Amongst the anonymous critics of Locke's "Essay concerning Human Understanding" was a writer of very considerable contemporary eminence, Thomas Burnet. Burnet's criticism is contained in "Remarks upon an Essay Concerning Humane Understanding" and in two subsequent sets of Remarks. This monograph surveys the clash between Locke and Burnet on morality, certainty in revealed religion, and the immortality of the soul.

The purpose of this book is to piece together in some detail the philosophy of Common Sense from its fragmentary state in the writings of Thomas Reid and the other members of his school, to consider it in relation to David Hume, and to try and show the significance of its account of the nature and authority of common sense for present-day discussion.

The purpose of this book is to further an understanding of religion -- not of the kind that might come from psychological or sociological enquiry -- but an understanding from the inside, so to speak, of the subject-matter of such explanatory enquiries. An understanding of the kind possessed by someone who, firmly believing in a religion, has thought about the nature of religion. The book aims to increase this kind of understanding where it already exists, and in its absence, at (...) bringing about some degree of it without presupposing in a reader any religious belief at all. (shrink)

Among the cognitive capacities of evolved creatures is the capacity to represent. Theories in cognitive neuroscience typically explain our manifest representational capacities by positing internal representations, but there is little agreement about how these representations function, especially with the relatively recent proliferation of connectionist, dynamical, embodied, and enactive approaches to cognition. In this talk I sketch an account of the nature and function of representation in cognitive neuroscience that couples a realist construal of representational vehicles with a pragmatic account of (...) mental content. I call the resulting package a deflationary account of mental representation and I argue that it avoids the problems that afflict competing accounts. (shrink)

Introduction: representationalismMost theorists of cognition endorse some version of representationalism, which I will understand as the view that the human mind is an information-using system, and that human cognitive capacities are representational capacities. Of course, notions such as ‘representation’ and ‘information-using’ are terms of art that require explication. As a first pass, representations are “mediating states of an intelligent system that carry information” (Markman and Dietrich 2001, p. 471). They have two important features: (1) they are physically realized, and so (...) have causal powers; (2) they are intentional, in other words, they have meaning or representational content. This presumes a distinction between a representational vehicle—a physical state or structure that has causal powers and is responsible for producing behavior—and its content. Consider the following characterization of a device that computes the addition functionReaders will recognize the similarity t. (shrink)

The expanding social role and continued development of artificial intelligence (AI) needs theological investigation of its anthropological and moral potential. A pragmatic theological anthropology adapted for AI can characterize moral AI as experiencing its natural, social, and moral world through interpretations of its external reality as well as its self-reckoning. Systems theory can further structure insights into an AI social self that conceptualizes itself within Ignacio Ellacuria’s historical reality and its moral norms through Thomistic ideogenesis. This enables a conceptualization process (...) capable of carrying moral weight and grounded in reality; structures the experience of an AI emergent self into multiple levels of interpretation; and drives a multi-level systems architecture for moral AI. Modeling AI’s interpretive experience and self-reckoning as a causal, sociotechnical, and moral actor can help moral AI identify conflicts between its normative values and develop the practical wisdom (phronesis) needed to apply its general moral models. (shrink)

Examining AI spirituality can illuminate problematic assumptions about human spirituality and AI cognition, suggest possible directions for AI development, reduce uncertainty about future AI, and yield a methodological lens sufficient to investigate human-AI sociotechnical interaction and morality. Incompatible philosophical assumptions about human spirituality and AI limit investigations of both and suggest a vast gulf between them. An emergentist approach can replace dualist assumptions about human spirituality and identify emergent behavior in AI computation to overcome overly reductionist assumptions about computation. Using (...) general systems theory to organize models of human experience yields insight into human morality and spirituality, upon which AI modeling can also draw. In this context, the pragmatist Josiah Royce’s semiotic philosophy of spirituality identifies unanticipated overlap between symbolic AI and spirituality and suggests criteria for a human-AI community focused on modeling morality that would result in an emergent Interpreter-Spirit sufficient to influence the ongoing development of human and AI morality and spirituality. (shrink)

I’m going to argue for a set of restricted skeptical results: roughly put, we don’t know that fire engines are red, we don’t know that we sometimes have pains in our lower backs, we don’t know that John Rawls was kind, and we don’t even know that we believe any of those truths. However, people unfamiliar with philosophy and cognitive science do know all those things. The skeptical argument is traditional in form: here’s a skeptical hypothesis; you can’t epistemically neutralize (...) it, you have to be able to neutralize it to know P; so you don’t know P. But the skeptical hypotheses I plug into it are “real, live” scientific-philosophical hypotheses often thought to be actually true, unlike any of the outrageous traditional skeptical hypotheses (e.g., ‘You’re a brain in a vat’). So I call the resulting skepticism Live Skepticism. Notably, the Live Skeptic’s argument goes through even if we adopt the clever anti-skeptical fixes thought up in recent years such as reliabilism, relevant alternatives theory, contextualism, and the rejection of epistemic closure. Furthermore, the scope of Live Skepticism is bizarre: although we don’t know the simple facts noted above, many of us do know that there are black holes and other amazing facts. (shrink)

Nicholas Shea offers Varitel Semantics as a naturalistic account of mental content. I argue that the account secures determinate content only by appeal to pragmatic considerations, and so it fails to respect naturalism. But that is fine, because representational content is not, strictly speaking, necessary for explanation in cognitive science. Even in Shea’s own account, content serves only a variety of heuristic functions.

In the philosophy of perception, representationalism is the view that all phenomenological differences among mental states are representational differences, in other words, differences in content. In this paper I defend an alternative view which I call external sortalism, inspired by traditional adverbialism, and according to which experiences are not essentially representational. The central idea is that the external world serves as a model for sorting, conceptualizing, and reasoning surrogatively about perceptual experience. On external sortalism, contents are construed as a kind (...) of gloss on experiences themselves. We can retain what is attractive about representationalism, namely, that perceptual experiences can be evaluated for accuracy, without problematic commitment to the idea that they bear a substantive, representational relation to external objects and properties and that this relation determines the phenomenal character of experience. (shrink)

I explain why research in non-applied, non-interdisciplinary, non-historical philosophy is worthwhile. The key move in the explanation is the realization that many philosophical problems can be put in the form of a set of highly plausible yet apparently jointly inconsistent claims regarding a fundamental notion.Export citation.

These days the two most popular approaches to belief ascription are Millianism and Contextualism. The former approach is inconsistent with the existence of ordinary Frege cases, such as Lois believing that Superman flies while failing to believe that Clark Kent flies. The Millian holds that the only truth-conditionally relevant aspect of a proper name is its referent or extension. Contextualism, as I will define it for the purposes of this essay, includes all theories according to which ascriptions of the form (...) ‘S believes that a is F’ and ‘S believes that b is F’, where ‘a’ and ‘b’ are coreferential proper names, may, depending on the context, differ in truth-value even though in those very contexts each ascription relates the same believer to the very same proposition. What the two theories have in common is the claim that names are Millian. What separates the two theories is what they say about belief contexts. In this essay I prove that Millianism is true, Contextualism is true, or our intuitions regarding belief ascriptions are hopelessly inaccurate. As a consequence, my argument is a proof that either names and many general terms are Millian or our intuitions regarding belief ascriptions are hopelessly inaccurate. (shrink)

In a series of pre-registered studies, we explored (a) the difference between people’s intuitions about indeterministic scenarios and their intuitions about deterministic scenarios, (b) the difference between people’s intuitions about indeterministic scenarios and their intuitions about neurodeterministic scenarios (that is, scenarios where the determinism is described at the neurological level), (c) the difference between people’s intuitions about neutral scenarios (e.g., walking a dog in the park) and their intuitions about negatively valenced scenarios (e.g., murdering a stranger), and (d) the difference (...) between people’s intuitions about free will and responsibility in response to first-person scenarios and third-person scenarios. We predicted that once we focused participants’ attention on the two different abilities to do otherwise available to agents in indeterministic and deterministic scenarios, their intuitions would support natural incompatibilism—the view that laypersons judge that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. This prediction was borne out by our findings. (shrink)

Successful sports teams are able to adopt what is known as the 'we-perspective,' forming intentions and making decisions, somewhat as a unified mind does, to achieve their goals. In this paper I consider what is involved in establishing and maintaining the we-perspective on a racing sailboat. I argue that maintaining the we-perspective contributes to the success of the boat in at least two ways: (1) it facilitates the smooth execution of joint action; and (2) it increases the chance that individual (...) crew members will exert their best effort in fulfilling their particular roles on the boat. (shrink)

A new kind of skepticism about philosophy is articulated and argued for. The key premise is the claim that many of us are well aware that in the past we failed to have good responses to substantive objections to our philosophical beliefs. The conclusion is disjunctive: either we are irrational in sticking with our philosophical beliefs, or we commit some other epistemic sin in having those beliefs.

This is a short essay that presents what I take to be the main questions regarding the epistemology of disagreement.

If you retain your belief upon learning that a large number and percentage of your recognized epistemic superiors disagree with you, then what happens to the epistemic status of your belief? I investigate that theoretical question as well has the applied case of philosophical disagreement—especially disagreement regarding purely philosophical error theories, theories that do not have much empirical support and that reject large swaths of our most commonsensical beliefs. I argue that even if all those error theories are false, either (...) (a) the average philosopher’s true commonsensical beliefs are epistemically impoverished, or (b) a good portion of philosophy is bunk and philosophers should give up most of their error theories despite the fact that their supporting arguments are generally as good as or even better than other philosophical arguments. (shrink)

Philosophers often find themselves in disagreement with contemporary philosophers they know full well to be their epistemic superiors on the topics relevant to the disagreement. This looks epistemically irresponsible. I offer a detailed investigation of this problem of the reflective epistemic renegade. I argue that although in some cases the renegade is not epistemically blameworthy, and the renegade situation is significantly less common than most would think, in a troublesome number of cases in which the situation arises the renegade is (...) blameworthy in her disagreement with recognized epistemic superiors. I also offer some thoughts on what it would mean for philosophical practice for us to refrain from being renegades. Finally, I show how a new kind of radical skepticism emerges from modest theses regarding the renegade. (shrink)

We tend to think that philosophical progress, to the extent that it exists, is a good thing. I agree. Even so, it has some surprising unfortunate consequences for the rationality of philosophical belief.

Researchers in the health sciences regularly discover information of potential health importance unrelated to their object of study in the course of their research. However, there appears to be little guidance available on what researchers should do with this information, known in the scientific literature as incidental findings. The study described here was designed to determine the extent of guidance available to researchers from public sources. This empirical study was part of a larger two-year project funded by the National Human (...) Genome Research Institute to generate guidance on how incidental findings should be managed in human subjects research, especially genetics, genomics, and imaging research. We generated empirical analysis of publicly available guidance and consent forms to help guide a multidisciplinary Working Group of experts in their formulation of normative recommendations reported in this symposium. (shrink)

Comments on Karen Neander's A Mark of the Mental.

Although metaphysics has made an impressive comeback over the past half century, there are still a great many philosophers today who think it is bullshit, under numerous precisifications of ‘That’s just bullshit’ so that it’s a negative assessment and doesn’t apply to most philosophy. One encounters this attitude countless times in casual conversations, social media, and occasionally in print. Is it true?

This is an essay written for students regarding how to write a philosophy paper.

ABSTRACT -/- In this dissertation I make a case for how mental health care, specifically disordered eating, is in need of an adjunctive field of discourse, that being theories on philosophy of consciousness, cosmology, and the new epistemology of science based on physics. Without psychological inquiry and education on new theories about consciousness and new perspectives on the nature of reality, mental health treatment is incomplete and outdated. I bring these topics to the eating disorder field in three ways: by (...) choosing the scientific and philosophical discourse to be added into treatment; by translating the complex and abstract topics into psychologically relevant, lay public coursework; and, finally, through the creation of actual processes that help bring the material into direct experience. The science and philosophy discourse topics that will transform disordered eating are presented through lecture, inquiry for consideration, and discussion options. Consciousness, cosmology, and the new epistemology of science based on physics is simplified with examples of how it can be implemented within individual sessions, group sessions, or workshops for disordered eating treatment and with application to other mental health problems. The psychological application of the material is further enhanced through my description of a variety of experiential processes, from writing assignments and guided visualizations to storytelling, rituals, encounters in nature, and embodiment activities. I have created the lectures, inquiry, and experiential processes within a dynamic body of work, named the Emergence Courses, that have been introduced to professionals treating disordered eating and to clients for use. (shrink)

I say that it’s philosophically inexpensive because I think it is more convincing than any other Twin-Earth thought experiment in that it sidesteps many of the standard objections to the usual thought experiments. I also discuss narrow contents and give an analysis of Putnam’s original argument.

Those of us who take skepticism seriously typically have two relevant beliefs: (a) it’s plausible (even if false) that in order to know that I have hands I have to be able to epistemically neutralize, to some significant degree, some skeptical hypotheses, such as the brain-in-a-vat (BIV) one; and (b) it’s also plausible (even if false) that I can’t so neutralize those hypotheses. There is no reason for us to also think (c) that the BIV hypothesis, for instance, is plausible (...) or probably true. In order to take skepticism seriously it’s sufficient to hold (a) and (b); one need not hold (c). Indeed, philosophers who accept (a) and (b) never endorse (c). Show me a philosopher who suspects that he is a brain in a vat and I’ll show you someone who is deranged! That’s one thing that bothers undergraduates in philosophy. They object: why on earth do some philosophers take the BIV hypothesis to pose any threat at all to our beliefs given that those very same philosophers think that there’s no real chance that the BIV hypothesis is true? Sure, the BIV hypothesis is formally inconsistent with my belief that I have hands, so if the former is true then my belief is false. But so what? Why should that bare inconsistency matter so much? Is this strange attitude amongst philosophers the result of some logic fetish infecting the philosophical community? It is sometimes said that the skeptical hypotheses are not only inconsistent with our beliefs but are explanatory of our experiences, which is supposed to make them more of a threat. But students aren’t fooled: although the skeptical hypotheses may attempt to explain why our experience is as it is, it’s the kind of attempt appropriate for science fiction movies that are all special effects and virtually no plot. No one with any sense of reality will take the evil demon hypothesis to be even tenuously explanatory. (shrink)

This is an essay written for undergraduates who are confused about what a rigid designator is.

For years philosophers argued for the existence of distinct yet materially coincident things by appealing to modal and temporal properties. For instance, the statue was made on Monday and could not survive being flattened; the lump of clay was made months before and can survive flattening. Such arguments have been thoroughly examined. Kit Fine has proposed a new set of arguments using the same template. I offer a critical evaluation of what I take to be his central lines of reasoning.

A common kind of explanation in cognitive neuroscience might be called functiontheoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function constitutes (in the system’s normal environment) the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called ‘new mechanist’ approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals (...) the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms fails to be explanatory. I argue that a functiontheoretic characterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware. (shrink)

One of the foremost objections to theological voluntarism is the contingency objection. If God’s will fixes moral facts, then what if God willed that agents engage in cruelty? I argue that even unrestricted theological voluntarists should accept some logical constraints on possible moral systems—hence, some limits on ways that God could have willed morality to be—and these logical constraints are sufficient to blunt the force of the contingency objec­tion. One constraint I defend is a very weak accessibility requirement, related to (...) (but less problematic than) existence internalism in metaethics. The theo­logical voluntarist can maintain: Godcouldn’t have loved cruelty, and even though he could have willed behaviors we find abhorrent, he could only have done so in a world of deeply alien moral agents. We cannot confidently declare such a world unacceptable. (shrink)

By pooling together exhaustive analyses of certain philosophical paradoxes, we can prove a series of fascinating results regarding philosophical progress, agreement on substantive philosophical claims, knockdown arguments in philosophy, the wisdom of philosophical belief, the epistemic status of metaphysics, and the power of philosophy to refute common sense. As examples, this Element examines the Sorites Paradox, the Liar Paradox, and the Problem of the Many – although many other paradoxes can do the trick too.

In this article I offer a three-pronged defense of Millian theories, all of which share the rough idea that all there is to a proper name is its referent, so it has no additional sense. I first give what I believe to be the first correct analysis of Kripke’s puzzle and its anti-Fregean lessons. The main lesson is that the Fregean’s arguments against Millianism and for the existence of semantically relevant senses (that is, individuative elements of propositions or belief contents (...) that are sensitive to our varying personal conceptions of the referents of those elements) are viciously circular. Thus, the Fregean must give new arguments for her central claims. Second, I offer an original, positive argument for the Millian idea that the thoughts that Cicero was bald and that Tully was bald are identical. Incredibly, the argument appeals to nothing but highly intuitive, pre-theoretical principles regarding folk psychological usage—traditionally the source of Fregean intuitions. Third, I examine one of the most important recent papers on Kripke’s puzzle, that by David Sosa (1996). Sosa claims to have found a way to turn the tables on Kripke’s puzzle by using it to argue against Millian theories. I argue that Sosa’s argument on behalf of the Fregean is question-begging. I conclude that Millian theories can be seriously defended without any use of theoretical constructs such as guises or Russellian propositions, and Fregeans need to start over arguing for their theory’s central claims. (shrink)

Many highly educated people think religious belief is irrational and unscientific. If you ask a philosopher, however, you'll likely get two answers: most religious belief is rational in some respects and irrational in other respects. In my previous essay I explained why they think so many religious beliefs are rational. In this essay I explain why they think those same beliefs are irrational.

In this essay I try to motivate and formulate the main epistemological questions to ask about the phenomenon of religious disagreement. I will not spend much time going over proposed answers to those questions. I address the relevance of the recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement. I start with some fiction and then, hopefully, proceed with something that has at least a passing acquaintance with truth.

The literature on material composition has largely ignored the composition of actions and events. I argue that this is a mistake. I present a set of individually plausible yet jointly inconsistent claims regarding the connection between quantification and existence, the composition of physical entities and the logical forms of action sentences.

Much of the literature from political psychology has focused on the negative traits that are positively associated with affective polarization—e.g., animus, arrogance, distrust, hostility, and outrage. Not as much attention has been focused on the positive traits that might be negatively associated with polarization. For instance, given that people who are intellectually humble display greater openness and less hostility towards conflicting viewpoints (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016; Hopkin et al., 2014; Porter & Schumann, 2018), one might reasonably expect them to be (...) less polarized. -/- We ran two studies designed to explore the relationship between various forms of humility and polarization. Our chief finding is that people who value humility are prone to what we are calling epistemic polarization—that is, judging the epistemic traits of contrapartisans negatively—which in turn plays a role in polarization more generally. Not only are contrapartisans deemed to have the wrong moral and political beliefs, they are also viewed as less humble and more arrogant, close-minded, and irrational. This makes matters even worse when it comes to the growing partisan divide. In light of our findings, we believe that the novel concept of epistemic polarization that we introduce is a promising target for further investigation. (shrink)

Suppose you know that someone is your epistemic peer regarding some topic. You admit that you cannot think of any relevant epistemic advantage you have over her when it comes to that topic; you admit that she is just as likely as you to get P's truth-value right. Alternatively, you might know that she is your epistemic superior regarding the topic. And then after learning this about her you find out that she disagrees with you about P. In those situations (...) it appears that the confidence with which one holds one's belief should be significantly reduced. My primary goal in this essay is to present and reflect upon a set of cases of disagreement that have not been discussed in the literature but are vital to consider. I argue that in the new cases one is reasonable in not lowering one?s confidence in the belief. Then I articulate and defend an ambitious principle, the Disagreement Principle, meant to answer the question 'Under what conditions am I epistemically blameworthy in retaining my belief with the same level of confidence after I have discovered recognized peers or superiors who disagree with me?'. (shrink)

Descartes développe, dans ses Principes de la Philosophie, les principes fondateurs de son système construit sur l’identification de la matière à l’espace. L’analyse de ses principes nous invite à repenser le rôle de la métaphysique dans la constitution de la science et permet aussi de comprendre comment les concepts de matière, substance, espace, étendue géométrique, mouvement, infini et vide sont devenus les questions centrales de la science du XVIIe siècle.

How can imperceptible knowledge such as professional routines in class immediacy be taught? How to express their main principles and their construction in formation? These routines create a sense of security among both students and teachers; it is a frame favouring successful classroom management. They come under the scope of integrated competencies, and this prompts their analysis in view of understanding a central link within initial professionalization. This paper will present the concept of professional routines as an educational practice in (...) regards to professional development, then the conceptual frame, the analytical method, some results followed by a discussion and conclusion. Comment enseigner un savoir imperceptible comme des routines professionnelles dans l’immédiateté de la classe? Comment dégager les principes organisateurs et leur construction en formation ? Pour une gestion de classe efficace, il est essentiel de recourir à des routines professionnelles. Elles soutiennent le sentiment de sécurité tant chez l’enseignant que chez les élèves. Elles relèvent de compétences incorporées, ce qui force à leur analyse pour une articulation phare dans une formation professionnalisante. Nous présenterons le concept des routines professionnelles comme un savoir-faire nécessaire au développement professionnel, le cadre conceptuel, la méthodologie, quelques résultats et la discussion suivie de la conclusion. (shrink)

Many highly educated people think religious belief is irrational and unscientific. If you ask a philosopher, however, you'll likely get two answers: most religious belief is rational in some respects and irrational in other respects. In this essay I explain why they think religious belief is rational. In a sequel essay I explain why they think the very same beliefs are irrational.

A common kind of explanation in cognitive neuroscience might be called function-theoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function constitutes (in the system’s normal environment) the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called ‘new mechanist’ approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals (...) the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms fails to be explanatory. I argue that a function-theoretic char-acterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware. (shrink)

Content externalism is the dominant view in the philosophy of mind. Content essentialism, the thesis that thought tokens have their contents essentially, is also popular. And many externalists are supporters of such essentialism. However, endorsing the conjunction of those views either (i) commits one to a counterintuitive view of the underlying physical nature of thought tokens or (ii) commits one to a slightly different but still counterintuitive view of the relation of thought tokens to physical tokens as well as a (...) rejection of realist physicalism. In this essay I reveal the problem and articulate and adjudicate among the possible solutions. I will end up rejecting content essentialism. (shrink)

One of the hardest problems in philosophy, one that has been around for over two thousand years without generating any significant consensus on its solution, involves the concept of vagueness: a word or concept that doesn't have a perfectly precise meaning. There is an argument that seems to show that the word or concept simply must have a perfectly precise meaning, as violently counterintuitive as that is. Unfortunately, the argument is usually so compressed that it is difficult to see why (...) exactly the problem is so hard to solve. In this article I attempt to explain just why it is that the problem – the sorites paradox – is so intractable.Export citation. (shrink)

This chapter introduces Kripke's work to advanced undergraduates, mainly focussing on his "A Puzzle About Belief" and "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language".

The epistemological consequences of paradox are paradoxical. They can be usefully generated by telling a series of once-upon-a-time stories that make various philosophical points, starting out innocent and ending up, well, paradoxical. This is an introduction to my Live Skepticism, defended in Skepticism Comes Alive.

When pressed, many atheists offer three reasons why they reject theism: there is strong evidence against theism, there is no strong evidence for theism, and theism is so outrageous that it needs a great deal of support in order for us to believe it in a reasonable manner. I examine the third reason, arguing that it fails.

The Burge-Putnam thought experiments have generated the thesis that beliefs are not fixed by the constitution of the body. However, many philosophers have thought that if this is true then there must be another content-like property. Even if the contents of our attitudes such as the one in ‘believes that aluminum is a light metal’, do not supervene on our physical makeups, nevertheless people who are physical duplicates must be the same when it comes to evaluating their rationality and explaining (...) their actions. I argue that the considerations motivating this view are best handled with just the ordinary ‘that’-clause contents. (shrink)

Cet article se base sur des résultats d’enquête récents montrant que, chez des adolescents marocains âgés de dix à dix-huit ans, les manifestations de pensée critique dialogique se si-tuent majoritairement dans une « perspective épistémologique » appelée « relativisme » par un modèle développemental élaboré dans les quinze dernières années avec la méthode de la théorie ancrée. Pour comprendre ces résultats de recherche, qui contrastent avec ceux obte-nus auprès d’adolescents québécois et français appartenant aux mêmes groupes d’âge, nous décrivons, dans (...) un premier temps, le modèle développemental dans lequel ils prennent sens. Nous illustrons ensuite les manifestations de « perspective épistémologique relativiste » chez les adolescents marocains à l’aide d’extraits de verbatim. Les élèves ont tendance à se décen-trer de leur vécu personnel, à se représenter le point de vue d’autrui en général et à co-construire des points de vue convergents avec les pairs. Dans un deuxième temps, prenant appui sur une approche de la représentation sociale en tant que « scène », et sur la littérature touchant aux rôles des aînés dans les sociétés africaines, nous éclairons ces résultats de re-cherche par l’analyse d’une représentation sociale fréquemment mobilisée par les jeunes Ma-rocains interviewés : celle de la hiérarchie des âges et du devoir d’écoute envers les plus âgés. L’analyse de cette « scène » met en lumière des attitudes sociales inculquées aux adolescents en contexte culturel marocain, susceptibles de favoriser le développement d’une « perspective épistémologique relativiste » en matière de pensée critique dialogique. (shrink)

Kripke’s puzzle has puts pressure on the intuitive idea that one can believe that Superman can fly without believing that Clark Kent can fly. If this idea is wrong then many theories of belief and belief ascription are built from faulty data. I argue that part of the proper analysis of Kripke’s puzzle refutes the closure principles that show up in many important arguments in epistemology, e.g., if S is rational and knows that P and that P entails Q, then (...) if she considers these two beliefs and Q, then she is in a position to know that.. (shrink)