'prosociality' instead). This relative lack of 'coverage' might have to do with the difficulty of operationalising 'morality' in a fitting way (more on this below). However, morality certainly is a social phenomenon and therefore the collection of Fargas, Jussim, and Van Lange is certainly a step in the right direction; it offers an extensive overview of the field and is suggestive of the vast potential of studying morality through the lens of social psychology. (shrink)

Imagine slicing your hand with a steak knife. Inevitably, this leads to a characteristic unpleasant sensation, and just as reliably, to a withdrawal of the wounded limb. But can this rather mundane fact--and other similar facts--shed any light on the mind-body problem or the issue of the role of experience in causing behavior? In my dissertation, I explore this issue head on, and in the process clarify and criticize the arguments of philosophers who have given an affirmative answer to this (...) question--philosophers such as William James and Herbert Spencer. These arguments have coupled evidence like the above with the fact that human beings have evolved, in order to make the case that epiphenomenalism with respect to qualia is false. My first task will be to formulate a rigorous version of a James-Spencer style argument, which will occupy us in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is dedicated to answering a number of objections to the argument, in an effort to show that if there is a problem with it, this problem lies elsewhere. Chapter 3 explores alternative arguments in the spirit of the original one formulated in Chapter 1, and discusses any resulting effects on the plausibility of the conclusion. Chapter 4 is the capstone chapter of the dissertation. In it, I discuss a crucial objection to all arguments in the spirit of that given in the first chapter--namely, that physicalism has analogous flaws to epiphenomenalism where accommodating the relevant evidence is concerned. My conclusions in this final chapter are twofold. First, that even if there is no fatal flaw in the general strategy the evolutionary argument employs, it works against all forms of dualism, not just epiphenomenalism. And second, the accusations made in the objection are correct; physicalism suffers from problems analogous to those faced by epiphenomenalism. Although the primary findings of the dissertation are negative, there are many lessons we can take from them along the way. Most prominent among them is an improved perspective on the appropriate roles of empirical findings and armchair philosophical theorizing in debate over the mind-body problem. (shrink)