Results for 'epistemological optimism'

972 found
Order:
  1. Neopragmatist epistemology for ethics and the sciences: An optimistic sketch.Olaf L. Müller - 2020 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 46 (2):173-182.
    Neopragmatist epistemology rejects any significant distinction between ethics and the sciences. The idea is that in ethics, we acquire knowledge in similar ways as in the natural sciences. Quine/duhem holism applies to both fields, which explains why the aim of reaching reflective equilibrium is prominent in many meta-ethical accounts: As in the sciences, our ethical system of belief is constrained by logic, observation, coherence, simplicity and parsimony. Whereas considerations of beauty (an important ingredient of scientific methodology) are irrelevant in ethical (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Inertia, Optimism and Beauty.Patrick Hawley - 2013 - Noûs 47 (1):85-103.
    The best arguments for the 1/3 answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem all require that when Beauty awakes on Monday she should be uncertain what day it is. I argue that this claim should be rejected, thereby clearing the way to accept the 1/2 solution.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  3. Higher-Order Defeat in Realist Moral Epistemology.Brian C. Barnett - 2019 - In Michael Klenk (ed.), Higher Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology. New York: Routledge. pp. 117-135.
    On an optimistic version of realist moral epistemology, a significant range of ordinary moral beliefs, construed in realist terms, constitute knowledge—or at least some weaker positive epistemic status, such as epistemic justification. The “debunking challenge” to this view grants prima facie justification but claims that it is “debunked” (i.e., defeated), yielding the final verdict that moral beliefs are ultima facie unjustified. Notable candidate “debunkers” (i.e., defeaters) include the so-called “evolutionary debunking arguments,” the “Benacerraf-Field Challenge,” and persistent moral disagreement among epistemic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Apriorism, Psychologism, and Conceptualism about Thought Experiments.Marek Picha - 2014 - Dókos. Philosophical Review 2014 (1):27-47.
    Epistemological optimists about thought experiments hold that imagination could be under certain conditions source of epistemic justification. Their claim is usually based on one of three dominant conceptions about epistemic value of thought experiments. Apriorism states that imagination may serve as unique a priori source of new synthetic knowledge about the actual world. I argue against this view and show that apriorism is either too weak, or too strong or too vague. Psychologism is viable, yet not fully clear conception (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. The Humanizing of Knowledge in Presocratic Thought’.James Lesher - 2008 - In Patricia Curd & Daniel W. Graham (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy. Oxford University Press USA. pp. 458-484.
    A ‘pious pessimism’ pervaded much of archaic Greek poetry: ‘It is for the gods to know and men merely to opine’ was the prevailing sentiment. However, in the late 6th century a set of independent-minded individuals began to move away from the older pessimism to embrace a more optimistic and secular outlook. In various ways they maintained that mere mortals could, if they were prepared to undertake the appropriate inquiries, achieve a clear and sure understanding of the entire cosmos. Heraclitus (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Letting the Truth Out: Children, Naive Truth, and Deflationism.Brian Lightbody - 2019 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 33 (3):17-42.
    In their recent paper, “Epistemology for Beginners: Two to Five-Year-Old Children’s Representation of Falsity,” Olivier Mascaro and Olivier Morin study the ontogeny of a naïve understanding of truth in humans. Their paper is fascinating for several reasons, but most striking is their claim (given a rather optimistic reading of epistemology) that toddlers as young as two can, at times, recognize false from true assertions. Their Optimistic Epistemology Hypothesis holds that children seem to have an innate capacity to represent a state (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  7. Epistemic Justification and The Folk Conceptual Gap.Dario Mortini - forthcoming - Episteme.
    Recent experimental epistemology has devoted increasing attention to folk attributions of epistemic justification. Empirical studies have tested whether lay people ascribe epistemic justification in specific lottery-style vignettes (Friedman and Turri 2014, Turri and Friedman 2015, Ebert et al. 2018) and also to more ordinary beliefs (Nolte et al. 2021). In this paper, I highlight three crucial but hitherto uncritically accepted assumptions of these studies, and I argue that they are untenable. Central to my criticism is the observation that epistemic justification (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Naturalizing skepticism.Marc Jiménez-Rolland - 2024 - Metaphilosophy 55 (3):301-315.
    Naturalism, construed as the idea that philosophy should be continuous with science, is a highly influential view. Its consequences for epistemology, however, are rather odd. Many believe that naturalized epistemology allows eschewing traditional skeptical challenges. This is often seen as an advantage; but it also calls into question its claim of belonging to the philosophical inquiry into knowledge. This paper argues that skeptical challenges can be stated to defy epistemic optimism within naturalized epistemology, and that there are distinctively naturalistic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Twenty-first century perspectivism: The role of emotions in scientific inquiry.Mark Alfano - 2017 - Studi di Estetica 7 (1):65-79.
    How should emotions figure in scientific practice? I begin by distinguishing three broad answers to this question, ranging from pessimistic to optimistic. Confirmation bias and motivated numeracy lead us to cast a jaundiced eye on the role of emotions in scientific inquiry. However, reflection on the essential motivating role of emotions in geniuses makes it less clear that science should be evacuated of emotion. I then draw on Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspectivism to articulate a twenty-first century epistemology of science that recognizes (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  10. Epistemic Vice Rehabilitation: Saints and Sinners Zetetic Exemplarism.Gerry Dunne - 2024 - Educational Theory 74 (1):123-140.
    This paper proposes a novel educational approach to epistemic vice rehabilitation. Its authors Gerry Dunne and Alkis Kotsonis note that, like Quassim Cassam, they remain optimistic about the possibility of improvement with regard to epistemic vice. However, unlike Cassam, who places the burden of minimizing or overcoming epistemic vices and their consequences on the individual, Dunne and Kotsonis argue that vice rehabilitation is best tackled via the exemplarist animated community of inquiry zetetic principles and defeasible-reasons-regulated deliberative processes. The vice-reduction method (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  11. "I'm, Like, a Very Smart Person" On Self-Licensing and Perils of Reflection.Joshua DiPaolo - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Epistemology.
    Epistemic trespassing, science denial, refusal to guard against bias, mishandling higher-order evidence, and the development of vice are troubling intellectual behaviors. In this paper, I advance work done by psychologists on moral self-licensing to show how all of these behaviors can be explained in terms of a parallel phenomenon of epistemic self-licensing. The paper situates this discussion at the intersection of three major epistemological projects: epistemic explanation and intervention (the project of explaining troubling intellectual phenomena in the hopes of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  12. Imagine This: Opaque DLMs are Reliable in the Context of Justification.Logan Carter - manuscript
    Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models have undoubtedly become useful tools in science. In general, scientists and ML developers are optimistic – perhaps rightfully so – about the potential that these models have in facilitating scientific progress. The philosophy of AI literature carries a different mood. The attention of philosophers remains on potential epistemological issues that stem from the so-called “black box” features of ML models. For instance, Eamon Duede (2023) argues that opacity in deep learning models (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. (1 other version)The philosophical foundations of TGT: Is mankind's destiny the essence of Keynes's evolutionary vision? Jesus - manuscript
    It is difficult to advance a point beyond what Keynes himself commented about his own vision in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936 (hereafter TGT) in its Chapter 24. It is also difficult to express a deeper thought than what Skidelsky wrote about Chapter 24 of TGT (cf. Skidelsky, 1997). The purpose of this article is to identify whether Chapter 24 of TGT is the gist of Keynes’s legacy, having set the foundations of macroeconomics in the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. Engrams as mental files.Nikola Andonovski - 2024 - Synthese 204 (6):1-36.
    Engrams—physical memory traces resulting from specific experiences—are the central posits of modern memory science. In this paper, I examine engrams through the lens of the theory of mental files. Integrating evidence from a variety of research programs, I argue that engrams exhibit the core functional properties of mental files. I characterize them as discrete informational structures, formed upon individual experiences of events and causally involved in their subsequent recall. Engrams are plausibly structurally complex in a file-like way, consisting of a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. John Dewey: Was the Inventor of Instrumentalism Himself an Instrumentalist?Céline Henne - 2023 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (1):120-150.
    In discussing instrumentalism in philosophy of science, John Dewey is rarely studied, but rather mentioned in passing to credit him for coining the label. His instrumentalism is often interpreted as the view that science is an instrument designed to control the environment and satisfy our practical ends, or likened to the Duhemian view that scientific objects are useful fictions for organizing observable phenomena. Dewey was careful to qualify the first view and denied holding the second. Furthermore, the observable/unobservable distinction does (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Moral Principles as Generics.Ravi Thakral - 2024 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 10 (2):205-224.
    I argue that moral principles involve the same sort of generalization as ordinary yet elusive generic generalizations in natural language such as ‘Tigers are striped’ or ‘Peppers are spicy’. A notable advantage of the generic view is that it simultaneously allows for pessimism and optimism about the role and status of moral principles in our lives. It provides a new perspective on the nature of moral principles on which principles are not apt for determining the moral status of particular (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  17. How Intellectual Communities Progress.Lewis D. Ross - 2021 - Episteme (4):738-756.
    Recent work takes both philosophical and scientific progress to consist in acquiring factive epistemic states such as knowledge. However, much of this work leaves unclear what entity is the subject of these epistemic states. Furthermore, by focusing only on states like knowledge, we overlook progress in intermediate cases between ignorance and knowledge—for example, many now celebrated theories were initially so controversial that they were not known. -/- This paper develops an improved framework for thinking about intellectual progress. Firstly, I argue (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  18. English Language and Philosophy.Jonathan Tallant & James Andow - 2020 - In S. Adolphs & D. Knight (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities.
    Philosophical enquiry stands to benefit from the inclusion of methods from the digital humanities to study language use. Empirical studies using the methods of the digital humanities have the potential to contribute to both conceptual analysis and intuition-based enquiry, two important approaches in contemporary philosophy. Empirical studies using the methods of the digital humanities can also provide valuable metaphilosophical insights into the nature of philosophical methods themselves. The use of methods from the digital humanities in philosophy should be expected to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  19. A second look at the colors of the dinosaurs.Derek D. Turner - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 55:60-68.
    In earlier work, I predicted that we would probably not be able to determine the colors of the dinosaurs. I lost this epistemic bet against science in dramatic fashion when scientists discovered that it is possible to draw inferences about dinosaur coloration based on the microstructure of fossil feathers (Vinther et al., 2008). This paper is an exercise in philosophical error analysis. I examine this episode with two questions in mind. First, does this case lend any support to epistemic (...) about historical science? Second, under what conditions is it rational to make predictions about what questions scientists will or will not be able answer? In reply to the first question, I argue that the recent work on the colors of the dinosaurs matters less to the debate about the epistemology of historical science than it might seem. In reply to the second question, I argue that it is difficult to specify a policy that would rule out the failed bet without also being too conservative. (shrink)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  20. Building a Science of Animal Minds: Lloyd Morgan, Experimentation, and Morgan’s Canon.Grant Goodrich & Simon Fitzpatrick - 2017 - Journal of the History of Biology 50 (3):525-569.
    Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852–1936) is widely regarded as the father of modern comparative psychology. Yet, Morgan initially had significant doubts about whether a genuine science of comparative psychology was even possible, only later becoming more optimistic about our ability to make reliable inferences about the mental capacities of non-human animals. There has been a fair amount of disagreement amongst scholars of Morgan’s work about the nature, timing, and causes of this shift in Morgan’s thinking. We argue that Morgan underwent two (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  21. Knowledge, the concept know, and the word know: considerations from polysemy and pragmatics.Rachel Dudley & Christopher Vogel - 2023 - Synthese 203 (1):1-46.
    A recent focus on philosophical methodology has reinvigorated ordinary language philosophy with the contention that philosophical inquiry is better served by attending to the ordinary use of language. Taking cues from findings in the social sciences that deploy methods utilizing language, various ordinary language philosophers embrace a guiding mandate: that ordinary language usage is more reflective of our linguistic and conceptual competencies than standard philosophical methods. We analyze two hypotheses that are implicit in the research from which ordinary language approaches (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. The evolution of testimony: Receiver vigilance, speaker honesty and the reliability of communication.Kourken Michaelian - 2013 - Episteme 10 (1):37-59.
    Drawing on both empirical evidence and evolutionary considerations, Sperber et al. argue that humans have a suite of evolved mechanisms for . On their view, vigilance plays a crucial role in ensuring the reliability and hence the evolutionary stability of communication. This article responds to their argument for vigilance, drawing on additional empirical evidence (from deception detection research) and evolutionary considerations (from animal signalling research) to defend a more optimistic, quasi-Reidian view of communication. On this alternative view, the lion's share (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  23. Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind.Joshua May - 2018 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    The burgeoning science of ethics has produced a trend toward pessimism. Ordinary moral thought and action, we’re told, are profoundly influenced by arbitrary factors and ultimately driven by unreasoned feelings. This book counters the current orthodoxy on its own terms by carefully engaging with the empirical literature. The resulting view, optimistic rationalism, shows the pervasive role played by reason, and ultimately defuses sweeping debunking arguments in ethics. The science does suggest that moral knowledge and virtue don’t come easily. However, despite (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  24. Why the Reward Structure of Science Makes Reproducibility Problems Inevitable.Remco Heesen - 2018 - Journal of Philosophy 115 (12):661-674.
    Recent philosophical work has praised the reward structure of science, while recent empirical work has shown that many scientific results may not be reproducible. I argue that the reward structure of science incentivizes scientists to focus on speed and impact at the expense of the reproducibility of their work, thus contributing to the so-called reproducibility crisis. I use a rational choice model to identify a set of sufficient conditions for this problem to arise, and I argue that these conditions plausibly (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   37 citations  
  25. Realisms and their opponents.Uskali Mäki - 2001 - In Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Baltes (eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier. pp. 19--12815.
    In everyday usage, ‘realism’ is often used as a name for a practically or epistemically low-ambition attitude, while ‘idealism’ is often taken to denote a highambition—if not utopian—attitude. In philosophcal usage, mostly, it is the other way around: those who are called realists tend to claim more than their opponents—they are the philosophical optimists. Within philosophy itself, ‘realism’ adopts a variety of interrelated and contested meanings. It is used as the name for doctrines about issues such as perceptual access to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  26. Can you seek the answer to this question? (Meno in India).Amber Carpenter & Jonardon Ganeri - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (4):571-594.
    Plato articulates a deep perplexity about inquiry in ?Meno's Paradox??the claim that one can inquire neither into what one knows, nor into what one does not know. Although some commentators have wrestled with the paradox itself, many suppose that the paradox of inquiry is special to Plato, arising from peculiarities of the Socratic elenchus or of Platonic epistemology. But there is nothing peculiarly Platonic in this puzzle. For it arises, too, in classical Indian philosophical discussions, where it is formulated with (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  27. Holograms: The story of a word and its cultural uses.Sean F. Johnston - 2017 - Leonardo 50 (5):493-499.
    Holograms reached popular consciousness during the 1960s and have since left audiences alternately fascinated, bemused or inspired. Their impact was conditioned by earlier cultural associations and successive reimaginings by wider publics. Attaining peak public visibility during the 1980s, holograms have been found more in our pockets (as identity documents) and in our minds (as video-gaming fantasies and “faux hologram” performers) than in front of our eyes. The most enduring, popular interpretations of the word “hologram” evoke the traditional allure of magic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  28. Precis of Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy. SKEPSIS Book Symposium: Paul Russell, Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy, With replies to critics: Peter Fosl (pp. 77-95), Claude Gautier (pp. 96-111) , and Todd Ryan (pp.112-122).Paul Russell - 2023 - Skepsis: A Journal for Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Research 14 (26):71-73.
    Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy is a collection of essays that are all concerned with major figures and topics in the early modern philosophy. Most of the essays are concerned, more specifically, with the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776). The sixteen essays included in this collection are divided into five parts. These parts are arranged under the headings of: (1) Metaphysics and Epistemology; (2) Free Will and Moral Luck; (3) Ethics, Virtue and Optimism; (4) Skepticism, Religion and Atheism; (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism.William A. Rottschaefer - 2001 - Zygon 36 (3):407-453.
    Naturalism is often considered to be antithetical to theology and genuine religion. However, in a series of recent books and articles, Willem Drees has proposed a scientifically informed naturalistic account of religion, which, he contends, is not only compatible with supernaturalistic religion and theology but provides a better account of both than either purely naturalistic or purely supernaturalistic accounts. While rejecting both epistemological and methodological naturalism, Drees maintains that ontological naturalism offers the best philosophical account of the natural world (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. Studying While Black: Trust, Opportunity and Disrespect.Sally Haslanger - 2014 - Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 11 (1):109-136.
    How should we explore the relationship between race and educational opportunity? One approach to the Black-White achievement gap explores how race and class cause disparities in access and opportunity. In this paper, I consider how education contributes to the creation of race. Considering examples of classroom micropolitics, I argue that breakdowns of trust and trustworthiness between teachers and students can cause substantial disadvantages and, in the contemporary United States, this happens along racial lines. Some of the disadvantages are academic: high (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  31. Welche Kompetenz hat Wissenschaftsphilosophie?.Kay Herrmann - 2012 - Universitätsverlag Chemnitz.
    Stephen Hawking claims: Philosophy is dead! Natural scientists use terms like 'natural law', 'matter', 'nature' and 'theories'. Often these terms are taken for granted without reflection. The task of philosophy of science as a metatheory of science is to clarify these terms. In doing so, philosophy of science is confronted with epistemological, ontological and metaphysical questions. But it also deals with questions such as "How do we define the boundaries between different scientific disciplines?" or "How do we distinguish science (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. Epistemic Leaks and Epistemic Meltdowns: A Response to William Morris on Scepticism with Regard to Reason.Mikael M. Karlsson - 1990 - Hume Studies 16 (2):121-130.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Epistemic Leaks and Epistemic Meltdowns: A Response to William Morris on Scepticism with Regard to Reason Mikael M. Karlsson I. In an excellent paper which appeared in the April, 1989 issue of this journal,2 William Morris attemptsto demonstrate thatthe arguments which make up Hume's notorious chapter, "Of scepticism with regard to reason, are, in the first place, coherent—both internally and with the overall strategy of the Treatise—and, in the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  33. On the Epistemic Value of Reflection.Pranav Ambardekar - 2024 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 11 (30):803-832.
    Against philosophical orthodoxy, Hilary Kornblith has mounted an empirically grounded critique of the epistemic value of reflection. In this paper, I argue that this recent critique of the epistemic value of reflection fails even if we concede that (a) the empirical facts are as Kornblith says they are and (b) reliability is the only determinant of epistemic value. The critique fails because it seeks to undermine the reliability of reflection in general but targets only one of its variants, namely individual (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Progress in Understanding Consciousness? Easy and Hard Problems, and Philosophical and Empirical Perspectives.Tobias A. Wagner-Altendorf - 2024 - Acta Analytica 2024 (4):1-18.
    David Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined theorizing would eventually yield philosophical progress. In particular, he argued that panpsychism might be a candidate account to solve the hard problem. Here, I provide a concise stock-take on both the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Moral Reasons for Moral Beliefs: A Puzzle for Moral Testimony Pessimism.Andrew Reisner & Joseph Van Weelden - 2015 - Logos and Episteme 6 (4):429-448.
    According to moral testimony pessimists, the testimony of moral experts does not provide non-experts with normative reasons for belief. Moral testimony optimists hold that it does. We first aim to show that moral testimony optimism is, to the extent such things may be shown, the more natural view about moral testimony. Speaking roughly, the supposed discontinuity between the norms of moral beliefs and the norms of non-moral beliefs, on careful reflection, lacks the intuitive advantage that it is sometimes supposed (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  36. Understanding and Testimony.Allan Hazlett - 2024 - In Jennifer Lackey & Aidan McGlynn (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology. Oxford University Press.
    Can understanding be transmitted by testimony, in the same sense that propositional knowledge can be transmitted by testimony? Some contemporary philosophers – call them testimonial understanding pessimists – say No, and others – call them testimonial understanding optimists – say Yes. In this chapter I will articulate testimonial understanding pessimism (§1) and consider some arguments for it (§2).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  37. Knowledge, faith, and ambiguity : hope in the work of novalis and Karoline Von Günderrode.Anna Ezekiel - 2023 - In Katerina Mihaylova & Anna Ezekiel (eds.), Hope and the Kantian Legacy: New Contributions to the History of Optimism. London, Vereinigtes Königreich: Bloomsbury Academic.
    Both Novalis and Günderrode provide grounds for a number of different kinds of hope. The first part of this chapter briefly sketches the most obvious of these: the hope for union with loved ones after death. This section also explains Günderrode’s metaphysics, which entails significant differences from Novalis in the other areas of hope that she identifies. Part two explores “epistemological hope”: the hope for knowledge or experience of that which lies outside the limitations of reason. Part three considers (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  38. Techno-optimism: an Analysis, an Evaluation and a Modest Defence.John Danaher - 2022 - Philosophy and Technology 35 (2):1-29.
    What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number of key (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  39. Optimistic Realism over Selectivism.Seungbae Park - 2019 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 33 (1):89-106.
    Selectivism holds that some theoretical contents of most present theories will be preserved in future theories. By contrast, optimistic realism holds that most theoretical contents of most present theories will be preserved in future theories. I construct a pessimistic induction over selectivists to undermine selectivism, and an optimistic induction over optimistic realists to support optimistic realism. The former holds that since the selectivists of the early twentieth century were overly cautious about their present theories, those of the early twenty-first century (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  40.  57
    Between Optimism and Anti-Optimism: Prémontval's “Middle Point”.Lloyd Strickland - 2024 - In Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet & Christian Leduc (eds.), Debates, controversies, and prizes: philosophy in the German Enlightenment. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 69-88.
    In 1753, the Berlin Academy announced that the focus of the prize essay contest of 1755 would be optimism, with entrants required (among other things) ‘to put forward arguments that will be thought most fitting to confirm or destroy this system’. In line with these instructions, entrants submitted essays that were either pro- or anti-optimism. This was to the dismay of one of the judges of the contest, André-Pierre Le Guay de Prémontval (1716–1764), who had, by his own (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. Selective Optimism About Mind-Uploading.Clas Weber - forthcoming - Journal of Consciousness Studies.
    Optimists about mind-uploading believe that we can survive uploading. Pessimists about mind-uploading, on the other hand, believe that we cannot survive uploading. An under-explored middle ground between the two is a selective form of optimism, which claims that we can survive some forms of uploading, such as gradual replacement uploading, but not others, such as scan-and-copy uploading. Is selective optimism about uploading a rational stance? In this paper I argue that the answer is: yes. The paper has a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. Optimism without theism? Nagasawa on atheism, evolution, and evil.Guy Kahane - 2022 - Religious Studies 58 (4):701-714.
    Nagasawa has argued that the suffering associated with evolution presents a greater challenge to atheism than to theism because that evil is incompatible with ‘existential optimism’ about the world – with seeing the world as an overall good place, and being thankful that we exist. I argue that even if atheism was incompatible with existential optimism in this way, this presents no threat to atheism. Moreover, it is unclear how the suffering associated with evolution could on its own (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  43. Staying Optimistic: The Trials and Tribulations of Leibnizian Optimism.Lloyd Strickland - 2019 - Journal of Modern Philosophy 1 (1):1-21.
    The oft-told story of Leibniz’s doctrine of the best world, or optimism, is that it enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the eighteenth century until the massive earthquake that struck Lisbon on 1 November 1755 destroyed its support. Despite its long history, this story is nothing more than a commentators’ fiction that has become accepted wisdom not through sheer weight of evidence but through sheer frequency of repetition. In this paper we shall examine the reception of Leibniz’s doctrine (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  44. False Optimism? Leibniz, Evil, and the Best of all Possible Worlds.Lloyd Strickland - 2010 - Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 15 (1):17-35.
    Leibniz’s claim that this is the best of all possible worlds has been subject to numerous criticisms, both from his contemporaries and ours. In this paper I investigate a cluster of such criticisms based on the existence, abundance or character of worldly evil. As several Leibniz-inspired versions of optimism have been advanced in recent years, the aim of my investigation is to assess not just how Leibniz’s brand of optimism fares against these criticisms, but also whether optimism (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. Predictive coding explains binocular rivalry: an epistemological review.Jakob Hohwy, Andreas Roepstorff & Karl Friston - 2008 - Cognition 108 (3):687-701.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   98 citations  
  46. Optimistic Molinism.Andre Leo Rusavuk - 2019 - Philosophia Christi 21 (2):371-387.
    Some Molinists claim that a perfectly good God would actualize a world that is salvifically optimal, that is, a world in which the balance between the saved and damned is optimal and cannot be improved upon without undesirable consequences. I argue that given some plausible principles of rationality, alongside the assumptions Molinists already accept, God’s perfect rationality necessarily would lead him to actualize a salvifically optimal world; I call this position “Optimistic Molinism.” I then consider objections and offer replies, concluding (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  47. The Conflict of Interpretations as an Essential Epistemological Tool for Women’s Studies.Fernanda Henriques - 2019 - Critical Hermeneutics 3:109-134.
    This paper aims to show how Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics, namely in the specificity of the Conflict of interpretations category, is a fruitful resource in the constitution of Women's Studies as well as to legitimize the need for its full integration in the canons of humanistic knowledge. In general, they continue to ignore the immense body of knowledge and perspectives that Women's Studies have produced in recent decades. In this sense, it begins by presenting the general features of the hermeneutic problematic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Hostile Epistemology.C. Thi Nguyen - 2023 - Social Philosophy Today 39:9-32.
    Hostile epistemology is the study of how environmental features exploit our cognitive vulnerabilities. I am particularly interested in those vulnerabilities arise from the basic character of our epistemic lives. We are finite beings with limited cognitive resources, perpetually forced to reasoning a rush. I focus on two sources of unavoidable vulnerability. First, we need to use cognitive shortcuts and heuristics to manage our limited time and attention. But hostile forces can always game the gap between the heuristic and the ideal. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  49. (2 other versions)Epistemology Naturalized.W. V. Quine - 1969 - In Willard Van Orman Quine (ed.), Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   521 citations  
  50. Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Internalist Challenge.Kegan Shaw - 2019 - American Philosophical Quarterly 56 (4):385-396.
    The paper highlights how a popular version of epistemological disjunctivism labors under a kind of 'internalist challenge'—a challenge that seems to have gone largely unacknowledged by disjunctivists. This is the challenge to vindicate the supposed 'internalist insight' that disjunctivists claim their view does well to protect. The paper argues that if we advance disjunctivism within a context that recognizes a distinction between merely functional and judgmental belief, we get a view that easily overcomes the internalist challenge.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
1 — 50 / 972