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1. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Adam Leite

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Traditional epistemological reflection on our beliefs about the world attempts to proceed without presupposing or ineliminably depending upon any claims about the world. It has been argued that epistemological externalism fails to engage in the right way with the motivations for this project. I argue, however, that epistemological externalism satisfyingly undermines this project. If we accept the thesis that certain conditions other than the truth of one’s belief must obtain in the world outside of one’s mind in order for one to have knowledge (or justified belief) about the world, then there is no good intellectual motivation for taking up the traditional project. This results stands even if we accept the traditional theses that knowledge requires justified belief and that justified belief requires the ability to provide good reasons for one’s belief.
2. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
William S. Robinson

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Silent thinking is often accompanied by subvocal sayings to ourselves, imagery, emotional feelings, and non-sensory experiences such as familiarity, rightness, and confidence that we can go on in certain ways. Phenomenological materials of these kinds, along with our dispositions to give explanations or draw inferences, provide resources that are sufficient to account for our knowledge of what we think, desire, and so on. We do not need to suppose that there is a distinctive, non-imagistic ‘what it is like’ to think that p, and a different non-imagistic ‘what it is like’ to think that q. Nor need we suppose that there is a proprietary ‘what it is like’ to have one propositional attitude type rather than another.
3. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Edward S. Hinchman

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How can I give you a reason to believe what I tell you? I can influence the evidence available to you. Or I can simply invite your trust. These two ways of giving reasons work very differently, When a speaker tells her hearer that p, I argue, she intends that he gain access to a prima facie reason to believe that p that derives not from evidence but from his mere understanding of her act. Unlike mere assertions, acts of telling give reasons directly. They give reasons by inviting the hearer’s trust.This yields a novel form of anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony. The status of testimony as a sui generis source of epistemic warrant is entailed by the nature of the act of telling. We can discover the nature of this illocution, and its epistemic role, by examining how it functions in the real world of human relations.
4. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Ian Proops

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In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant appears to characterize analytic judgments in four distinct ways: once in terms of “containment,” a second time in terms of “identity,” a third time in terms of the explicative-ampliative contrast, and a fourth time in terms of the notion of “cognizability in accordance with the principle of contradiction.” The paper asks which, if any, of these characterizations--or apparent charactcrizations--has the best claim to be Kant’s fundamental conception of analyticity in the first Critique. It argues that it is the second. The paper argues, further, that Kant’s distinction is intended to apply only to judgments of subject-predicate form, and that the fourth alleged characterization is not properly speaking a characterization at all. These theses are defended in the course of a more general investigation of the distinction’s meaning and tenability.
5. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Brian Weatherson

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In a recent article, Adam Elga outlines a strategy for “Defeating Dr Evil with Self-Locating Belief”. The strategy relies on an indifference principle that is not up to the task. In general, there are two things to dislike about indifference principles: adopting one normally means confusing risk for uncertainty, and they tend to lead to incoherent views in some ‘paradoxical’ situations. I argue that both kinds of objection can be levelled against EIga’s indifference principle. There are also some difficulties with the concept of evidence that Elga uses, and these create further difficulties for the principle.
6. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Jennifer Lackey

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It is widely assumed that memory has only the capacity to preserve epistemic features that have been generated by other sources. Specifically, if S knows (justifiedly believes/rationally believes) that p via memory at T2, then it is argued that (i) S must have known (justitiedly believed/rationally believed) that p when it was originally acquired at TI, and (ii) S must have acquired knowledge that p (justification with respect to p/rationality with respect to p) at T1 via a non-memorial source. Thus, according to this view, memory cannot make an unknown proposition known, an unjustified belief justified, or an irrational belief rational--it can only preserve what is already known, justified, or rational. In this paper, I argue that condition (i) is false and, a fortiori, that condition (ii) is false. Hence, I show that, contrary to received wisdom in contemporary epistemology, memory can function as a generative epistemic source.
7. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Joel J. Kupperman

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Might there be knowledge of non-instrumental values? Arguments are give for two principal claims. One is that if there is such knowledge, it typically will have features that do not entirely match those of other kinds of knowledge. It will have a closer relation to the kind of person one is or becomes, and in the way it combines features of knowing-how with knowing-that. There also are problems of indeterminacy of noninstrumental value which are not commonly found in other things that we can know about. The second claim is that there is a strong prima-facie case for holding that there is such knowledge, and that the usual arguments against this are all faulty.
8. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Storrs McCall, E. J. Lowe

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The aim of the paper is to prove the consistency of libertarianism. We examine the example of Jane, who deliberates at length over whether to vacation in Colorado (C) or Hawaii (H), weighing the costs and benefits, consulting travel brochures, etc. Underlying phenomenological deliberation is an indeterministic neural process in which nonactual motor neural states n(C) and n(H) corresponding to alternatives C and H remain physically possible up until the moment of decision. The neurophysiological probabilities pr(n(C)) and pr(n(H)) evolve continuously according to the different weights Jane’s judgement attaches to C and H at different times during the deliberation. The overall process is indeterministic, since Jane’s exact judgemental weighting would vary slightly were the process to be repeated from the same initial conditions. The weighting is however rational, and entirely under Jane’s control. This controlled, rational, indeterministic process shows that libertarianism is a consistent philosophical thesis.

discussion

9. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
John Dupré

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book symposium:

10. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Joseph Almog

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11. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Michael Della Rocca

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12. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Stephen Yablo

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13. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Joseph Almog

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critical notices

14. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Baron Reed

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15. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Jonathan E. Adler

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16. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
Charles Taliaferro

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17. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3
William G. Lycan

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index

18. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 70 > Issue: 3

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