Cumulative cultural knowledge [CCK], the knowledge we acquire via social learning and has been refined by previous generations, is of central importance to our species’ flourishing. Considering its importance, we should expect that our best epistemological theories can account for how this happens. Perhaps surprisingly, CCK and how we acquire it via cultural learning has only received little attention from social epistemologists. Here, I focus on how we should epistemically evaluate how agents acquire CCK. After sampling some reasons (...) why extant theories cannot account for CCK, I suggest that things aren’t as bleak as they might look. I explain how agents deserve epistemic credit for how CCK is transmitted in cultural learning by promoting a central need of their social group: The efficient and safe transmission of CCK. A good initial fit exists between this observation and Greco’s knowledge-economy framework. Ultimately, however, Greco’s account doesn’t straightforwardly account for CCK because of its strict focus on testimony. I point out two issues in the framework due to this focus. The resulting view advocates giving epistemic credit to agents when they act to promote their communities’ epistemic needs in the right way and highlights the various ways in which agents come to do this. (shrink)

In my 1991 paper, AAnti-Individualism and Privileged Access,@ I argued that externalism in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the thesis that we have privileged , nonempirical access to the contents of our own thoughts.¹ One of the most interesting responses to my argument has been that of Martin Davies (1998, 2000, and Chapter _ above) and Crispin Wright (2000 and Chapter _ above), who describe several types of cases to show that warrant for a premise does not always (...) transmit to a known deductive consequence of that premise, and who contend that this fact under-mines my argument for incompatibilism. I will try to show here that the Davies/Wright point about transmission of warrant does not adversely affect my argument. (shrink)

The present article is an attempt to give - in the frame of the theory of the organism - environment system - a new interpretation to the role of efferent influences on receptor activity and to the functions of senses in the formation of knowledge. It is argued, on the basis of experimental evidence and theoretical considerations, that the senses are not transmitters of environmental information, but they create a direct connection between the organism and the environment, which makes (...) the development of a dynamic living system, the organism - environment system, possible. In this connection process the efferent influences on receptor activity are of particular significance, because with their help the receptors may be adjusted in relation to the parts of the environment which are most important in the achievement of behavioral results. Perception is the process of joining of new parts of the environment to the organism - environment system ; thus, the formation of knowledge by perception is based on reorganization of the organism - environment system, and not on transmission of information from the environment. With the help of the efferent influences on receptors each organism creates its own peculiar world which is simultaneously subjective and objective. The present considerations have far reaching influences as well on experimental work in neurophysiology and psychology of perception as on philosophical considerations of knowledge formation. (shrink)

Almost everyone believes that testimony can transmit knowledge from speaker to hearer. What some philosophers mean by this is ordinary and pedestrian-- they mean only that, in at least some cases, a speaker S knows that p, S testifies that p to a hearer H, and H comes to know that p as a result of believing S's testimony. There is disagreement about how this occurs, but that it does occur is sufficient for the transmission of knowledge (...) in the intended sense. On this understanding of transmission, the natural questions are these: (1) What conditions, in addition to speaker knowledge and speaker testimony, are sufficient for the hearer to gain testimonial knowledge?; and (2) Is speaker knowledge always necessary for testimonial knowledge? That is: Is all testimonial knowledge transmitted knowledge? (shrink)

Abstract: As much as 60% children born in Nigeria are delivered by unskilled traditional birth attendants (TBAs). Therefore, there is no denying their relevance. Be that as it may these traditional birth attendants are by modern/current standards considered incompetent as regards appropriate skills in regard to the contemporary challenges to safe and effective child-bearing. It is, therefore, imperative for TBAs and other similar cadre of healthcare providers in resource-limited settings to be knowledgeable and have the ability to deploy evidence-based practices (...) in the prevention of diseases. There is no gainsaying the socio economic and political impact of diseases. This study examines the prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, in selected communities in Enugu State. It is about the connection between the traditional birth attendants and this quest. Simply put, as a result of resource limitations, the volume of delivery by the traditional birth attendants is huge. However, the modus operandi of the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) considerably expose the community to the transmission of viruses-including the HIV. This study examines the efforts of TBAs as regards the prevention of Mother-To-Child transmission in selected Local Government Areas of Enugu State, Nigeria. Findings, indicate rooms for improvement. In conclusion, We advocate the adoption of modern practices through regular training to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This in itself is no small achievement even if only for a case. Here, however, we are speaking about millions of people, this is definitely serious. (shrink)

I set out the standard view about alleged examples of failure of transmission of warrant, respond to two cases for the view, and argue that the view is false. The first argument for the view neglects the distinction between believing a proposition on the basis of a justification and merely having a justification to believe a proposition. The second argument for the view neglects the position that one's justification for believing a conclusion can be one's premise for the conclusion, (...) rather than simply one's justification for the premise. Finally, the view is false since it is inconsistent with the closure of knowledge as closure is properly understood. (shrink)

Sanford Goldberg argues for Content Externalism by drawing our attention to the extent to which an individual’s concepts depend on the concepts of others. More specifically, he focuses on cases that involve knowledge transmission between experts and non-experts to make his point. In this paper, I argue that the content internalist cannot only plausibly respond to his argument but that Content Internalism offers a more plausible account of intentional content with regard to knowledge transmission than does (...) Content Externalism. (shrink)

This is a very selective survey of developments in epistemology, concentrating on work from the past twenty years that is of interest to philosophers of science. The selection is organized around interesting connections between distinct themes. I first connect issues about skepticism to issues about the reliability of belief-acquiring processes. Next I connect discussions of the defeasibility of reasons for belief to accounts of the theory-independence of evidence. Then I connect doubts about Bayesian epistemology to issues about the content of (...) perception. The last detailed connection is between considerations of the finiteness of cognition and epistemic virtues. To connect the connections I end by briefly discussing the pressure that consideration of social roles in the transmission of belief puts on the purposes of epistemology. (shrink)

Transmission views of testimony hold that a speaker's knowledge or justification can become the audience's knowledge or justification. We argue that transmission views are incompatible with the hypothesis that one's epistemic state, together with one's practical circumstances, determines what actions are rationally permissible for an agent. We argue that there are cases where, if the speaker's epistemic state were transmitted to the audience, then the audience would be warranted in acting in particular ways. Yet, the audience (...) in these cases is not so warranted, as their strength of justification does not come close to the speaker's. (shrink)

Social knowledge, for the most part, is knowledge through testimony. This essay is an overview of the epistemology of testimony. The essay separates knowledge from justification, characterizes testimony as a source of belief, explains why testimony is a source of knowledge, canvasses arguments for anti-reductionism and for reductionism in the reductionism vs. anti-reductionism debate, addresses counterexamples to knowledge transmission, defends a safe basis account of testimonial knowledge, and turns to social norms as a (...) partial explanation for the reliability of testimony. (shrink)

Dretske’s theory of self-knowledge is interesting but peculiar and can seem implausible. He denies that we can know by introspection that we have thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But he allows that we can know by introspection what we think, feel, and experience. We consider two puzzles. The first puzzle, PUZZLE 1, is interpretive. Is there a way of understanding Dretske’s theory on which the knowledge affirmed by its positive side is different than the knowledge denied by its (...) negative side? The second puzzle, PUZZLE 2, is substantive. Each of the following theses has some prima facie plausibility: there is introspective knowledge of thoughts, knowledge requires evidence, and there are no experiences of thoughts. It is unclear, though, that these claims form a consistent set. These puzzles are not unrelated. Dretske’s theory of self-knowledge is a potential solution to PUZZLE 2 in that Dretske’s theory is meant to show how,, and can all be true. We provide a solution to PUZZLE 1 by appeal to Dretske’s early work in the philosophy of language on contrastive focus. We then distinguish between “Closure” and “Transmissibility”, and raise and answer a worry to the effect that Dretske’s theory of self-knowledge runs counter to Transmissibility. These results help to secure Dretske’s theory as a viable solution to PUZZLE 2. (shrink)

In response to the claim that certain epistemically defective inferences such as Moore’s argument lead us to the conclusion that we ought to abandon closure, Crispin Wright suggests that we can avoid doing so by distinguishing it from a stronger principle, namely transmission. Where closure says that knowledge of a proposition is a necessary condition on knowledge of anything one knows to entail it, transmission makes a stronger claim, saying that by reasoning deductively from known premises (...) one can thereby acquire knowledge of or justification for the conclusion. Wright’s thought is that in cases such as Moore what is really going on is a failure of transmission, not a failure of closure. The problem with this claim is that it relies on an outdated formulation of closure which few nowadays would find plausible. Once we stipulate that it is the intuitive closure principle that deserves our attention, it becomes far less obvious that the project of diagnosing what is wrong with arguments such as Moore in terms of transmission failure but not closure failure can be vindicated. In order to demonstrate this claim, I consider intuitive closure of propositional justification vs. transmission of propositional justification and concede that perhaps these can come apart in the way that Wright suggests. I then argue that despite this concession, we also need an answer to the question of whether intuitive closure for doxastic justification and transmission for doxastic justification can come apart. We need an answer to this question because our ultimate interest in these issues stems from our interest in whether knowledge obeys closure, not merely whether propositional justification does. I argue that, even on the assumption that there is transmission failure of propositional justification, there is no transmission failure of doxastic justification. And if this is true, then there is no transmission failure of knowledge either. The transmission failure diagnosis of Moore’s argument and its ilk is thus in trouble. (shrink)

In recent work, Williamson has defended a suggestive account of assertion. Williamson claims that the following norm or rule (the knowledge rule) is constitutive of assertion, and individuates it: (KR) One must ((assert p) only if one knows p) Williamson is not directly concerned with the semantics of assertion-markers, although he assumes that his view has implications for such an undertaking; he says: “in natural languages, the default use of declarative sentences is to make assertions” (op. cit., 258). In (...) this paper I will explore Williamson’s view from this perspective, i.e., in the light of issues regarding the semantics of assertion-markers. I will end up propounding a slightly different account, on which, rather than KR, what is constitutive and individuating of assertion is an audience-involving transmission of knowledge rule: (TKR) One must ((assert p) only if one’s audience comes thereby to be in a position to know p) I will argue that TKR, of which KR is an illocutionary consequence (but not the other way around), has all the virtues that Williamson claims for his account and no new defect. (shrink)

Most philosophers believe that testimony is not a fundamental source of knowledge, but merely a way to transmit already existing knowledge. However, Jennifer Lackey has presented some counterexamples which show that one can actually come to know something through testimony that no one ever knew before. Yet, the intuitive idea can be preserved by the weaker claim that someone in a knowledge-constituting testimonial chain has to have access to some non-testimonial source of knowledge with regard to (...) what is testified. But even this weaker claim has a counterexample which I develop in close connection with a safety-account of knowledge. Thus, testimonial statements can sometimes enable us to know something for which none of our informants has any source of knowledge available. I conclude that my counterexample nevertheless does not affect the core of our intuitions about testimony, although it establishes that testimony can indeed be a fundamental source of knowledge. (shrink)

Vice epistemology, as Quassim Cassam understands it, is the study of the nature, identity, and significance of the epistemic vices. But what makes an intellectual vice a vice? Cassam calls his own view “Obstructivism” – intellectual vices are those traits, thinking styles, or attitudes that systematically obstruct the acquisition, retention, and transmission of knowledge. -/- I shall argue that Cassam’s account is an improvement upon virtue-reliabilism, and that it fares better against what I call Montmarquet’s objection than its (...) immediate rivals. Nevertheless, I contend that it does not go far enough — Montmarquet’s objection stands. -/- I conclude that either the objection needs to be answered in some other way, or else proponents of Obstructivism need to explain why their account of the nature of the intellectual vices does not have the counterintuitive consequences it appears to have. Alternatively, another account of the nature of the intellectual vices needs to be sought. (shrink)

Within his overarching program aiming to defend an epistemic conception of analyticity, Boghossian (1996 and 1997) has offered a clear-cut explanation of how we can acquire a priori knowledge of logical truths and logical rules through implicit definition. The explanation is based on a special template or general form of argument. Ebert (2005) has argued that an enhanced version of this template is flawed because a segment of it is unable to transmit warrant from its premises to the conclusion. (...) This article aims to defend the template from this objection. We provide an accurate description of the type of non-transmissivity that Ebert attributes to the template and clarify why this is a novel type of non-transmissivity. Then, we argue that Jenkins (2008)’s response to Ebert fails because it focuses on doxastic rather than propositional warrant. Finally, we rebut Ebert’s objection on Boghossian’s behalf by showing that it rests on an unwarranted assumption and is internally incoherent. (shrink)

This paper is part of a symposium on Linda Zagzebski's EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY (OUP, 2012). It focuses on Zagzebski's argument that the transmission of information through a chain of testimony weakens its evidential value. This argument is shown to rest on an overly simplistic model of testimonial transmission that does not apply to religious traditions. The real problem with modeling religious traditions just as transmitters of information is that this assumes a conception of religious knowledge that is too (...) "insular" with respect to other things the believer knows, as well as aspects of religious faith that go beyond the mere acceptance of doctrines. (shrink)

Jennifer Lackey ('Testimonial Knowledge and Transmission' The Philosophical Quarterly 1999) and Peter Graham ('Conveying Information, Synthese 2000, 'Transferring Knowledge' Nous 2000) offered counterexamples to show that a hearer can acquire knowledge that P from a speaker who asserts that P, but the speaker does not know that P. These examples suggest testimony can generate knowledge. The showpiece of Lackey's examples is the Schoolteacher case. This paper shows that Lackey's case does not undermine the orthodox view (...) that testimony cannot generate knowledge. This paper explains why Lackey's arguments to the contrary are ineffective for they misunderstand the intuitive rationale for the view that testimony cannot generate knowledge. This paper then elaborates on a version of the case from Graham's paper 'Conveying Information' (the Fossil case) that effectively shows that testimony can generate knowledge. This paper then provides a deeper informative explanation for how it is that testimony transfers knowledge, and why there should be cases where testimony generates knowledge. (shrink)

The German word Destruktion was used by Heidegger in the sense that philosophy should destroy some ontological concepts and the everyday meanings of certain words. Tradition allows the transmission of knowledge and sensations of continuity and connection with the past, but it must be critically evaluated so that it does not perpetuate certain prejudices. According to Heidegger, tradition transmits, but it also conceals. Tradition induces self-evidence and prevents us from accessing the origin of concepts. It makes us believe (...) that we do not need to return to that origin. Making tradition transparent dissolves the concealments it has provoked. Here I will apply this idea to the mental and the physical by suggesting that the mind-body problem has inherited occultations that are born in Descartes himself. As a result, what could be a new philosophical framework for the research in consciousness emerges: That as an individual cognitive being I cannot avoid splitting reality into what I am and what I am not, extending then the individual duality to a collective error transmitted culturally. (shrink)

Jennifer Lackey’s case “Creationist Teacher,” in which students acquire knowledge of evolutionary theory from a teacher who does not herself believe the theory, has been discussed widely as a counterexample to so-called transmission theories of testimonial knowledge and justification. The case purports to show that a speaker need not herself have knowledge or justification in order to enable listeners to acquire knowledge or justification from her assertion. The original case has been criticized on the ground (...) that it does not really refute the transmission theory, because there is still somebody in a chain of testifiers—the person from whom the creationist teacher acquired what she testifies—who knows the truth of the testified statements. In this paper, we provide a kind of pattern for generating counterexample cases, one that avoids objections discussed by Peter Graham and others in relation to such cases. (shrink)

In what follows, I appeal to Charles Babbage’s discussion of the division of mental labor to provide evidence that—at least with respect to the social acquisition, storage, retrieval, and transmission of knowledge—epistemologists have, for a broad range of phenomena of crucial importance to actual knowers in their epistemic practices in everyday life, failed adequately to appreciate the significance of socially distributed cognition. If the discussion here is successful, I will have demonstrated that a particular presumption widely held within (...) the contemporary discussion of the epistemology of testimony—a presumption that I will term the personalist requirement—fails to account for those very practices of knowers that I detail here. I will then conclude by suggesting that an alternate account of testimonial warrant, one that has heretofore been underappreciated, ought to be given more serious consideration—in particular because it is well suited to account for those actual practices of knowers that the personalist requirement leaves unrecognized. (shrink)

This paper applies Bayesian theories to critically analyse and offer reforms of intelligence analysis, collection, analysis, and decision making on the basis of Human Intelligence, Signals Intelligence, and Communication Intelligence. The article criticises the reliabilities of existing intelligence methodologies to demonstrate the need for Bayesian reforms. The proposed epistemic reform program for intelligence analysis should generate more reliable inferences. It distinguishes the transmission of knowledge from its generation, and consists of Bayesian three stages modular model for the generation (...) of reliable intelligence from multiple coherent and independent testimonial sources, and for the tracing and analysis of intelligence failures. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research, the development of artificial intellignce that may measure coherence and reliability of HUMINT sources and infer intelligence following the outlined general modular model. (shrink)

I use the case of religious belief to argue that communal institutions are crucial to successfully transmitting knowledge to a broad public. The transmission of maximally counterintuitive religious concepts can only be explained by reference to the communities that sustain and pass them on. The shared life and vision of such communities allows believers to trust their fellow adherents. Repeated religious practices provide reinforced exposure while the comprehensive and structured nature of religious worldviews helps to limit distortion. I (...) argue that the phenomenon of theological incorrectness noted by many cognitive scientists of religion is not as worrisome as it may appear. Believers may be employing models that are good enough for practical knowledge, as much of the relevant sociological evidence suggests. Further, communities can help us both in acquiring our initial beliefs and in correcting our errors. (shrink)

Cardinal Bessarion (1408–1472), in the second chapter of the first book of his influential work In calumniatorem Platonis, attempted to reply to Georgios Trapezuntios’ (1396–1474) criticism against Plato in the Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis. Bessarion investigates why the Athenian philosopher maintained, in several dialogues, that the sacred truths should not be communicated to the general public and argued in favor of the value of oral transmission of knowledge, largely based on his theory about the cognitive processes. Recently, (...) Fr. Bessarion Kouotsis has argued that Cardinal Bessarion’s reasoning draws primarily on the “Disciplina Arcani”, i.e., the rule of secrecy, which was an established practice of the Early Christian Church, aimed at protecting and preserving the core elements of the religion from outsiders. While I find Kouotsis’ approach interesting and thought-provoking—for instance, the idea that Bessarion’s argumentation was likely influenced by Eastern Christian views on the rule of secrecy—I intend, first of all, to discuss why Bessarion did not explicitly mention it. Moreover, I would like to argue that Bessarion’s good knowledge of the long Platonic tradition and Eastern mysticism, encompassing both pagan and Christian elements, should also be considered a significant source. Furthermore, I would like to question Kouotsis’ implicit argument that Bessarion’s views were dominated by his training in Orthodox theology and discuss the possibility that Pletho’s (1355–1454) teaching was the obvious influence for Bessarion’s defense of secrecy. After all, we should bear in mind that Anastos has already pointed out Pletho’s reverence for the rule of secrecy. Finally, I would like to support that Bessarion, in the specific text, focused predominantly on the epistemological and cognitive aspects of oral teaching, resorting to the rule of secrecy only to enhance his views. (shrink)

Practical knowledge is discussed in close relation to practical expertise. For both anti-intellectualists and intellectualists, the knowledge of how to φ is widely assumed to entail the practical expertise in φ-ing. This paper refutes this assumption. I argue that non-experts can know how to φ via other experts’ knowledge of φ-ing. Know-how can be ‘outsourced’. I defend the outsourceability of know-how, and I refute the objections that reduce outsourced know-how to the knowledge of how to ask (...) for help, of how to get things done, or of external contents. Interestingly, outsourcing differs from social cooperation, collective agency, testimonial transmission, and many other notions in social-epistemological debates. Thus, outsourcing provides not only a hitherto unconsidered form of know-how but also a novel way for knowledge to be social. Furthermore, outsourcing plausibly involves a ‘social’ cognitive extension that does not rest on EMT or HEC. Given the outsourceability of know-how, we must reconsider the nature of know-how and expertise, as well as the relation between non-experts and experts. (shrink)

Evidence matters for responsibility. This paper investigates implications of this insight for group responsibility and the literature on group belief. In particular, we will be focusing on the transmission of group responsibility from group to individual. We will argue that there are cases in which responsibility transmits fully (to all members of the group), partially (to some but not all of its members), or not at all (to none of its members), and we will explore some implications of these (...) observations for accounts of group belief and evidence in the literature on social epistemology. More specifically, we will provide reason to think that these observations provide support for an account of group belief that we favour over its main rivals in the literature. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a sensitivity theory of knowledge cannot account for intuitively appealing instances of higher-order knowledge. In this paper, we argue that it can once careful attention is paid to the methods or processes by which we typically form higher-order beliefs. We base our argument on what we take to be a well-motivated and commonsensical view on how higher-order knowledge is typically acquired, and we show how higher-order knowledge is possible in a (...) sensitivity theory once this view is adopted. (shrink)

The entry of resonance into chemistry, or the reception of the theory of resonance in the chemical community, has drawn considerable attention from historians of science. In particular, they have noted Pauling's ¯amboyant yet effective style of exposition, which became a factor in the early popularity of the resonance theory in comparison to the molecular orbital theory, another way of applying quantum mechanics to chemical problems.$ To be sure, the non-mathematical presentation of the resonance theory by Pauling and his collaborator, (...) George Wheland, helped to facilitate the reception ; but this presentation was vulnerable to the confusion that arose among chemists owing to the similarity between resonance and tautomerism, or between foreign and indigenous concepts. The reception occurred at the expense of serious misunderstandings about resonance. This paper investigates the ways in which Pauling and Wheland taught, and taught about, the theory of resonance, especially their ways of coping with the difficulties of translating a quantum-mechanical concept into chemical language. Their different strategies for teaching resonance theory deserve a thorough examination, not only because the strategies had to do with their solutions of the philosophical question whether resonance is a real phenomenon or not, and whether the theory of resonance is a chemical theory or a mathematical method of approximation, but also because this examination will illuminate the role of chemical translators in the transmission of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

Commonsense holds that testimony transfers knowledge from a speaker to the hearer. If the speaker has knowledge, then the hearer acquires it. Call that sufficiency. And a hearer acquires knowledge only if the speaker has it to transfer. Call that necessity. This article reviews counterexamples--and some replies to those counterexamples--to both claims.

Inquiry is an aim-directed activity, and as such governed by instrumental normativity. If you have reason to figure out a question, you have reason to take means to figuring it out. Beliefs are governed by epistemic normativity. On a certain pervasive understanding, this means that you are permitted – maybe required – to believe what you have sufficient evidence for. The norms of inquiry and epistemic norms both govern us as agents in pursuit of knowledge and understanding, and, on (...) the surface, they do so in harmony. Recently, however, Jane Friedman (2020) has pointed out that they are in tension with each other. In this paper, I aim to resolve this tension by showing that reasons for acts of inquiry – zetetic reasons – and epistemic reasons for belief can both be understood as flowing from the same general normative principle: the transmission principle for instrumental reasons. The resulting account is a version of epistemic instrumentalism that offers an attractive unity between zetetic and epistemic normativity. (shrink)

Epistemically circular arguments have been receiving quite a bit of attention in the literature for the past decade or so. Often the goal is to determine whether reliabilists (or other foundationalists) are committed to the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. It is often assumed that epistemic circularity is objectionable, though sometimes reliabilists accept that their position entails the legitimacy of some epistemically circular arguments, and then go on to affirm that such arguments really are good ones. My goal in this (...) paper is to argue against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. My strategy is to give a direct argument against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments, which rests on a principle of basis-relative safety, and then to argue that reliabilists do not have the resources to resist the argument. I argue that even if the premises of an epistemically circular argument enjoy reliabilist justification, the argument does not transmit that justification to its conclusion. The main goal of my argument is to show that epistemic circularity is always a bad thing, but it also has the positive consequence that reliabilists are freed from an awkward commitment to the legitimacy of some intuitively bad arguments. (shrink)

Boghossian (1996) has put forward an interesting explanation of how we can acquire logical knowledge via implicit definitions that makes use of a special template. Ebert (2005) has argued that the template is unserviceable, as it doesn't transmit warrant. In this paper, we defend the template. We first suggest that Jenkins (2008)’s response to Ebert fails because it focuses on doxastic rather than propositional warrant. We then reject Ebert’s objection by showing that it depends on an implausible and incoherent (...) assumption. (shrink)

In the classical account of knowledge, S knows that P if and only if S believes that P, S is justified in believing that P, and P is true (JTB).. In 1963, Gettier presented two problems that casted doubt on this account. Since then, numerous authors proposed modifications or clarifications of JTB, however, these efforts have not produced a satis-factory solution. In this paper, the focus is on logical properties of justification. The Get-tier problem Case II is expressed in (...) sentential logic and Gettier Minimal Assumption (GMA) is introduced. It is shown that Gettier must have used GMA or some other as-sumption that entails GMA in his construction of Case II. Rejection of GMA solves Get-tier problem Case II and it is a step towards a better understanding of the logical proper-ties of justification and knowledge. (shrink)

The changing conditions for the accumulation and transmission of knowledge in the age of multimedia networks make it inevitable that old philosophical problems become formulated in a new light. Above all, the problem of the unity of knowledge is once again a topical issue. The situation-dependent acquisition of knowledge that is made possible by mobile learning transcends the boundaries of traditional disciplines, linking the domains of text, diagram, and picture. Database integration and multimedia search become central (...) problems in the epistemology of the 21st century, while handheld devices are emerging as vital technologies for supporting collaborative learning. -- Kristóf Nyíri has published widely on Wittgenstein, Austrian intellectual history, and the philosophy of communication. He directs the interdisciplinary research program COMMUNICATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, conducted jointly by the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Westel Mobile Telecommunications, Budapest. (shrink)

When travelling to a new city, we acquire knowledge about its physical terrain, directions, historical facts and aesthetic features. Engaging in tourism practices, such as guided walking tours, provides experiences of a city that are necessarily mediated and partial. This has led scholars in tourism studies, and more recently in philosophy, to question the epistemological value of city tours, critiquingthem as passive, lacking in autonomous agency, and providing misrepresentative experiences of the city. In response, we argue that the mediated (...) and partial knowledge of a city acquired through city tours is not epistemologically disvaluable. Although city tours involve the transmission of testimonial knowledge, this does not necessarily render tourists as passive and non-autonomous. Instead,tourists have the potential to participate in the generation of their knowledge actively. Moreover, we argue that city tours also provide a tourist with valuable ‘objectual’ knowledge of a city, whichhas the potential to be first-personal and active, and does not necessarily misrepresent the city’s identity. This type of knowledge is valuable both for tourists as credible epistemic agents, and for the city itself, as the knowledge generated by the tour can facilitate an accurate representation of the city and promote social transformation. We conclude by highlighting four further epistemic and ethical implications of our argument. (shrink)

We consider the implications of analyzing teaching as a sociocultural form. We suggest that the internalization of mediations includes not only concepts but a complex of dimensions of mediations. These dimensions enable us to define a form. Each students, building on previously subjectivated microforms, tries to give a personal meaning to the transmitted knowledge and to his experiences. The theoretical and professional training enables however the elaboration of a subjectivated sociocultural form. Regarding teacher training, the process is even more (...) complex due to the different origin of the transmitted knowledge. We conclude by outlining some consequences resulting from taking into account this notion of form in teacher training. (shrink)

Abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common types of dementia. Symptoms appear gradually and end with severe brain damage. People with Alzheimer's disease lose the abilities of knowledge, memory, language and learning. Recently, the classification and diagnosis of diseases using deep learning has emerged as an active topic covering a wide range of applications. This paper proposes examining abnormalities in brain structures and detecting cases of Alzheimer's disease especially in the early stages, using features derived from (...) medical images. The entire brain image was passed on through the transmission of Xception learning architectures. The Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was constructed with the help of separable convolution layers that It can automatically learn general features from imaging data for classification. (shrink)

Intellectual servility is a vice opposing proper pride about one's intellectual achievements. Intellectual timidity is also a vice; it is manifested in a lack of proper concern for others’ esteem. This paper offers an account of the nature of these vices and details some of the epistemic harms that flow from them. I argue that servility, which is often the result of suffering humiliation, is a form of damaged self-esteem. It is underpinned by attitudes serving social-adjustive functions and causes ingratiating (...) behaviors. Timidity, which is habituated through self-silencing, is underpinned by negative attitudes toward the intellectual worth of the self, which serve a defensive function. Like servility, timidity is an obstacle to the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and especially knowledge about oneself. (shrink)

In this paper I shall discuss the relationship between the two known Arabic translations of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Burhān. I shall argue that Avicenna relies on both (1) Abū Bishr Mattā’s translation and (2) the anonymous translation used by Averroes in the Long Commentary as well as in the Middle Commentary (and also indirectly preserved by Gerard of Cremona’s Latin translation of Aristotle’s work). Although, generally speaking, the problem is relevant to the history of the transmission (...) of the Posterior Analytics from Greek through Syriac into Arabic, I do not intend to give a systematic presentation of the historical setting in which Aristotle’s work became readily available to the Arabo-Islamic culture. My aim here is rather to isolate and discuss some pieces of evidence concerning the texts that seem to have been available to Avicenna. In addition to that, I shall also provide evidence concerning the relationship with the Greek commentary tradition (in particular Philoponus and Themistius) that is likely to have influenced Avicenna in his discussion of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration and scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Part One of the paper argues against evidentialism and individualism in religiousepistemology, and in favor of a “social turn” in the field. The idea here is that humanbelief in general, and religious belief in particular, is largely characterized by epistemicdependence on other persons. An adequate epistemology, it is agued, ought to recognizeand account for social epistemic dependence.Part Two considers a problem that becomes salient when we make such a turn. Inshort, how are we to understand the transmission of (...) class='Hi'>knowledge and rational faith in areligious tradition? The problem arises because, by all accounts, even the best traditionstransmit superstitions, self-serving prejudices, and other things that are down right falseon any reasonable view. So how is it that these same traditions can also transmit rationalfaith and even knowledge by means of the very same channels, for example channels ofreligious authority and religious teaching?Part Three offers a tentative solution to this problem. (shrink)

Subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI), the view that whether a subject knows depends on the practical stakes, has been charged with ‘knowledge laundering’: together with widely held knowledge-transmission principles, SSI appears to allow improper knowledge acquisition. I argue that this objection fails because it depends on faulty versions of transmission principles that would raise problems for any view. When transmission principles are properly understood, they are shown to be compatible with SSI because they do not give (...) rise to improper knowledge acquisition. The upshot is a better understanding of the nature and structure of these transmission principles. (shrink)

This chapter as the whole book are a result of a Globethics conference in March 2018 at the Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA) in Kenya, focused on the integration of Ethics in Higher Education. The book captures the potential for sharing of knowledge, and triggering interdisciplinary collaboration and research across a wide variety of issues ranging from research practice, religion, entrepreneurship, leadership, fundraising and corruption. While some of the chapters focus on the understanding of ethics and its relationship (...) with the various other aspects of life, others concentrate on the methods and strategies of effectively teaching ethics. Our chapter is concerned by the ways research practices and the value of integrity might be at risk, in very limited situations. We have good hope that responsible answers and proportionate reason-based actions in confronting some of these risks - as with plagiarism - can protect the giving virtues necessary for dynamical and effective research processes, which are all ultimately built on the value of trust. (shrink)

Aspects of human symbolic evolution are studied by scholars active in a variety of fields and disciplines in the life and the behavioral sciences as well as the scientific-philosophical, sociological, anthropological, and linguistic sciences. These fields and disciplines all take on an evolutionary approach to the study of human symbolism, but scholars disagree in their theoretical and methodological attitudes. Theoretically, symbolism is defined differentially as knowledge, behavior, cognition, culture, language, or social group living. Methodologically, the diverse symbolic evolution sciences (...) establish their teachings upon diverging evolutionary biological schools and paradigms. This chapter reviews past and current research fields in human symbolic evolution for how they differentially implement tenets of the major evolution schools that were discussed in the previous chapter. Traditional evolutionary epistemology and biosemiotics bring in a mesoevolutionary outlook by drawing on early Darwinism and evolutionary developmental biology movements that emphasize the role of the organism in evolution. Communication studies instead originally take on a microevolutionary perspective by investigating how units of information are transmitted across generations through time. Only later do they integrate studies on meaning-making at the organismal level. Sociobiology complements a microevolutionary with a macroevolutionary outlook by implementing population genetic approaches, typical of the Modern Synthesis, into studies on individual and group behavior. The new symbolic evolutionary sciences build upon these traditions and include disciplines such as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary archaeology, evolutionary sociology, and evolutionary economics. Originally centered on implementing Darwinian selection theory, these fields are now including ecological and evolutionary developmental biology as well as reticulate evolutionary paradigms. As diverse in outlook and scope as they are, no discipline holds a privileged position over the other and all have made valuable contributions to our understanding of human symbolic evolution. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: For the most part, this paper is not a philosophical paper in any strict sense. Rather, it focuses on the numerous exegetical puzzles in Sextus Empiricus’ two main passages on time (M X.l69-247 and PH III.l36-50), which, once sorted, help to explain how Sextus works and what the views are which he examines. Thus the paper provides an improved base from which to put more specifically philosophical questions to the text. The paper has two main sections, which can, by (...) and large, be read independently. Each is about a topic which, to my knowledge, has so far not been treated in detail. The first section is concemed with the argument structures of the two main passages on time in Sextus, pointing out various irregularities in the overall argument in both passages, as well as parallels and differences, and asks the question what kinds of scepticism and sceptical methods we find in the various parts of each passage. The second section focuses on the doxographical accounts of time in the two passages: what they are, how they compare with surviving parallels, to what philosophers we can attribute those accounts for which Sextus himself provides either no, or more than one, possible ascriptions, and how Sextus treats the doxographical material. This discussion is inspired by the contributions Michael Frede offered on this topic the day before his untimely death. (shrink)

In Boghossian's 1997 paper, 'Analyticity' he presented an account of a prioriknowledge of basic logical principles as available by inference from knowledge of their role in determining the meaning of the logical constants by implicit definitiontogether with knowledge of the meanings so-determined that we possess through ourprivileged access to meaning. Some commentators (e.g. BonJour (1998), Glüer (2003),Jenkins (2008)) have objected that if the thesis of implicit definition on which he relieswere true, knowledge of the meaning of the (...) constants would presuppose knowledge of the very logical principles knowledge of which the account purports to explain. Aconsequence would seem to be that implicit definition is incompatible with privilegedaccess. I argue that whilst it is possible for Boghossian to defend against theseobjections the form of argument he proposes does exhibit a subtle form of questionbegging such that it exhibits a transmission of warrant-failure. (shrink)

This article was initially written (in 2020) for a private collection gifted to Alexander García Düttmann on the occasion of his 60th birthday. It explores themes of education and the transmission of knowledge in relation to figures of youth and extinction. Georg Trakl's poem "Abendlied" serves as the essay's centerpiece and is brought into dialogue with comments made by Levi-Strauss on a 'prima material'. Certain ecological overtones appear when an overzealous Prometheanism is contrasted with a labor of re-creation.

From the second half of the 16th century the question about Platonis Aristotelisque Concordia is no more a merely doctrinal problem, but it involves a discussion about methodus and ordo, according to the importance given to them in the coeval philosophical debate. In many cases underscoring Plato’s scientific merits, not only about inventio but also about the transmission of knowledge, meant promoting Platonism as a philosophy suitable for University. In this context the need for Platonic handbooks is perceived (...) as compelling, due to the recognised didactic superiority of Aristotle’s writings. The Compendio and the Vere Conclusioni are the specific contribution of Francesco Verino secondo, who gave holiday lectures on Plato at the Florentine Studium from 1576 to 1579. The present study focuses on the platonism of Francesco Verino, covering nearly all his works, printed and manuscript, in a constant comparison with his noble predecessors Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto. In order to give light to Verino’s lectureship, particular attention is paid to glosses in his working and teaching copy of Platonis Opera. (shrink)

Dan O’Brien gives an excellent analysis of testimonial knowledge transmission in his article ‘Communication Between Friends’ (2009) noting that the reliability of the speaker is a concern in both externalist and internalist theories of knowledge. O’Brien focuses on the belief states of Hearers (H) in cases where the reliability of the Speaker (S) is known via ‘intimate trust’, a special case pertaining to friendships with a track record of reliable or unreliable reports. This article considers the notion (...) of ‘intimate trust’, specifically in the context of online fan communities, in which the amount of time as a member of an online fan community and the extent of one’s posting history often results in something like ‘intimate trust’ between fans who are, for all other purposes, strangers. In the last two years, Twitter has provided a number of celebrities with a place to update fans and ‘tweet’ back and forth an innumerable number of times in any given day. This accentuates the intimacy to such a level that it becomes a ‘caricature of intimacy’ – the minute-to-minute updates accentuate the illusion that the fan ‘knows’ the celebrity, but the distance and mediation are still carefully maintained. This is an issue with both ethical and epistemological implications for fan-fan and fan-celebrity relationships online, considering ethics of care and ethics of justice, whether fans ‘owe’ celebrities a certain amount of distance and respect, and whether stars owe the fan something in return, either in the sense of reciprocal Kantian duties or Aristotelian moderation. (shrink)