One possible aim of epistemology is to advise cognizers on the proper choice of beliefs or other doxastic attitudes. This aim has often been part of scientific methodology: to tell scientists when they should accept a given hypothesis, or give it a certain degree of credence. This regulative function is naturally linked to the notion of epistemic justification. It may well be suggested that a cognizer is justified in believing something just in case the rules of proper epistemic procedure prescribe (...) that belief. Principles that make such doxastic prescriptions might thereby "double" as principles of justification. In the first part of this paper I contrast the regulative conception of justification with another, equally tenable, conception. Then, after noting a fundamental worry about the applicability of the regulative conception, I proceed to lay it out in more detail. The regulative justificational status of a doxastic attitude for person S at time t depends upon (a) the right set of doxastic instructions and (b) the states S is in at (or just before) t. (shrink)

Intellectual diary of a thinker of the school of Logical Positivism showing the day-by-day development of his philosophical ideas.

A pervasive and influential argument appeals to trivial truths to demonstrate that the aim of inquiry is not the acquisition of truth. But the argument fails, for it neglects to distinguish between the complexity of the sentence used to express a truth and the complexity of the truth expressed by a sentence.

What is it to know more? By what metric should the quantity of one's knowledge be measured? I start by examining and arguing against a very natural approach to the measure of knowledge, one on which how much is a matter of how many. I then turn to the quasi-spatial notion of counterfactual distance and show how a model that appeals to distance avoids the problems that plague appeals to cardinality. But such a model faces fatal problems of its own. (...) Reflection on what the distance model gets right and where it goes wrong motivates a third approach, which appeals not to cardinality, nor to counterfactual distance, but to similarity. I close the paper by advocating this model and briefly discussing some of its significance for epistemic normativity. In particular, I argue that the 'trivial truths' objection to the view that truth is the goal of inquiry rests on an unstated, but false, assumption about the measure of knowledge, and suggest that a similarity model preserves truth as the aim of belief in an intuitively satisfying way. (shrink)

An intellectual virtue is a quality bound to help maximize one’s surplus of truth over error; or so let us assume for now, though a more just conception may include as desiderata also generality, coherence, and explanatory power, unless the value of these is itself explained as derivative from the character of their contribution precisely to one’s surplus of truth over error. This last is an issue I mention in order to lay it aside. Here we assume only a teleological (...) conception of intellectual virtue, the relevant end being a proper relation to the truth, exact requirements of such propriety not here fully specified. (shrink)

What is the relationship between understanding and knowing? This paper offers a defence of reductionism about understanding: the view that instances of understanding reduce to instances of knowing. I argue that knowing is both necessary and sufficient for understanding. I then outline some advantages of reductionism.

In this impressive second edition of Theory of Knowledge, Keith Lehrer introduces students to the major traditional and contemporary accounts of knowing. Beginning with the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief, Lehrer explores the truth, belief, and justification conditions on the way to a thorough examination of foundation theories of knowledge,the work of Platinga, externalism and naturalized epistemologies, internalism and modern coherence theories, contextualism, and recent reliabilist and causal theories. Lehrer gives all views careful examination and concludes that (...) external factors must be matched by appropriate internal factors to yield knowledge. This match of internal and external factors follows from Lehrer’s new coherence theory of undefeated justification. In addition to doing justice to the living epistemological traditions, the text smoothly integrates several new lines that will interest scholars. Also, a feature of special interest is Lehrer’s concept of a justification game.This second edition of Theory of Knowledge is a thoroughly revised and updated version that contains several completely new chapters. Written by a well-known scholar and contributor to modern epistemology, this text is distinguished by clarity of structure, accessible writing, and an elegant mix of traditional material, contemporary ideas, and well-motivated innovation. (shrink)

The literature on the nature of understanding can be divided into two broad camps. Explanationists believe that it is knowledge of explanations that is key to understanding. In contrast, their manipulationist rivals maintain that understanding essentially involves an ability to manipulate certain representations. The aim of this paper is to provide a novel knowledge based account of understanding. More specifically, it proposes an account of maximal understanding of a given phenomenon in terms of fully comprehensive and maximally well-connected knowledge of (...) it and of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such knowledge. It is completed by a contextualist semantics for outright attributions of understanding according to which an attribution of understanding is true of one just in case one knows enough about it to perform some contextually determined task. It is argued that this account has an edge over both its explanationist and manipulationist competitors. (shrink)

A Cantorian argument that there is no set of all truths. There is, for the same reason, no possible world as a maximal set of propositions. And omniscience is logically impossible.

Eugene D. Bronstein; Miss Stebbing's Directional Analysis and Basic Facts, Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 1 October 1934, Pages 10–14, https://doi.org/10.1093/a.

A quasi-sequel to "Epistemic Teleology and the Separateness of Propositions." Covers some of the same ground, but also extends the basic argument in an important way.

Can beliefs to the effect that god is manifesting himself in a certain way to the believer ("m-beliefs") be justified by its seeming to the believer that he experiences god doing that? the issue is discussed in the context of several concepts of justification. on a "normative" concept of justification the answer will depend on what one's intellectual obligations are vis-a-vis practices of belief formation. on a rigorous view of such obligations one is justified in forming a m-belief on the (...) basis of experience only if one has adequate reasons for taking that practice to be reliable. on a more permissive view of such obligations, one is justified only if one lacks adequate reasons for taking the practice to be unreliable. it is suggested that neither this practice nor, e.g., the practice of forming perceptual beliefs on the basis of sense perception passes the stronger test, but that they both pass the weaker test. (shrink)

In this important new text, Keith Lehrer introduces students to the major traditional and contemporary accounts of knowing. Beginning with the accepted definition of knowledge as justified true belief, Lehrer explores the truth, belief and justification conditions on the way to a thorough examination of foundation theories of knowledge, externalism and naturalized epistemologies, internalism and modern coherence theories as well as recent reliabilist and causal theories. Lehrer gives all views careful examination and concludes that external factors must be matched by (...) appropriate internal ones to yield knowledge. Readers of Professor Lehrer's earlier book _Knowledge_ will want to know that this text adopts the framework of that classic text. But _Theory of Knowledge_ is a completely rewritten and updated version of that book that has been simplified throughout for student use. (shrink)

In this important new text, Keith Lehrer introduces students to the major traditional and contemporary accounts of knowing. Beginning with the accepted definition of knowledge as justified true belief, Lehrer explores the truth, belief and justification conditions on the way to a thorough examination of foundation theories of knowledge, externalism and naturalized epistemologies, internalism and modern coherence theories as well as recent reliabilist and causal theories. Lehrer gives all views careful examination and concludes that external factors must be matched by (...) appropriate internal ones to yield knowledge. Readers of Professor Lehrer's earlier book _Knowledge_ will want to know that this text adopts the framework of that classic text. But _Theory of Knowledge_ is a completely rewritten and updated version of that book that has been simplified throughout for student use. (shrink)

THE PHILOSOPHY which I advocate is generally regarded as a species of realism, and accused of inconsistency because of the elements in it which seem contrary to that doctrine. For my part, I do not regard the issue between realists and their opponents as a funda- mental one; I could alter my view on this issue without changing my mind as to any of the doctrines upon which I wish to lay stress. I hold that logic is what is fundamental (...) in philosophy, and that schools should be characterized rather by their logic than by their metaphysic. My own logic is atomic, and it is this aspect upon which I should wish to lay stress. Therefore I prefer to describe my philosophy as "logical atomism," rather than as "realism," whether with or without some prefixed adjective. (shrink)

Several themes of David Lewis's theory of counterfactuals, especially their sensitivity to context, pave the way for a viable theory of non-trivial counterpossibles. If Lewis was successful in defending his account against the early objections, a semantics of counterpossibles can be defended from similar objections in the same way. The resulting theory will be extended to address 'might' counterfactuals and questions about the relative "nearness" of impossible worlds.