In this Ph.D. dissertation, completed at the Sorbonne, it is shown that the whole of medieval philosophy was not reduced to a realist stance: in the 13th-14th centuries, an idealist stance emerged and was developed into a full-fledged epistemological idealism, personified in the philosophers Eckhart von Hochheim and Dietrich von Freiberg. This dissertation deviates from most works in the history of philosophy by proposing to see this as a taxonomy.

Self-knowledge is a persistent—and paradoxical—theme in medieval mysticism, which portrays our ultimate goal as union with the divine. Union with God is often taken to involve a cognitive and/or volitional merging that requires the loss of a sense of self as distinct from the divine. Yet affective mysticism—which emphasizes the passion of the incarnate Christ and portrays physical and emotional mystical experiences as inherently valuable—was in fact the dominant tradition in the later Middle Ages. An examination of both the (...) affective and apophatic traditions demonstrates that, in addition to constituting a necessary stage on the path toward union with the divine, self-knowledge in medieval mysticism was seen not just as something to be transcended, but (particularly in the works of female mystics) as a means of overcoming alienation from embodied existence. (shrink)

Positivist medical historians, guided by the savoir of modern western biomedicine, have long depicted medieval medicine as an aberration along the continuum of scientific and medical progress. Historical epistemology, founded in the ideas of Cavailles, Foucault, Davidson, and Hacking, however, allows the historian to disrupt this false continuum and to unchain medieval medicine from modern medicine. Postmodernist approaches, such as those sourced in Lyotard, Barthes, and Derrida, allow the historian to further deconstruct medieval and modern medical (...) discourse, revealing a multitude of narrative lenses spinning around biomedical and biocultural strands. In liberating these two medical systems and setting them within the distinct historical and epistemological contexts that both shaped and were shaped by them, the historian can revision the theories, practices, and culture of medieval medicine without having to anachronistically justify them according to modern medical discourse. (shrink)

This chapter aims to lay out a map of the diverse epistemological perspectives within the Islamic theological tradition, in the conceptual framework of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. In order achieve that goal, it aims to consider epistemological views in light of their historic context, while at the same time seeking to “translate” those broadly medieval perspectives into contemporary philosophical language. In doing so, the chapter offers a succinct overview of the main epistemic trends within the Islamic theological tradition (...) concerning religious epistemology. The chapter is divided into two main sections designated for discussions of differing accounts found in distinct trends of the tradition, namely the Rationalist and Traditionalist trends. The discussion concerning the Rationalist trend focuses on the philosophical-theologians of the dominant Mu’tazilite, Ash’arite, and Maturidite schools. The section on Islamic Traditionalism focuses on the Atharite scripturalism of Ibn Qudāma, and in particular the thought of Ibn Taymiyya. In order to map out these historic positions in light of contemporary religious epistemology, reference is made to a threefold typology of current views in the literature: (1) theistic evidentialism, (2) reformed epistemology, and (3) fideism. As such, the remainder of the chapter will attempt to outline the different approaches toward religious epistemology in the Islamic theological tradition with this threefold typology in mind. (shrink)

In reference to the philosophical theology of medieval Islamic theologian Ibn Taymiyya, this paper outlines a parallel between Taymiyyan thought and Alvin Plantinga’s thesis of ‘Reformed Epistemology’. In critiquing a previous attempt to build an account of ‘Islamic externalism’, the Taymiyyan model offers an account that can be seen as wholly ‘Plantingan’.

Today, philosophers interested in self-knowledge usually look to the scholastic tradition, where the topic is addressed in a systematic and familiar way. Contemporary conceptions of what medieval figures thought about self-knowledge thus skew toward the epistemological. In so doing, however, they often fail to capture the crucial ethical and theological importance that self-knowledge possesses throughout the Middle Ages. -/- Human beings are not transparent to themselves: in particular, knowing oneself in the way needed for moral progress requires hard and (...) rigorous work. Yet, medieval contemplatives insist, without this work we will never attain our final end. In this paper, I trace the connection drawn in this tradition between self-knowledge, humility, and self-fulfillment, arguing in section 1 that the humility that results from introspection needs to be understood in the context of contemplative expectations for eventual perfection. Self-knowledge is key for developing the relationship with God that leads to mystical union, but (as I show in section 2) in the affective tradition of the 13th-14th centuries, which emphasizes the role of emotion and the body, such union with God tends to restore rather than annihilate us. In fact, I argue in section 3, the outcome of such union even in this life is often knowledge that benefits not only the individual who experiences it but also their broader community. (shrink)

The reintroduction of Aristotle's Analytics to the Latin West—in particular, the reintroduction of the Posterior Analytics—forever altered the course of medieval epistemological discussions. Although the Analytics fell decidedly from grace in later centuries, the sophisticated account of human cognition developed in the Posterior Analytics appealed so strongly to thirteenth-century European scholars that it became one of the two central theories of knowledge advocated in the later Middle Ages. Robert Grosseteste's 'Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libro', written in the 1220s, is (...) most likely the first complete Latin commentary on the Posterior Analytics. As the thirteenth century wore on, Aristotle’s account of human cognition was generally set in opposition to the Augustinian-influenced theory of divine illumination that was de rigueur in the early thirteenth century. Although common consensus holds that this pattern of opposition was set already in Grosseteste’s CPA, I argue that the story of the Posterior Analytics’s early reception is, in fact, quite different. In particular, I maintain that, rather than seeing himself as forced to choose between his earlier theory of divine illumination and the “new” Aristotelian epistemology, Grosseteste is perfectly content to blend and bring together the diverse elements of these systems and to present a consciously synthetic rather than adversarial picture of these differing accounts of human cognition. (shrink)

The theory of mind that medieval philosophers inherit from Augustine is predicated on the thesis that the human mind is essentially self-reflexive. This paper examines Peter John Olivi's (1248-1298) distinctive development of this traditional Augustinian thesis. The aim of the paper is three-fold. The first is to establish that Olivi's theory of reflexive awareness amounts to a theory of phenomenal consciousness. The second is to show that, despite appearances, Olivi rejects a higher-order analysis of consciousness in favor of a (...) same-order theory. The third and final is to show that, on his view, consciousness is both self-intimating and infallible. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the question whether Spinoza can account for the necessity of death. I argue that he cannot because within his ethical intellectualist system the subject cannot understand the cause of her death, since by understanding it renders it harmless. Then, I argue that Spinoza could not solve this difficulties because of deeper commitments of his system. At the end I draw a historical parallel to the problem from medieval philosophy.

This essay deals with a selected part of an epistemological controversy provided by Tūsī in response to the skeptical arguments reported by Rāzī that is related to what might be called "intellectual skepticism," or skepticism regarding the judgments of the intellect, particularly in connection with self-evident principles. It will be shown that Rāzī has cited and exposed a position that seems to be no less than a medieval version of empiricism. Tūsī, in contrast, has presented us with a position (...) that rejects such empiricism. The comparative aim of this essay is to draw attention to some similarities as well as some points of divergence between the kind of skeptical debate we are focusing on here, and some relevant epistemological discussions in the later traditions in the West. ". (shrink)

Le XI.ème Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale de la Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (S.I.E.P.M..) s’est déroulé à Porto (Portugal), du 26 au 30 août 2002, sous le thème général: Intellect et Imagination dans la Philosophie Médiévale. A partir des héritages platonicien, aristotélicien, stoïcien, ou néo-platonicien (dans leurs variantes grecques, latines, arabes, juives), la conceptualisation et la problématisation de l’imagination et de l’intellect, ou même des facultés de l’âme en général, apparaissaient comme une ouverture possible pour aborder (...) les principaux points de la pensée médiévale. Les Actes du congrès montrent que « imagination » et « intellect » sont porteurs d’une richesse philosophique extraordinaire dans l’économie de la philosophie médiévale et de la constitution de ses spécificités historiques. Dans sa signification la plus large, la théorisation de ces deux facultés de l’âme permet de dédoubler le débat en au moins six grands domaines: — la relation avec le sensible, où la fantaisie/l’imagination joue le rôle de médiation dans la perception du monde et dans la constitution de la connaissance ; — la réflexion sur l’acte de connaître et la découverte de soi en tant que sujet de pensée ; — la position dans la nature, dans le cosmos, et dans le temps de celui qui pense et qui connaît par les sens externes, internes et par l’intellect ; — la recherche d’un fondement pour la connaissance et l’action, par la possibilité du dépassement de la distante proximité du transcendant, de l’absolu, de la vérité et du bien ; — la réalisation de la félicité en tant qu’objectif ultime, de même que la découverte d’une tendance au dépassement actif ou mystique de toutes les limites naturelles et des facultés de l’âme ; — la constitution de théories de l’image, sensible ou intellectuelle, et de ses fonctions. Les 3 volumes d’Actes incluent les 16 leçons plénières et 112 communications, ainsi que les index correspondants (manuscrits ; noms anciens et médiévaux ; noms modernes ; auteurs). Le volume IV des Actes, contenant 39 communications et des index, est publié par la revue " Mediaevalia. Textos e Estudos ", du Gabinete de Filosofia Medieval de l’Universidade do Porto (volume 23, de 2004). Ouvrage publié avec l’appui de l’Universidade do Porto, de la Faculdade de Letras da U.P., du Departamento de Filosofia - F.L.U.P. et de la Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal). (shrink)

In Aquinas's account of the beatific vision, human beings are joined to God in a never-ending act of contemplation of the divine essence: a state which utterly fulfills the human drive for knowledge and satisfies every desire of the human heart. In this paper, I argue that this state represents less a fulfillment of human nature, however, than a transcendence of that nature. Furthermore, what’s transcended is not incidental on a metaphysical, epistemological, or moral level.

This study tries to identify the core elements of the teaching of Albert the Great on the possibility of a natural knowledge of God and its sources in the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite.

The Shroud of Turin is a controversial linen cloth thought by some to be a medieval artifact and by others to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. To better explain the reasons why reaching a consensus among experts seems highly unlikely, this paper focuses on the possible relationship between the Shroud of Turin and the Pray Codex, the first illuminated manuscript in Hungarian (c. 1192 – c. 1195). An analysis of the recent literature, including a qualitative survey, (...) highlights not only the variety but also the weakness of the reasoning processes of the scholars, from less complete and intuitive to extremely detailed and systematic approaches. A new methodological approach excludes the position according to which it is certain that the Turin shroud has no direct or indirect link with the Pray Codex. A better understanding of the historiographical criteria and of the Bayesian framework might constitute a precious basis for solving similar interdisciplinary disputes. (shrink)

Two central accounts of human cognition emerge over the course of the Middle Ages: the theory of divine illumination and an Aristotelian theory centered on abstraction from sense data. Typically, these two accounts are seen as competing views of the origins of human knowledge; theories of divine illumination focus on God’s direct intervention in our epistemic lives, whereas Aristotelian theories generally claim that our knowledge derives primarily (or even entirely) from sense perception. In this paper, I address an early attempt (...) to reconcile these two accounts—namely, Robert Grosseteste’s commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics—and I argue that Grosseteste’s efforts to bring Aristotle’s account of human cognition into harmony with a theory of divine illumination proves both philosophically interesting and largely successful. Grosseteste’s claim that God does not directly illumine our intellects in this life opens his theory to the worry that Grosseteste leaves the divine out of his theory of divine illumination in the CPA. Steven Marrone, for example, holds that Grosseteste’s Aristotelian focus in this work causes him to abandon the theory of divine illumination he advocated in the earlier De veritate in favor of a modified theory of “human” illumination. I argue in contrast that Grosseteste does give God a role in human knowledge in the CPA—a role that allows human beings to remain largely responsible for the acquisition of knowledge while still requiring God’s illumination for actual cognition. In short, I conclude that, although human bodies interfere with God’s direct illumination of our intellects, God nevertheless plays a crucial ideogenic role in human cognition by illuminating the objects of our intellection and making them intelligible to us. (shrink)

This paper determines the relation between philosophy and anthropology. It further shows the intimate correspondence on the basis of metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, language, culture and environment. This paper examines the evolution of anthropology with respect to history of philosophy which includes; Ancient Greek, Medieval and Modern philosophy. In this write up I assume to show that how philosophers have interpreted the subject matter anthropology. Since anthropology is the study of humans and what this science acquires has been explained (...) and clarified in the science of philosophy, whether it is a metaphysical study of human person, his ethical, aesthetic, rational, environmental, physical and psychological investigations. This paper exhibits the role and dimensions of humans within the scope of time, space, environment, existence and language. (shrink)

Monotheism is a product of abstract thought. Although it does not exactly overlap with the view of God in today's monotheistic religious beliefs, the thought of God in Ancient Greek philosophy, that is, the creative thought other than the creature, found its cores in Plato's Demiurge [Dēmiourgos], and this thought continued to develop with Aristotle, Plotinus and St Augustine. Thus, it can be said that the Christian faith, which includes the Jewish religion in terms of belief and Greek philosophy in (...) terms of thought, easily managed to gain a place in the medieval world of thought. With the effort to rationalize and ground the Christian faith, philosophy has become an end rather than a means on this path. -/- The translation of Aristotle's logical works (by Boethius) at the beginning of the 6th century gave an important impetus to the grounding of knowledge in sacred texts. However, the real influence of Aristotle occurred after the 13th century. The Crusades (1096-1272) and the Islamic world known through trade played an important role in this because the developments in Western Philosophy until the 13th century were largely based on translations and commentary texts in the Islamic world. In the Middle Ages, the person who was seen as the best commentator of Aristotle and who took the title of "commentator" [Shareh] was Averroes (1126-1198), who was also a member of this productive Islamic world of thought. He is known as the "commentator" because he interpreted Aristotle's works by adhering to his teachings. It is also said that Averroes pioneered Aristotle's recognition by westerners. Averroes’ commentaries are divided into three as long, middle, and short. In long commentaries, he blends Aristotle's philosophy with his own thoughts; he interprets Aristotle's philosophy in the middle commentaries; in short commentaries, he gives a summary of Aristotle's thoughts. -/- Aristotle's philosophy played an active role in shaping the thought system of Averroes. So much so that his epistemology is largely similar to Aristotle's epistemology: The source of knowledge, knowledge of knowledge with causes, the processes of the formation of human knowledge, etc. Here, a point where he differs from Aristotle is the source of knowledge, since he is an Islamic thinker. According to Averroes, God is the source and cause of things, and things are the source and cause of human knowledge. The formation of human knowledge consists of three stages: outer sense, inner sense, and mind. Another important issue of his epistemology, apart from the knowledge produced by man and the knowledge of God, is causality. Through causality, knowledge is formed, and since causality is continuous and necessary, this situation brings order with it. This ensures that the information is verified and thus genuine information is obtained. -/- Averroes’ understanding of ontology is in harmony with the teachings of Islam. He mainly talks about the relationship between philosophy and religion and thinks that these two actually talk about the same reality. He explains that philosophy and religion seem to conflict with the fact that the holy book has two meanings, visible and hidden. Thus, philosophy and religion do not actually conflict and do not say contradictory things. -/- Averroes, who followed Aristotle's way in terms of epistemology and ontology, took Plato as an example, not Aristotle, in his political philosophy for technical reasons. For this reason, his thoughts on state structuring are similar to Plato's The Republic [Politeia]. Averroes’ political philosophy is based on ethics. His thoughts on politics can be summarized with the basic concepts of happiness, justice, and equality. As in Plato and Aristotle, happiness is important for Averroes and the state is responsible for providing and protecting it. For this reason, it describes a virtuous city, and the virtue of justice is, in a sense, the condition of existence for all other virtues. -/- Averroes has been an important thinker for both the East and the West. He played a significant role in the efforts of the Middle Ages to reconcile religion and philosophy and became one of the names that the Western world benefited from most in establishing its bond with Greek thought. Averroes became famous as an Aristotelian commentator, but since he did not know Greek, he got to know Aristotle through translated works and wrote his comments on these translated works. Nevertheless, Aristotle's philosophy played an active role in shaping Averroes’ thought system, as he was an Aristotle commentator. (shrink)

The change in the semantics of the word ‘subject’ in the epistemological-metaphysical meaning is a conceptual development which may be observed by historiographical means in various languages: it shifts from signifying a thing itself to a cognizing being which can consider things. From this development onward, some of the differentiated senses of the term ‘subject’ have ended up narrowly linked to one another. In particular, in philosophical contexts the juridical-political subject and the epistemological-metaphysical subject coalesce at the beginning of the (...) 19th century. The conceptual developments that are correlated to this linking of meanings can be traced from medieval scholasticism and the modern political tradition, through German Enlightenment to Immanuel Kant’s works, and is finally traced to some of the consequences for the current understanding of subjectivity in contemporary thought. (shrink)

"Richard Burthogge's Conceptualism and Its Origins in the Medieval Perspectivist Optics" The paper aims to analyse the historical determinants of the conceptualist argument for epistemological idealism made by the seventeenth-century English philosopher Richard Burthogge. The crux of this argument, unprecedented in earlier philosophy, is an attempt to prove the inherent inadequacy of human cognition from the divergence between the general concepts and the extra-mental singulars. At the same time, Burthogge considers the relationship between the universal and the particular to (...) be analogous to the relation between the visual image and the thing. I argue that, as suggested by certain significant aspects of Burthogge’s theory, it was medieval perspectivist optics that had decisively influenced the conception of visual cognition, which provided the basis for this analogy and, consequently, for the conceptualist argument itself. (shrink)

Scholarly attempts to analyze the history of science sometime suffer from an imprecise use of terms. In order to understand accurately how science has developed and from where it draws its roots, researchers should be careful to recognize that epistemic regimes change over time and acceptable forms of knowledge production are contingent upon the hegemonic discourse informing the epistemic regime of any given period. In order to understand the importance of this point, I apply the techniques of historical epistemology (...) to an analysis of the place of the study of astrology in the medieval and early modern periods alongside a discussion of the “language games” of these period as well as the role of the “archeology of knowledge” in uncovering meaning in our study of the past. In sum, I argue that the term “science” should never be used when studying approaches to knowledge formation prior to the seventeenth century. (shrink)

This study is the first part of an attempt to settle a vigorous debate among historians of medieval philosophy by harnessing the resources of analytic philosophy. The debate is about whether Avicenna's epistemology is rationalist or empirical. To settle the debate, I first articulate in this article the three core theses of rationalism and one core thesis of empiricism. Then, I probe Avicenna's epistemology in his major works according to the first core thesis of rationalism (the intuition (...) thesis). In the end, I find Avicenna committed to this thesis in at least one substantive way, namely, in his claim to intuit the intelligible forms or essences. This suffices to count Avicenna as rationalist. In a subsequent article, I shall probe Avicenna's epistemology according to the other two core theses of rationalism, presenting further evidence that he was a rationalist, not an empiricist. (shrink)

The philosophy is an important factor of education policy like the religion, heritage, culture and customs of the society .It concerns on the mind and its implication in our daily life. Philosophy focus on Logic, Science, Epistemology, Ethics and Esthetics which are important branches of human thoughts. During the human history, philosophy organizes education and the societies revert to philosophy to regulate education policy. In ancient time, Plato and Aristotle’s educational policy was established for Athens. For the Medieval, (...) Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Al-Razi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Tufail, and Ibn Rushd contributed to setting education policy in Arab culture. John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx and John Dewey elaborated philosophical theories of education. Philosophy contributes to: suggesting education goals, provide the learning outcome, classification of topics and learning activities in educational institutions , and proposes an educational curriculum. In this research, I will address these factors focusing on the fact that our present civilized societies need a philosophical dimension in organizing education policy. I will rely on philosophical theories, as well as contemporary studies that have been written on education policy in developed countries. (shrink)

This paper examines Augustine’s views on language, learning, and testimony in De Magistro. It is often held that, in De Magistro, Augustine is especially concerned with explanatory understanding (a complex cognitive state characterized by its synoptic nature and awareness of explanatory relations) and that he thinks testimony is deficient in imparting explanatory understanding. I argue against this view and give a clear analysis of the different kinds of cognitive state Augustine is concerned with and a careful examination of his arguments (...) concerning the deficiencies of testimony in producing these cognitive states. (shrink)

‘Transcendence’ has been a key subject of Western philosophy of religion and history of ideas. The meaning of transcendence, however, has changed over time. The article looks at some perspectives o ered by the nineteenth and the twentieth century Anglo‐American and con‐ tinental European philosophers of religion and presents their views in relation to the concept of transcendence formulated by the Bengali Hindu traditionalist Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874–1937). The questions raised are what transcendence in the philosophy of religion is, how one (...) can speak of it, and what its goal is. The paper points to parallels and di erences in epistemology, ontology and practice. One di erence is that the nineteenth and the twentieth century Western philosophy of religion tended to assume an ontological di erence between self and transcendence inherited om personalities such as Søren Kierkegaard, but also to explore the concept of transcendence beyond the idea of a metaphysical God. Bhaktisiddhanta, whose foundational thought mirrors medieval Hindu philosophy of religion and the theistic schools of Vedānta, suggests that transcendence has a metaphysical and personal dimension that is to some degree ontologically similar to and directly knowable by the self. Bhaktisid‐ dhanta’s approach to transcendence di ers om Kierkegaard’s and other Western philosophers’ and revolves around the idea of God as a transcendent person that can be directly known mor‐ phologically and ontologically through devotion. The article is a contribution to the history of ideas and the philosophy of religion in Eurasia and beyond. (shrink)

Beginning in the 1990s, the medieval historiography has devoted increasing attention to the presence of thought experiments in the medieval philosophical sources. Following the line drawn by King, Perler, Grellard and Marenbon studies, this paper aims to use the concept of thought experiment as an historiographical category to explore the issues of Peter Damian’s dilemma, in the chapter I of De divina omnipotentia, about the capacity of the divine power to restore the virginity of a maiden who has (...) lost it. In this perspective, the case of the virgin appears as a counterfactual scenario, that makes us understand how the question is not metaphysical but fundamentally epistemological. Peter Damian is not discussing about possible boundaries of God’s nature: he is rather arguing about the inability of the dialectic arguments to explain the omnipotence, in an attempt to define the cognitive and linguistic modes under which the human intellect could comprehend the virgin’s dilemma. The crucial step is the shift from possibilitas – intended as a statistical approach to the possible as “potential” – to potentia as a metaphysical attribute, regardless of her actualization: in this way, Peter Damian lifts the question up from the level of the human will, which often fails to grasp his objects, to the divine form of the will, which unfailingly achieves his objectives. (shrink)

The important impact of the French Franciscan Peter Auriol (ca. 1280-1322) upon contemporary philosophical theology at Oxford is well known and has been well documented and analyzed, at least for a narrow range of issues, particularly in epistemology. This article attempts a more systematic treatment of his effects upon Oxford debates across a broader range of subjects and over a more expansive duration of time than has been done previously. Topics discussed include grace and merit, future contingents and divine (...) foreknowledge, and the logic of the Trinity. (shrink)

"CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIAE" BY SEVERIN BOETHIUS The paper examines the literature basic of Severin Boethius work «The Consolation of Philosophy». The author starts with the historical context of the appearance of the text and then goes to consider its variety of literary genres and forms. Main of them are satura Menippea, consolation, protreptic, soliloquy, and dialogue. Textual and conceptual analyses have relieved the connection between Boethius’s «The Consolation» and the works of other famous authors of Antiquity among them there are Plato, (...) Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, and St. Augustine. As a connoisseur of Antiquity, Boethius uses literature to explain his philosophical ideas. In addition, the author of the article suggests an analytical review of the image of the Lade Philosophy in «Consolation». The genealogy of this literary character refers to the Greek mythology, Plato’s «Symposium» and «Crito» dialogues, Martianus Capella’s work «On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury» and Augustine’s the literary image of St. Monika. The article reconstructs an epistemological methodology of Boethius’s Neoplatonic dialogue that consists of five stages and describes a therapeutic role of philosophy in the traditions of Plato and Stoics. The essence of this role is a mind therapy. Philosophy teaches us to see the world as a whole, to describe it in clear notions and judgments. According to the text of «Consolation», Boethius takes us to make an intellectual Neoplatonic climbing from practical (ethic) to theoretical (metaphysic) philosophy – from vita activa to vita speculativa. The main aim or the top of this Neoplatonic meditation is a contemplative life or reminding own Ego. The great ideas of this work have the significant influence on Medieval andRenaissance philosophy and literature. Keywords: Lady Philosophy, Neoplatonic. (shrink)

Uno de los principales criterios que utiliza el método científico para establecer la pertinencia de una explicación o hipótesis competidora con respecto a un evento en la realidad física, es el principio de simplicidad o parsimonia científica. Este suele implicar la prescindencia de entidades o hipótesis consideradas innecesarias para la explicación de un fenómeno. Las raíces de este principio se suelen trazar hasta el filósofo nominalista medieval Guillermo de Ockham. En el presente trabajo, se pretende determinar el posible impacto (...) de la concepción metodológica derivada de la Navaja de Ockham en torno a la hipótesis cosmológica de los multiversos, y realizar un recorrido por la visión crítica del cosmólogo, George F. R. Ellis en la discusión sobre la validez de la hipótesis multiversal en el plano de la física contemporánea. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to OckhamJeffrey E. BrowerPaul Vincent Spade, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xii + 400. Cloth, $54.95.Contemporary analytic philosophers have always been among the most enthusiastic audiences for the volumes in the Cambridge Companion series. And of all the great philosophers of the Middle Ages, perhaps none has appealed more to their sensibilities than William Ockham. It is fitting, (...) therefore, that after the publication of the Companion to Aquinas—the first volume in the series devoted to a medieval philosopher—there should appear a Companion to Ockham.The fifteen chapters comprising this volume survey the entire range of Ockham's thought and may conveniently be divided into four main parts. The first part (chaps. 2-7) deals with Ockham's most enduring legacy: his contribution to issues falling within the domain of logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics. The second part (chaps. 8-9) is devoted to issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind/cognition. The third part (chaps. 10-13) focuses on Ockham's views in ethics, action theory, and political philosophy. And the fourth part (chaps. 14-15) considers aspects of his philosophical theology. In addition, there is also an historical chapter (chap. 1), placing Ockham's life and works in their late-medieval intellectual context, and a brief editor's introduction, including a very useful list of all Ockham's writings, together with the best (sometimes, the only) Latin editions and English translations available.The volume is well organized and beautifully conceived. Some chapters are quite difficult, and in places contain material that is likely to be unfamiliar even to specialists in medieval philosophy. But the way in which they have been organized maximizes their usefulness and accessibility to specialists and non-specialists alike. The earlier parts of the volume lay the foundation for later ones, and the individual chapters within each part are arranged so as to build on and complement one another. This is perhaps most evident in the five chapters comprising the first part. Calvin Normore's presentation ofOckham's logic (in chap. 2) nicely prepares the reader for Claude Panaccio's discussion (in chap. 3) of Ockham's theory of mental language. Panaccio's chapter, in turn, provides the framework for David Chalmer's analysis (in chap. 4) of the debate over whether [End Page 588] Ockham's mental language permits synonymous expressions. Again, these three chapters taken together provide important background for Paul Spade's treatment (in chap. 5) of Ockham's views in metaphysics, which are closely related to his logic and philosophy of language. Finally, Gyula Klima's discussion (in chap. 6) ofhow Ockham's views in semantics and ontology differ from those of his predecessors, and André Goddu's discussion (in chap. 7) of Ockham's philosophy of nature, can be fully appreciated only against the background of the preceding chapters.What is perhaps most impressive about the volume, however, is the extent to which it succeeds at providing a systematic introduction to Ockham's philosophical achievement. All the chapters are, to some extent, concerned with matters of textual analysis and interpretation. But most of them involve much more than a mere survey of Ockham's texts. For example, in each of the four main parts, there is at least one chapter that attempts to locate Ockham's views in relation to those of his predecessors or contemporaries (such as Aquinas and Scotus), with the result that we get a sense of Ockham's place in the major medieval debates to which he contributed. At the same time, the volume introduces us to some of the most lively current debates in Ockham scholarship. It does this, not merely by summarizing them, but by actually carrying them out over the course of its chapters. For example, Eleonore Stump provides a sophisticated defense (in chap. 8) of what has become a standard interpretation of Ockham's theory of intuitive and abstractive cognition. In the following chapter, however, Elizabeth Karger rejects the standard interpretation on the basis of a re-reading of certain key texts. Again, in the first part of the volume there is a running debate... (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas wrote a text later known as Quaestio de attributis and ordered it inserted in a precise location of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard more than a decade after composing this work. Aquinas assigned exceptional importance to this text, in which he confronts the debate on the issue of the divine attributes that swept the most important centres of learning in 13th Century Europe and examines the answers given to the problem by the representatives of the (...) four mainstream schools of his time: the Greek mystic Dionysius Areopagita, the Latin Saint Anselm of Canterbury, the Jewish rabbi Moses Maimonides and the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina. This in-depth study of Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestio de attributis (In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 3) binds together the findings of previous research on the unique history of this text by reconstructing the historical circumstances surrounding its composition, shows that the Quaestio contains Aquinas’ final answer to the dispute on the divine attributes, and thoroughly examines his interpretation of Maimonides’ position on the issue of the knowledge of God by analysing this and other texts related to it chronologically and doctrinally. The examination of the Quaestio reveals the background of Thomas Aquinas’ renewed interest in Maimonides’ position on the issue and brings to light elements of Aquinas’ interpretation that are absent from his earlier references to Maimonides. Moreover, the chronological and doctrinal connection of the Quaestio de attributis to other Thomistic works with explicit references to Maimonides enables a reconstruction of his comprehensive approach to Maimonides’ teaching on the possibility and extent of the knowledge of God in the Guide of the Perplexed and highlights the place of Maimonides’ philosophical teachings in Thomas’ own thought in issues like "Being" as the proper name of God, the multiplicity of the divine names, the beatific vision in the afterlife, the causes that prevent the instruction of the multitude in divine matters and the role of faith and prophecy in the acquisition of the true knowledge of God in this life. The last chapter examines the reasons behind Aquinas’ silencing of Maimonides’ name when introducing his Five Ways for the knowledge of the existence of God, in spite of the evident relation between these and Maimonides’ Four Speculations. The study is completed with an extensive appendix that includes the text of the Quaestio de attributis with an English translation and the critical edition of several chapters of the 13th Century Latin translation of the Guide of the Perplexed known as Dux neutrorum. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the first part of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics A-33, 88b30-89a10. I claim that Aristotle is not concerned with an epistemological distinction between knowledge and belief in general. He is rather making a contrast between scientific knowledge (which is equivalent to explanation by the primarily appropriate cause) and some explanatory beliefs that falls short of capturing the primarily appropriate cause.

The traditional conception of risk is probabilistic, according to which the degree of risk of an event is determined by the probability of its occurence. Recently this view was challenged by Duncan Pritchard (2015, 2016), who suggested a modal theory of risk, centered in the idea that the riskiness of events depends on the modal distance between the actual world and worlds where the event obtains. What is attractive about this theory, according to Pritchard, is that it explains our judgement (...) about cases in which two equally probable events seem to have different degrees of risk. The modal theory of risk, however, has its own shortcomings: according to Bricker (2018), there are cases in which risk judgements are not tracking modal distance; there is also the problem of determining the risk of events that occur in the actual world, since the theory seems to imply that they are maximally risky because the actual world is maximally similar to itself (EBERT; SMITH; DURBACH, 2020). The modal conception of risk is also at odds with the most natural forms of reasoning over the morality of risk imposition. I begin exploring the two conceptions of risk, emphasizing their strenghts and weaknesses. I then argue that the probabilistic conception can be defended from objections, and a pluralistic theory of risk, although less unified, deserves to be considered. -/- . (shrink)

A common epistemological assumption in contemporary bioethics held b y both proponents and critics of non-traditional forms of cognitive enhancement is that cognitive enhancement aims at the facilitation of the accumulation of human knowledge. This paper does three central things. First, drawing from recent work in epistemology, a rival account of cognitive enhancement, framed in terms of the notion of cognitive achievement rather than knowledge, is proposed. Second, we outline and respond to an axiological objection to our proposal that (...) draws from recent work by Leon Kass (2004), Michael Sandel (2009), and John Harris (2011) to the effect that ‘enhanced’ cognitive achievements are (by effectively removing obstacles to success) not worthy of pursuit, or are otherwise ‘trivial’. Third, we show how the cognitive achievement account of cognitive enhancement proposed here fits snugly with recent active externalist approaches (e.g., extended cognition) in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

This book contributes to two debates and it does so by bringing them together. The first is a debate in metaethics concerning normative reasons, the considerations that serve to justify a person’s actions and attitudes. The second is a debate in epistemology concerning the norms for belief, the standards that govern a person’s beliefs and by reference to which they are assessed. The book starts by developing and defending a new theory of reasons for action, that is, of practical (...) reasons. The theory belongs to a family that analyses reasons by appeal to the normative notion of rightness (fittingness, correctness); it is distinctive in making central appeal to modal notions, specifically, that of a nearby possible world. The result is a comprehensive framework that captures what is common to and distinctive of reasons of various kinds: justifying and demanding; for and against, possessed and unpossessed; objective and subjective. The framework is then generalized to reasons for belief, that is, to epistemic reasons, and combined with a substantive, first-order commitment, namely, that truth is the sole right-maker for belief. The upshot is an account of the various norms governing belief, including knowledge and rationality, and the relations among them. According to it, the standards to which belief is subject are various, but they are unified by an underlying principle. (shrink)

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. Second, we need to trust others, and trust makes us vulnerable. In particular, we need to trust experts whose expertise lies beyond our individual ability to vet. So we must rely on various imperfect signals and proxies, like institutional affiliation, to manage our trust. We are forced to use these imperfect and exploitable forms of reasoning, in order to cope with a cognitively overwhelming world. I present the hostile epistemology framework as a counterbalance to vice epistemology, which tends to locate responsibility for bad beliefs in the character of the believer. I draw two conclusions from my analysis. First: suppose we accept that that only communities and institutions can know about the world. This deeply social approach doesn’t solve the problem of expert identification. The individual still faces a problem: given their incomplete understanding, how should the individual pick which group to trust? Second: we might have hoped to get some kind of static picture of the right principles of reasoning — but hostile epistemology presents a different picture. We have to use risky heuristics and shortcuts, which hostile forces can game and exploit. We can respond by shifting to a different set of heuristics, but this simply shifts the location of our vulnerabilities. These new heuristics are also exploitable. There is no end to this, only a constant struggle to adapt. Limited beings in a hostile epistemic environment are locked in an unending epistemic arms race. (shrink)

Formally-inclined epistemologists often theorize about ideally rational agents--agents who exemplify rational ideals, such as probabilistic coherence, that human beings could never fully realize. This approach can be defended against the well-know worry that abstracting from human cognitive imperfections deprives the approach of interest. But a different worry arises when we ask what an ideal agent should believe about her own cognitive perfection (even an agent who is in fact cognitively perfect might, it would seem, be uncertain of this fact). Consideration (...) of this question reveals an interesting feature of the structure of our epistemic ideals: for agents with limited information, our epistemic ideals turn out to conflict with one another. (shrink)

This article surveys recent developments in the epistemology of modality.

This article seeks the origin, in the theories of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Descartes, and Berkeley, of two-stage theories of spatial perception, which hold that visual perception involves both an immediate representation of the proximal stimulus in a two-dimensional ‘‘sensory core’’ and also a subsequent perception of the three dimensional world. The works of Ibn al-Haytham, Descartes, and Berkeley already frame the major theoretical options that guided visual theory into the twentieth century. The field of visual perception was the first area (...) of what we now call psychology to apply mathematics, through geometrical models as used by Euclid, Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham, and Descartes (among others). The article shows that Kepler’s discovery of the retinal image, which revolutionized visual anatomy and entailed fundamental changes in visual physiology, did not alter the basic structure of theories of spatial vision. These changes in visual physiology are advanced especially in Descartes' Dioptrics and his L'Homme. Berkeley develops a radically empirist theory vision, according to which visual perception of depth is learned through associative processes that rely on the sense of touch. But Descartes and Berkeley share the assertion that there is a two-dimensional sensory core that is in principle available to consciousness. They also share the observation that we don't usually perceived this core, but find depth and distance to be phenomenally immediate, a point they struggle to accommodate theoretically. If our interpretation is correct, it was not a change in the theory of the psychology of vision that engendered the idea of a sensory core, but rather the introduction of the theory into a new metaphysical context. (shrink)

Robust Virtue Epistemology maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti-luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately fail. Finally, (...) a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti-luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck. (shrink)

The encounter of the medieval Muslims with Greek philosophy undeniably shaped the course of their philosophical and theological thought. This encounter led to the complex and contentious issue of ‘philosophy versus theology’. Medieval Muslim thinkers needed to develop a response to the issue of philosophy versus theology. The present article will first highlight the response of the Islamic theologians to their encounter with Greek philosophy in the form of three major trends in medieval Islamic theology: (1) strong (...) opposition to the application of reason and rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, and strict adherence to the actual text of the Qur’an and the Hadith, (2) the adoption of Greek philosophy, and the application of reason and rationalist approach to explain and defend Islamic religion and (3) acknowledging the significance of reason in exploring the matters related to the natural world but, at the same time, stressing the subordination of reason to revelation. This article will discuss Atharism, Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism as the representatives of the first, second and third trends, respectively. The response of the medieval Islamic theologians to the issue of philosophy versus theology serves as a context in which medieval Muslim philosophers carried out their philosophy–theology debate. The article will proceed to show that some medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Abu Bakr Al-Razi, subordinated religion or revelation to philosophy or reason. Other medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Ghazali, subordinated philosophy to theology. The third group of medieval Islamic philosophers represented by Alfarabi argued for the reconciliation and harmonious co-existence of philosophy and religion. Contribution: This article highlights the response of medieval Islamic theologians and philosophers to the issue of philosophy versus theology that was caused by their encounter with Greek philosophy. (shrink)

In his new book, Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History, Steve Fuller returns to core themes of his program of social epistemology that he first outlined in his 1988 book, Social Epistemology. He develops a new, unorthodox theology and philosophy building upon his testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in defense of intelligent design, leading to a call for maximal human experimentation. Beginning from the theological premise rooted in the Abrahamic religious tradition that we are created (...) in the image of God, Fuller argues that the spark of the divine within us distinguishes us from animals. I argue that Fuller’s recent work takes us away from key insights of his original work. In contrast, I advocate for a program of social epistemology rooted in evolutionary science rather than intelligent design, emphasize a precautionary and ecological approach rather than a proactionary approach that favors risky human experimentation, and attend to our material and sociological embeddedness rather than a transhumanist repudiation of the body. (shrink)

Robust virtue epistemology holds that knowledge is true belief obtained through cognitive ability. In this essay I explain that robust virtue epistemology faces a dilemma, and the viability of the theory depends on an adequate understanding of the ‘through’ relation. Greco interprets this ‘through’ relation as one of causal explanation; the success is through the agent’s abilities iff the abilities play a sufficiently salient role in a causal explanation of why she possesses a true belief. In this paper (...) I argue that Greco’s account of the ‘through’ relation is inadequate. I describe kinds of counterexample and explain why salience is the wrong kind of property to track epistemically relevant conditions or to capture the nature of knowledge. Advocates of robust virtue epistemology should develop an alternative account of the ‘through’ relation. I also argue that virtue epistemology should employ an environment-relative interpretation of epistemic virtue. (shrink)

Philosophers have always taken an interest not only in what is actually the case, but in what is necessarily the case and what could possibly be the case. These are questions of modality. Epistemologists of modality enquire into how we can know what is necessary and what is possible. This dissertation concerns the meta-epistemology of modality. It engages with the rules that govern construction and evaluation of theories in the epistemology of modality, by using modal empiricism – a (...) form of modal epistemology – as a running example. In particular, I investigate the assumption that it is important to be able to meet the integration challenge. Meeting the integration challenge is a source of serious difficulty for many approaches, but modal empiricism is supposed to do well in this respect. But I argue that once we have a better grasp of what the integration challenge is, it is not obvious that it presents no problem for modal empiricism. Moreover, even if modal empiricism could be said to be in a relatively good position with respect to integration, it comes at the cost of a forced choice between far-reaching partial modal scepticism and non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality. Non-uniformism is the view that more than one modal epistemology will be correct. While non-uniformism might not in itself be unpalatable, it must be defined and defended in a way which squares with the modal empiricist’s other commitment. I explore two ways of doing so, both involving a revised idea of the integration challenge and its role for the epistemology of modality. One involves a bifurcation of the integration challenge, and the other a restriction of the integration challenge’s relevance. Both ways are interesting, but neither is, as it turns out, a walk in the park. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers nearly unanimously endorse knowledge reliabilism, the view that knowledge must be reliably produced. Leading reliabilists have suggested that reliabilism draws support from patterns in ordinary judgments and intuitions about knowledge, luck, reliability, and counterfactuals. That is, they have suggested a proto-reliabilist hypothesis about “commonsense” or “folk” epistemology. This paper reports nine experimental studies (N = 1262) that test the proto-reliabilist hypothesis by testing four of its principal implications. The main findings are that (a) commonsense fully embraces the (...) possibility of unreliable knowledge, (b) knowledge judgments are surprisingly insensitive to information about reliability, (c) “anti-luck” intuitions about knowledge have nothing to do with reliability specifically, and (d) reliabilists have mischaracterized the intuitive counterfactual properties of knowledge and their relation to reliability. When combined with the weakness of existing arguments for reliabilism and the recent emergence of well supported alternative views that predict the widespread existence of unreliable knowledge, the present findings are the final exhibit in a conclusive case for abandoning reliabilism in epistemology. I introduce an alternative theory of knowledge, abilism, which out-performs reliabilism and well explains all the available evidence. (shrink)

An epistemology of art has seemed problematic mainly because of arguments claiming that an essential element of a theory of knowledge, truth, has no place in aesthetic contexts. For, if it is objectively true that something is beautiful, it seems to follow that the predicate “is beautiful” expresses a property – a view asserted by Plato but denied by Hume and Kant. But then, if the belief that something is beautiful is not objectively true, we cannot be said to (...) know that something is beautiful and the path to an epistemology of art is effectively blocked. The article places the existence aesthetic properties in the proper context; presents a logically correct argument for the existence of such properties; identifies strategies for responding to this argument; explains why objections by Hume, Kant, and several other philosophers fail; and sketches a realization account of beauty influenced by Hogarth. (shrink)

An overview of the epistemology of perception, covering the nature of justification, immediate justification, the relationship between the metaphysics of perceptual experience and its rational role, the rational role of attention, and cognitive penetrability. The published version will contain a smaller bibliography, due to space constraints in the volume.

Standpoint epistemology has been linked with increasing calls for deference to the socially marginalized. As we understand it, deference involves recognizing someone else as better positioned than we are, either to investigate or to answer some question, and then accepting their judgment as our own. We connect contemporary calls for deference to old objections that standpoint epistemology wrongly reifies differences between groups. We also argue that while deferential epistemic norms present themselves as a solution to longstanding injustices, habitual (...) deference prevents the socially dominant from developing for themselves the skills necessary to expand their capacity for empathy, to deftly probe for evidence, and to ask critical questions. Consequently, we argue that standpoint epistemology must be understood as calling for inclusion, not deference. (shrink)