Epistemologists often claim that in addition to belief and disbelief there is a third, neutral, doxastic attitude. Various terms are used: ‘suspending judgment’, ‘withholding’, ‘agnosticism’. It is also common to claim that the factors relevant to the justification of these attitudes are epistemic in the narrow sense of being factors that bear on the strength or weakness of one’s epistemic position with respect to the target proposition. This paper addresses two challenges to such traditionalism about doxastic attitudes. The first concerns (...) the relevance of non-epistemic factors we might call "future-comparative" – e.g., that you’ll have more decisive evidence on whether p tomorrow – to the justification of suspending judgment. The second, from Jane Friedman, is to explain the point of the neutral attitude without appealing to inquiry and thus taking goal-related factors, which are not epistemic, such as the value of the goal or the prospects for finding means to achieve it, to bear on the justification of the neutral attitude. My defense of traditionalism relies on distinguishing three ways of being neutral on a question: agnosticism, inquiry and suspension of judgment. Traditionalism is saved because, of these, agnosticism alone is a genuine doxastic attitude. (shrink)

In ‘Knowing What Things Look Like,’ I argued against the immediacy of visual objectual knowledge, i.e. visual knowledge that a thing is F, for an object category F, such as avocado, tree, desk, etc. Joseph Shieber proposes a challenging dilemma in reply. Either knowing what Fs look like requires having concepts such as looks or it doesn’t. Either way my argument fails. If knowing what Fs look like doesn’t require having such concepts, then he claims we can give an immediacy-friendly (...) anti-intellectualist account of knowing what Fs look like, one that I neglected. If it does require having such concepts, then knowledge of what Fs look like plays no important role in ordinary cases of knowing things to be F by their looks. I argue for several claims. First, Shieber's anti-intellectualist proposal fails for independent reasons. Second, I give reasons for thinking that knowing what Fs look like doesn't require having a general concept of looks, which lessens worries about nonhuman animals having such knowledge. Finally, I consider the possibility, important to Shieber's argument, that nonhuman animals are simply incapable of knowing what Fs look like. I argue the implications for human knowledge are far from clear. (shrink)

Although belief formation is sometimes automatic, there are occasions in which we have the power to put it off, to wait on belief-formation. Waiting in this sense seems assessable by epistemic norms. This paper explores what form such norms might take: the nature and their content. A key question is how these norms relate to epistemic norms on belief-formation: could we have cases in which one ought to believe that p but also ought to wait on forming a belief on (...) whether p? Plausibly not. But if not, how can we explain this impossibility? I suggest that the best resolution is to view the traditional core norms on belief as themselves conditional in a certain sense, one that I think has independent plausibility. The results of this investigation may also tell us something about epistemic norms on suspension, on the assumption, which I defend elsewhere, that suspension is waiting. (shrink)

This chapter from Michel Serres’s comprehensive study on Leibniz—"The System of Leibniz and its Mathematical Models [Le système de Leibniz et ses modèles mathématiques]"—examines Leibniz’s epistemological framework. This framework, which Leibniz developed for a large part in his “Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas [Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis],” is pitched against Descartes’s "Meditations on First Philosophy [Meditationes de Prima Philosophia]" and the method of systematic doubt developed therein. While Descartes rejects any knowledge with the slightest possibility of falsehood, (...) Leibniz accepts knowledge with even a minimal degree of truth. Leibniz’s approach involves a progressive genesis of truth through a series of filters, each further refining knowledge. This process is intrinsically linked to infinitism and combinatorics, allowing for a gradual differentiation of the distinct from the indistinct. The filters are applied sequentially, with each filter proceeding through its own oppositions, resulting in a spectrum of knowledge ranging from obscure to clear, confused to distinct, inadequate to adequate, and symbolic to intuitive. This framework facilitates pluralism within rationalism that proceeds through evolving or regional truths. The filters overlap, and only the final stage of knowledge is devoid of mixture. Leibniz’s epistemology is non-Cartesian, as it relativizes truth and falsehood at each stage of the filtering process. It also accounts for the limitations of sensory perception, attributing them to the imperfection of the human mind in its current state. (Translated by Martijn Boven). (shrink)

Having an agreed-upon definition of character education would be useful for both researchers and practitioners in the field. However, even experts in character education disagree on how they would define it. We attempted to achieve greater conceptual clarity on this issue through a prototype analysis in which the features perceived as most central to character education were identified. In Study 1 (N = 77), we asked character education experts to enumerate features of character education. Based on these lists, we identified (...) 30 features. In Study 2 (N = 101), experts assessed which features were central to character education through a categorization task. In Study 3 (N = 166), we assessed the extent of centrality using scalar items. We conclude by offering practical advice for the development of future character education studies and programs rooted in what is deemed central to such programs. (shrink)

Although there is disagreement about the details, John Pollock’s framework for defeat is now part of the received wisdom in analytic epistemology. Recently, however, cracks have appeared in the consensus, particularly on the understanding of undercutting defeat. While not questioning the existence of undercutting defeat, Scott Sturgeon argues that undercutting defeat operates differently from rebutting. Unlike the latter, undercutting defeat, Sturgeon claims, occurs only in conjunction with certain higher-order contributions, i.e., with beliefs about the basis on which one does or (...) would believe. Sturgeon concludes that Pollock misconceives undercutting defeat. I argue that in the case of defeat of inferential justification, undercutting defeat is a genuine phenomenon and takes roughly the shape Pollock suggests, not needing help from higher-order beliefs or justifications. However, I agree with Sturgeon that for noninferential justification the Pollockian account is in trouble. I try to explain why there should be this difference. This difference in defeaters has important implications for epistemology. In a final section, I use the defeat-related difference between inferential and noninferential justification to argue that there is less noninferential perceptual or testimonial justification than is commonly thought. (shrink)

Imagine I hold up a Granny Smith apple for all to see. You would thereby gain justified beliefs that it was green, that it was apple, and that it is a Granny Smith apple. Under classical foundationalism, such simple visual beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning your experience. Under dogmatism, some or all of these beliefs are justified immediately by your experience and not by reasons you possess. This paper argues for what I call the looks (...) view of the justification of simple visual beliefs. According to the looks view, such beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning how the relevant things look. Unlike under classical foundationalism, under the looks view as I develop it, these reasons are public. They are public with respect to both their content and possession: with respect to content, they are not about ourselves and our experiences, and with respect to their possession, many people can have the very same looks-related reasons. (shrink)

Walking through the supermarket, I see the avocados. I know they are avocados. Similarly, if you see a pumpkin on my office desk, you can know it’s a pumpkin from its looks. The phenomenology in such cases is that of “just seeing” that such and such. This phenomenology might suggest that the knowledge gained is immediate. This paper argues, to the contrary, that in these target cases, the knowledge is mediate, depending as it does on one’s knowledge of what the (...) relevant kind of thing looks like. To make the case requires examining the nature of knowing what Fs look like. Is such knowledge to be understood as knowledge of a fact, or rather as a kind of ability? From the conclusion that the knowledge in the target cases is not immediate, the paper concludes that perception does not afford us immediate knowledge concerning objects’ kinds. (shrink)

In this chapter, we follow Edward Craig?s advice: ask what the concept of knowledge does for us and use our findings as clues about its application conditions. What a concept does for us is a matter of what we can do with it, and what we do with concepts is deploy them in thought and language. So, we will examine the purposes we have in attributing knowledge. This chapter examines two such purposes, agent evaluation and informant-suggestion, and brings the results (...) to bear on an important debate about the application conditions of the concept of knowledge?the debate between contextualists and their rivals. (shrink)

Much of the plausibility of epistemic conservatism derives from its prospects of explaining our rationality in holding memory beliefs. In the first two parts of this paper, I argue for the inadequacy of the two standard approaches to the epistemology of memory beliefs, preservationism and evidentialism. In the third, I point out the advantages of the conservative approach and consider how well conservatism survives three of the strongest objections against it. Conservatism does survive, I claim, but only if qualified in (...) certain ways. Appropriately qualified, conservatism is no longer the powerful anti-skeptical tool some have hoped for, but a doctrine closely connected with memory. (shrink)

This chapter addresses concerns that pragmatic encroachers are committed to problematic knowledge variance. It first replies to Charity Anderson and John Hawthorne’s new putative problem cases, which purport to show that pragmatic encroachment is committed to problematic variations in knowledge depending on what choices are available to the potential knower. It argues that the new cases do not provide any new reasons to be concerned about the pragmatic encroacher’s commitment to knowledge-variance. The chapter further argues that concerns about knowledge-variance are (...) not limited to the pragmatic encroacher, but come up for traditional purist invariantism as well. (shrink)

Many epistemologists agree that there are things we epistemically shouldn’t believe, i.e., that we have negative epistemic duties. But it is a matter of controversy whether we have any positive epistemic duties, i.e., whether we epistemically should have certain beliefs. In this paper, I argue that, in certain cases in which one acquires counterevidence against what one believes (p), one epistemically should give up one's belief by reasoning in a way that involves forming a belief in its negation (in not-p). (...) In these cases, one epistemically should believe not-p and thus has a positive epistemic duty. I reinforce this argument by showing how our negative epistemic duties depend on our facts about how we should reason. I go on to argue for positive epistemic duties in other cases, including ones in which one trying to make up one’s mind. (shrink)

Kornblith’s “Epistemic Normativity” is a classic in the now voluminous literature on the source of epistemic normativity. His account is as simple as it is bold: the source is desire, not a desire for true belief, or knowledge, but any set of desires. No matter what desires you have, so long as you are a being of a kind that employs beliefs in cost-benefit analysis, certain sorts of truth-centered epistemic norms will have normative force for you. We can distinguish two (...) questions about epistemic normativity, both under discussion in Kornblith’s paper, but which he does not clearly distinguish: (i) why should we care about having beliefs that satisfy epistemic norms? (ii) how do epistemic considerations have reason-giving force with respect to particular propositions? I will argue that Kornblith’s proposal goes some distance toward answering the first question but is less helpful in answering the second. (shrink)

We regularly appeal to claims of the form it seems that p in defense of a claim p. When we do so, we typically take it seems that p to be a reason for thinking that p but also a reason that “gets at” a relevant body of facts and its support for p. Other things being equal, we should want to vindicate our ordinary beliefs on this matter. We should want to vindicate the claim that facts about things seeming (...) certain ways can be reasons to think that things are that way while at the same time being somehow derivative reasons, that is, reasons only because they “get at” support from a certain body of facts. However, on the dominant view of how things seem—subjectivism—it is hard to see how to secure this result. Subjectivism takes how things seem to be a matter of how things do or would seem to some relevant subject. What we need is a defensible, nonsubjectivist account of how things seem. I propose and defend an account according to which, roughly, it seems that p iff the body of facts in the relevant perspective supports that p. (shrink)

In what follows, I’ll discuss several approaches to suspension. As we’ll see, the issue of whether and in what sense(s) suspension is *question-directed* is important to developing an adequate account. I will argue that suspension isn’t question-directed in the way that curiosity, wondering, and inquiry are. The most promising approach, in my view, takes suspension to be an agential matter; it involves the will. As we’ll see, this view makes sense of a lot of familiar facts about suspension, and it (...) makes sense of its role in curating beliefs. It also raises intriguing questions about how it comes up for epistemic assessment. (shrink)

This chapter offers an overview of the philosophy of Robert S. Sokolowski with a focus on his account of what philosophy is, how philosophy arises out of pre-philosophical life, and how it is related back to pre-philosophical life. It also situates Sokolowsk’s achievements in articulating the relationship between Husserlian phenomenology and modern and pre-modern styles of philosophizing.

To many, judgment has seemed a locus of cognitive agency, a kind of cognitive mental act. In one minimal sense, judgment is something one does. I consider whether judgment is more robustly agential: is it a kind of action done with an aim? The most attractive version of this sort of position takes judging that p to affirming that p with an alethic aim, an aim such as affirming truly. I argue that such views have unacceptable consequences. Acts done with (...) aims, in general, can be based only indirectly on evidence that one would attain the aim in so acting. It follows that if alethic aims theories of judgment were correct, a judgment that p could be based only indirectly on evidence for p. This itself would be problematic. But the problems extend further. Given the connection between judgment and belief-formation, it would follow, further, that the beliefs we form through judgment could at best be only indirectly based on evidence for p. On these theories, the direct bases for a judgment that p would have to be either a belief that p or a belief that it’s likely that p. The former cannot support belief-formation and the latter supports at best epistemically inappropriate belief-formation. I conclude that there is a hard limit on how robustly agential judgment can be. (shrink)

In recent work, Sosa proposes a comprehensive account of epistemic value based on an axiology for attempts. According to this axiology, an attempt is better if it succeeds, better still if it is apt (i.e., succeeds through competence), and best if it is fully apt, (i.e., guided to aptness by apt beliefs that it would be apt). Beliefs are understood as attempts aiming at the truth. Thus, a belief is better if true, better still if apt, and best if fully (...) apt. I raise a Kantian obstacle for Sosa’s account, arguing that the quality or worth of an attempt is independent of whether it succeeds. In particular, an attempt can be fully worthy despite being a failure. I then consider whether Sosa’s competence-theoretic framework provides the resources for an axiology of attempts that does not place so much weight on success. I discuss the most promising candidate, an axiology grounded in the competence of attempts, or what Sosa calls adroitness. An adroit attempt may fail. I raise doubts about whether an adroitness-based axiology can provide a plausible explanation of the worthiness of subjects’ beliefs in epistemically unfortunate situations, such as the beliefs of the brain in a vat. I conclude by speculating that the notion of a belief’s fit with what the subject has to go on, a notion missing from Sosa’s competence-theoretic framework, is crucial to explaining epistemic worth. (shrink)

Suffering can make sacred, so it may partly be nature, and not culture alone, that leads us to apprehend a sacred aspect in victims of oppression. Those who recognize this sacredness show piety—a special form of respect—toward members of oppressed groups. The result is a system of social constructions often dismissed as “identity politics.” This essay starts with an analysis of the intentionality of piety and sacredness and how they relate to suffering, sacrifice, sanctions, pollution, and purification. It then argues (...) that the sacralization of oppressed groups is an expression of the perennial human disposition to acknowledge sacredness and to respond piously. The essay then analyzes this sacred status as socially constructed. Based on the sacred-making power of suffering, the sacred status elicits piety, gives its bearers special authority, surrounds them with sanctions, and calls for symbolic sacrificial punishments of the impious. By dissecting sacrificial politics as a system of social constructions, we see that, although the oppressed groups are made sacred, certain people in the oppressor groups—“the Pious”—continue to exercise fundamental power. This essay, by displaying the inner logic of this cultural phenomenon, helps us both to sympathize with and to critique the system and then to pose questions about what good or bad the system might be doing. (shrink)

The new interest in special divine action has led to a close reading of the great debates and discussions of the early modern period in an attempt to understand contemporary resistance to the notion of divine action, and to develop strategies for reaffirming the notion in a refined manner. Although continuing engagement with and evaluation of the Humean legacy on miracles and divine action will be of central importance to this programme of review, there are other issues that also need (...) to be addressed. In this article I identify some of the factors that have caused or continue to cause difficulties for the articulation of a concept of special divine action and I suggest how they might be engaged. (shrink)

This paper tackles the problem of defining what a cognitive expert is. Starting from a shared intuition that the definition of an expert depends upon the conceptual function of expertise, I shed light on two main approaches to the notion of an expert: according to novice-oriented accounts of expertise, experts need to provide laypeople with information they lack in some domain; whereas, according to research-oriented accounts, experts need to contribute to the epistemic progress of their discipline. In this paper, I (...) defend the thesis that cognitive experts should be identified by their ability to perform the latter function rather than the former, as novice-oriented accounts, unlike research-oriented ones, fail to comply with the rules of a functionalist approach to expertise. (shrink)

The two main theories of perceptual reasons in contemporary epistemology can be called Phenomenalism and Factualism. According to Phenomenalism, perceptual reasons are facts about experiences conceived of as phenomenal states, i.e., states individuated by phenomenal character, by what it’s like to be in them. According to Factualism, perceptual reasons are instead facts about the external objects perceived. The main problem with Factualism is that it struggles with bad cases: cases where perceived objects are not what they appear or where there (...) is no perceived object at all. The main problem with Phenomenalism is that it struggles with good cases: cases where everything is perfectly normal and the external object is correctly perceived, so that one’s perceptual beliefs are knowledge. In this paper we show that there is a theory of perceptual reasons that avoids the problems for Factualism and Phenomenalism. We call this view Propositionalism. We use ‘proposition’ broadly to mean the entities that are contents of beliefs and other doxastic attitudes. The key to finding a middle ground between Phenomenalism and Factualism, we claim, is to allow our reasons to be false in bad cases. Despite being false, they are about the external world, not our phenomenal states. (shrink)

This paper focuses on extant approaches to counteract the consumption of fake news online. Proponents of structural approaches suggest that our proneness to consuming fake news could only be reduced by reshaping the architecture of online environments. Proponents of educational approaches suggest that fake news consumers should be empowered to improve their epistemic agency. In this paper, we address a question that is relevant to this debate: namely, whether fake news consumers commit mistakes for which they can be criticized and (...) that they could easily avoid by reforming their doxastic conduct. Proponents of structural approaches, like R. Rini and B. Millar, have defended in different ways a negative answer to this question. In this paper, we criticize their views and suggest that individual users could improve on their epistemic practice by widening their information diet. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with the exemplarist strategy of fostering virtue development with the specific goal of improving its applicability in the context of education. I argue that, for what matters educationally, we have good reasons to endorse a liberal account of moral exemplarity. Specifically, I challenge two key assumptions of Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017), namely that moral exemplars are exceptionally virtuous agents and that imitating their behavior is the main strategy for acquiring the virtues. I will introduce (...) and discuss the notions of enkratic exemplars and injustice illuminators and show that we have good reasons to consider them moral exemplars although they fail to satisfy (either of) the key assumptions. (shrink)

This paper confronts Zagzebski’s exemplarism with the intertwined debates over the conditions of exemplarity and the unity-disunity of the virtues, to show the advantages of a pluralistic exemplar-based approach to moral education (PEBAME). PEBAME is based on a prima facie disunitarist perspective in moral theory, which amounts to admitting both exemplarity in all respects and single-virtue exemplarity. First, we account for the advantages of PEBAME, and we show how two figures in recent Italian history (Giorgio Perlasca and Gino Bartali) satisfy (...) Blum’s definitions of ‘moral hero’ and ‘moral saint’ (1988). Then, we offer a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of heroes and saints with respect to character education, according to four criteria derived from PEBAME: admirability, virtuousness, transparency, and imitability. Finally, we conclude that both unitarist and disunitarist exemplars are fundamental to character education; this is because of the hero's superiority to the saint with respect to imitability, a fundamental feature of the exemplar for character education. (shrink)

This article introduces an account of moral education grounded in Zagzebski’s recent Exemplarist Moral Theory and discusses two problems that have to be solved for the account to become a realistic alternative to other educational models on the market, namely the limited-applicability problem and the problem of indoctrination. The first problem raises worries about the viability of the account in ordinary circumstances. The second charges the proposed educational model with indoctrinating students. The main goal of this article is to show (...) how an exemplar-based account of moral education can handle both problems without compromising its structure and upshot. (shrink)

This chapter introduces a novel account of fake news and explains how it differs from other definitions on the market. The account locates the fakeness of an alleged news report in two main aspects related to its production, namely that its creators do not think to have sufficient evidence in favor of what they divulge and they fail to display the appropriate attitude towards the truth of the information they share. A key feature of our analysis is that it does (...) not require that fake news must be circulated with the intention to deceive one’s audience. In this way, our account overcomes a potential limitation of the current philosophical discussion about fake news, which appears to individuate the main problem with this phenomenon in the fact that fake news consumers are misled and misinformed. In contrast, the proposed analysis shows that an additional (and perhaps equally fundamental) problem uncovered by the spread of fake news is a widespread pathological relationship with information, one on which we consume information not to satisfy our interest in the truth but to strengthen our social identities and quench our hunger for social recognition. (shrink)

While possessing moral understanding is agreed to be a core epistemic and moral value, it remains a matter of dispute whether it can be acquired via testimony and whether it involves an ability to engage in moral reasoning. This paper addresses both issues with the aim of contributing to the current debates on moral understanding in moral epistemology and virtue ethics. It is argued that moral epistemologists should stop appealing to the argument from the transmissibility of moral understanding to make (...) a case for their favorite view of moral understanding. It is also argued that proponents of exemplarist moral theories cannot remain neutral on whether the ability to engage in moral reasoning is a necessary component of moral understanding. (shrink)

Epistemic paternalism is the thesis that in some circumstances we are justified in interfering with the inquiry of others for their own epistemic good without consulting them on the issue. This paper addresses the issue of who is rationally entitled to undertake paternalistic interferences, and in virtue of which features one has this entitlement. First, it undermines the view according to which experts are the most apt people to act as paternalist interferers. Then it argues that epistemic authorities are in (...) a better position to satisfy the requirements of justified epistemic paternalism, when conceived according to the service model of epistemic authority. Finally, it offers a virtue‐based account of paternalist interferers and shows how it can apply to cases in which the interferer is a group or an institution. (shrink)

Despite contemporary moral philosophers' renewed attention to the moral significance of emotions, the attitudinal repertoire with which they equip the mature moral agent remains stunted. One attitude moral philosophers neglect (if not disown) is contempt. While acknowledging the nastiness of contempt, I here correct the neglect by providing an account of the moral psychology of contempt. In the process, I defend the moral propriety of certain tokens of properly person-focused contempt against some prominent objections -- among them, objections stemming from (...) Kantian worries that contempt is incompatible with the respect we owe to persons as such. (shrink)

The recent literature has seen a burgeoning discussion of the idea that the overarching epistemic goal of education is the cultivation of the intellectual virtues. Moreover, there have been attempts to put this idea into practice, with virtue-led educational interventions in schools, universities, and even prisons. This paper explores the question of whether—and, if so, to what degree—such intellectual virtue-based approaches to education are essentially social. The focus in this regard is on the role of intellectual exemplars within this approach, (...) and in particular the extent to which direct social interaction with such exemplars is crucial to the implementation of this educational methodology. (shrink)

There is pragmatic encroachment on some epistemic status just in case whether a proposition has that status for a subject depends not only on the subject's epistemic position with respect to the proposition, but also on features of the subject's non-epistemic, practical environment. Discussions of pragmatic encroachment usually focus on knowledge. Here we argue that, barring infallibilism, there is pragmatic encroachment on what is arguably a more fundamental epistemic status – the status a proposition has when it is warranted enough (...) to be a reason one has for believing other things. (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide a remedy to a surprising lacuna in the current discussion in the epistemology of expertise, namely the lack of a theory accounting for the epistemic authority of collective agents. After introducing a service conception of epistemic authority based on Alvin Goldman’s account of a cognitive expert, I argue that this service conception is well suited to account for the epistemic authority of collective bodies on a non-summativist perspective, and I show in detail how the defining (...) requirements of an expert can apply to epistemic groups. (shrink)

This contribution discusses two aspects of Watson’s account of epistemic rights: namely, the nature of epistemic rights, and a particular form of epistemic rights violation that Watson calls the abuse of perceived epistemic authority. It is argued that Watson’s take on both aspects is unsatisfactory, and some suggestions for an alternative view are offered.

The article investigates the significance of the so-called phenomenon of apparent faultless disagreement for debates about the semantics of taste discourse. Two kinds of description of the phenomenon are proposed. The first ensures that faultless disagreement raises a distinctive philosophical challenge; yet, it is argued that Contextualist, Realist and Relativist semantic theories do not account for this description. The second, by contrast, makes the phenomenon irrelevant for the problem of what the right semantics of taste discourse should be. Lastly, the (...) following dilemma is assessed: either faultless disagreement provides strong evidence against semantic theories; or its significance should be considerably downplayed. (shrink)

Article Summary. The epistemology of disagreement studies the epistemically relevant aspects of the interaction between parties who hold diverging opinions about a given subject matter. The central question that the epistemology of disagreement purports to answer is how the involved parties should resolve an instance of disagreement. Answers to this central question largely depend on the epistemic position of each party before disagreement occurs. Two parties are equally positioned from an epistemic standpoint—namely, they are epistemic peers—to the extent that they (...) have roughly equal access to the evidence and comparable intellectual resources. When one party is epistemically better positioned than the other—that is, when one is an epistemic superior—it is widely agreed that this party should retain their belief while the other party—the epistemic inferior—should revise their opinion in the direction of what the epistemic superior believes. Addressing the central question is a complex task when the disagreeing parties are epistemic peers. Three main answers can be distinguished. Conciliatory answers mandate that both parties revise—i.e. lower their confidence in—their beliefs upon the occurrence of peer disagreement. Steadfast answers allow both parties to retain their respective beliefs, thereby committing them to demote the epistemic position of the interlocutor. The third group of answers suggests that the solution to peer disagreement depends on whether either party is highly justified in holding their belief. If either party is highly justified, then it is rational that this party retains its view. If neither party is highly justified, both should revise. The epistemology of disagreement addresses further important questions such as: whether the occurrence of disagreement opens the doors to skepticism and/or relativism; what the consequences of epistemic disagreement on intellectual character are; what laypeople should do when experts disagree with each other; and whether disagreement among groups can be treated in the same way as disagreement among individuals. (shrink)

Several metaphysical/philosophical concepts are developed as tools by which we may further understand the essence, structure, and events/symbols of “Complex” Synchronicity, and how these differ from “Chain of Events” Synchronicity. The first tool is the concept of Astronomical vs Cultural time. This tool is to be the basis of distinguishing Simple from Complex Synchronicity as Complex Synchronicities are chunks of time that have several coincidences in common with each other. We will also look at the nature of the perspective of (...) the time being quantized. The next tool is a particular case study of two movies, The Matrix and Black Swan, that may be viewed as an example of a Complex Synchronicity in the collective conscious of popular culture (as opposed to Simple Synchronicity or a single coincidence). And the final tool is the concept of “Chain of Events” synchronicity as a separate concept from Simple or Complex synchronicities. This 3rd tool is developed using a mathematical metaphor of foreshadowing (an element of storytelling) in the seemingly random pattern of prime numbers. The purpose of this paper is to distinguish and develop these concepts and to lay a foundation for the further study of the concept of Synchronicity first illuminated by Carl Jung as an acausal connecting principle between coincidences. (shrink)

The Algorithm described in this short paper is a simplified formal representation of consciousness that may be applied in the fields of Psychology and Artificial Intelligence. -/- Click on the download link to read full essay...

This is just an initial finding and needs to be verified by a larger, more thorough study. Part 1 of this paper demonstrates that we unconsciously select words based on letter sounds that we like or dislike. Part 2 demonstrates that there may be harmony and dissonance in the pattern of frequency of letter usage, at least in the case of the vowels. To the best of my knowledge this is a new idea/discovery. The following paper contains graphs of the (...) data collected from 15 classic works of literature including 4 works of HG Wells and 4 works of Jane Austen. Also a separate analysis is done using just the vowels from Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Eminem Recovery album. (shrink)

Review of Felice C. Frankel's "The visual elements—design: a handbook for communicating science and engineering.".

Concepts of time as Astronomical Time, Cultural Time, and Absolute Time are defined, and an idea is developed that Absolute Time flows in reverse.

A recent paper by Bullock (2018) raises a dilemma for proponents of epistemic paternalism. If epistemic paternalists contend that epistemic improvements contribute to one’s wellbeing, then their view conflates with general paternalism. Instead, if they appeal to the notion of a distinctive epistemic value, their view is unjustified, in that concerns about epistemic value fail to outweigh concerns about personal sovereignty. In this chapter, I address Bullock’s challenge in a way that safeguards the legitimacy of epistemic paternalism, albeit restricting its (...) scope to a limited range of cognitive projects. After shedding light on a problem with how Bullock singles out cases to which the dilemma applies, I argue that there is at least one reasonable way of interpreting the notion of ‘personal autonomy’ which legitimates and justifies undertaking epistemically paternalistic interferences for one’s epistemic good. (shrink)