Abstract: Open-mindedness is typically at the top of any list of the intellectual or "epistemic" virtues. Yet, providing an account that simultaneously explains why open-mindedness is an epistemically valuable trait to have and how such a trait is compatible with full-blooded belief turns out to be a challenge. Building on the work of William Hare and Jonathan Adler, I defend a view of open-mindedness that meets this challenge. On this view, open-mindedness is primarily an attitude toward oneself as a believer, (...) rather than toward any particular belief. To be open-minded is to be aware of one's fallibility as a believer, and to acknowledge the possibility that anytime one believes something, one could be wrong. In order to see that such an attitude is epistemically valuable even to an already virtuous agent, some details of the skills and habits of the open-minded agent are elucidated. (shrink)

Reliabilism has come under recent attack for its alleged inability to account for the value we typically ascribe to knowledge. It is charged that a reliably-produced true belief has no more value than does the true belief alone. I reply to these charges on behalf of reliabilism; not because I think reliabilism is the correct theory of knowledge, but rather because being reliably-produced does add value of a sort to true beliefs. The added value stems from the fact that a (...) reliably-held belief is non-accidental in a particular way. While it is widely acknowledged that accidentally true beliefs cannot count as knowledge, it is rarely questioned why this should be so. An answer to this question emerges from the discussion of the value of reliability; an answer that holds interesting implications for the value and nature of knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the theory that knowledge is credit-worthy true belief against a family of objections, one of which was leveled against it in a recent paper by Jennifer Lackey. In that paper, Lackey argues that testimonial knowledge is problematic for the credit-worthiness theory because when person A comes to know that p by way of the testimony of person B, it would appear that any credit due to A for coming to believe truly that p belongs to (...) the testifier, B, rather than the hearer, A. If so, then knowledge would appear not to be a matter of credit for true belief. I think that the problem this raises actually has little to do with the fact that the knowledge comes by way of testimony, and that similar objections can be formulated in terms of perceptual and memorial knowledge. I will attempt to neutralize these objections by drawing a distinction between credit as praiseworthiness and credit as attributability. (shrink)

Reliabilism has come under recent attack for its alleged inability to account for the value we typically ascribe to knowledge. It is charged that a reliably‐produced true belief has no more value than does the true belief alone. I reply to these charges on behalf of reliabilism; not because I think reliabilism is the correct theory of knowledge, but rather because being reliably‐produced does add value of a sort to true beliefs. The added value stems from the fact that a (...) reliably‐held belief is non‐accidental in a particular way. While it is widely acknowledged that accidentally true beliefs cannot count as knowledge, it is rarely questioned why this should be so. An answer to this question emerges from the discussion of the value of reliability; an answer that holds interesting implications for the value and nature of knowledge. (shrink)

It is nearly universally acknowledged among epistemologists that a belief, even if true, cannot count as knowledge if it is somehow largely a matter of luck that the person so arrived at the truth. A striking feature of this literature, however, is that while many epistemologists are busy arguing about which particular technical condition most effectively rules out the offensive presence of luck in true believing, almost no one is asking why it matters so much that knowledge be immune from (...) luck in the first place. I argue that the best explanation for the consensus that luck undermines knowledge is that knowledge is, complications aside, credit-worthy true believing. To make this case, I develop both the notions of luck and credit, and sketch a theory of knowledge in those terms. Furthermore, this account also holds promise for being able to solve the “value problem” for knowledge, and it explains why both internal and external conditions are necessary to turn true belief into knowledge. (shrink)

forthcoming 2007 in New Waves in Epistemology, Vincent Hendricks & Duncan Pritchard, eds.

Jonathan Kvanvig's book, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding (Kvanvig, 2003), is a wonderful example of doing epistemology in a style that Kvanvig himself has termed "value−driven epistemology." On this approach, one takes questions about epistemic value to be central to theoretical concerns, including the concern to provide an adequate account of knowledge. This approach yields the demand that theories of knowledge must provide, not just an adequate account of the nature of knowledge, but also an account (...) of the value of knowledge. Given the near−universal assumption that knowledge has a special kind of value, this demand seems reasonable, though surprisingly hard to satisfy. Another consequence of this approach to doing epistemology is that certain assumptions about epistemic value, like what sorts of things have it and what sorts of things don't, and where such value comes from, become much more salient to the epistemic enterprise. In his book, Kvanvig challenges the assumption that knowledge has some unique store of epistemic value. And he investigates the matter by asking questions about what the bearers of epistemic value are and where they get it. He concludes, of course, that knowledge as we have come to conceive it in 21st century epistemology has no such special value. (shrink)

Coherence theorists have universally defined justification as a relation only among (the contents of) belief states, in contradistinction to other theories, such as some versions of founda­tionalism, which define justification as a relation on belief states and appearance states.

This paper focuses on several issues that arise in Miranda Fricker?s book Epistemic injustice surrounding her claims about our (moral) culpability for perpetrating acts of testimonial injustice. While she makes frequent claims about moral culpability with respect to specific examples, she never addresses the issue in its full generality, and we are left to extrapolate her general view about moral culpability for acts of testimonial injustice from these more restricted and particular claims. Although Fricker never describes testimonial injustice in such (...) terms, I argue that the fundamental wrong done in acts of testimonial injustice is a form of negligence. Once we understand testimonial injustice in this way, it is easier to see when and why we are culpable for perpetrating such injustices. Indeed, explicitly recognizing testimonial injustice as a form of negligence solves several problems for Fricker?s view, which are elucidated briefly along the way. However, construing testimonial injustice as a form of negligence has a cost as well. It highlights the fact that the normative core of Fricker?s view is deontological, rather than virtue-theoretic. Fricker claims to be offering a theory of the virtue of testimonial justice along the model of current virtue theories in epistemology, yet it seems that there is no compelling reason to think of what she has offered as a virtue theory, at least not on the model of virtue theories that one finds in epistemology. This is not to say that her view is any less plausible for not being a virtue theory. But calling it a virtue theory affects how one interprets its various claims, and tends to lead one away from, rather than toward, a proper understanding of the deep deontological nature of her account. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that there are (at least) two fundamental epistemic goals: believing truths, and avoiding the acceptance of falsehoods. As has been often noted, these goals are in conflict with one another. Moreover, the norms governing rational belief that we should derive from these two goals depend on how we weight them relative to one another. However, it is not obvious that there is one objectively correct weighting for everyone in all circumstances. Indeed, as I shall argue, it (...) looks as though there are circumstances in which a range of possible weightings of the two goals are all equally epistemically rational. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Why Talk About Open‐Mindedness? Desiderata for an Account of Open‐Mindedness Accounts of Open‐Mindedness The Puzzles The Open‐Minded Agent A Final Reckoning Conclusion References.

It will startle no one to hear that there is widespread disagreement among philosophers about the nature and criteria of epistemic justification. There are many distinct notions of epistemic justification, distinguished from one another in a bewildering variety of ways. There are internalist justification, externalist justification, coherentist justification, foundationalist justification, deontic justification, consequentialist justification, propositional justification, doxastic justification, personal justification, situational justification, objective justification, subjective justification, cognitive justification, and structural justification. None of these is quite equivalent to another, yet each (...) is proposed as a way in which something can be epistemically justified. (shrink)

Current epistemological dogma has it that the twin goalsof believing truths and avoiding errors exhaust our cognitive aspirations.On such a view, (call it the TG view) the only evaluationsthat count as genuinely epistemological are those that evaluatesomething (a belief, believer, set of beliefs, a cognitivetrait or process, etc.) in terms of its connection to thesetwo goods. In particular, this view implies that all theepistemic value of knowledge must be derived from thevalue of the two goals cited in TG. I argue (...) thatthis implication is false, and thus that the TG view must be abandoned. I propose a candidate to replacethe TG view that makes better sense of the value ofknowledge. (shrink)

There are good reasons for pursuing a theory of knowledge by way of understanding the connection between knowledge and luck. Not surprisingly, then, there has been a burgeoning of interest in “luck theories” of knowledge as well as in theories of luck in general. Unfortunately, “luck” proves to be as recalcitrant an analysandum as “knows.” While it is well worth pursuing a general theory of luck despite these difficulties, our theory of knowledge might be made more manageable if we could (...) find a more restricted notion that captured the core phenomena of luck that are relevant to whether or not someone knows. This essay makes the attempt to delineate such a notion, called “mere coincidence.”. (shrink)

I am interested in epistemic virtues for reasons rather different than most. I do not offer a virtue theory of anything, I don't argue that we can solve various long−standing problems in epistemology by appeal to epistemic virtues, nor am I an opponent of any of these things (though I certainly find some of these projects more plausible than others.) Rather, my interest in the epistemic virtues stems from a long−standing commitment to epistemic value pluralism, and a belief that, until (...) recently, epistemology has been stifled by an implicit commitment to the hegemony of truth in the realm of epistemic value. Since the language of epistemic virtue theory adds a welcome richness to the vocabulary of epistemic evaluation, I find it appealing for that reason at least. (shrink)

: In this essay, Riggs demonstrates how heterosexism shapes foster-care assessment practices in Australia. Through an examination of lesbian and gay foster-care applicants' assessment reports and with a focus on the heteronormative assumptions contained within them, Riggs demonstrates that foster-care public policy and research on lesbian and gay parenting both promote the idea that lesbian and gay parents are always already "just like" heterosexual parents. To counter this idea of "sameness," Riggs proposes an approach to both assessing (...) and researching lesbian and gay parents that privileges the specific experiences of lesbians and gay men and resists the heterosexualization of lesbian and gay families by focusing on some potentially radical differences shaping lesbian and gay lives. (shrink)

In this essay, Riggs demonstrates how heterosexism shapes foster-care assessment practices in Australia. Through an examination of lesbian and gay foster-care applicants’ assessment reports and with a focus on the heteronormative assumptions contained within them, Riggs demonstrates that foster-care public policy and research on lesbian and gay parenting both promote the idea that lesbian and gay parents are always already “just like” heterosexual parents. To counter this idea of “sameness,” Riggs proposes an approach to both assessing and (...) researching lesbian and gay parents that privileges the specific experiences of lesbians and gay men and resists the heterosexualization of lesbian and gay families by focusing on some potentially radical differences shaping lesbian and gay lives. (shrink)

Current epistemological dogma has it that the twin goalsof believing truths and avoiding errors exhaust our cognitive aspirations. On such a view, (call it the "TG view") the only evaluations that count as genuinely epistemological are those that evaluate something (a belief, believer, set of beliefs, a cognitive trait or process, etc.) in terms of its connection to these two goods. In particular, this view implies that all the epistemic value of knowledge must be derived from the value of the (...) two goals cited in TG. I argue that this implication is false, and thus that the TG view must be abandoned. I propose a candidate to replace the TG view that makes better sense of the value of knowledge. (shrink)

There are good reasons for pursuing a theory of knowledge by way of understanding the connection between knowledge and luck. Not surprisingly, then, there has been a burgeoning of interest in “luck theories” of knowledge as well as in theories of luck in general. Unfortunately, “luck” proves to be as recalcitrant an analysandum as “knows.” While it is well worth pursuing a general theory of luck despite these difficulties, our theory of knowledge might be made more manageable if we could (...) find a more restricted notion that captured the core phenomena of luck that are relevant to whether or not someone knows. This essay makes the attempt to delineate such a notion, called “mere coincidence.”. (shrink)

In 'The Weakness of Strong Justification' Wayne Riggs claims that the requirement that justified beliefs be truth conducive (likely to be true) is not always compatible with the requirement that they be epistemically responsible (arrived at in an epistemically responsible manner)1. He supports this claim by criticising Alvin Goldman's view that if a belief is strongly justified, it is also epistemically responsible. In light of this, Riggs recommends that we develop two independent conceptions of justification, one that (...) insists upon the requirement that beliefs be truth conducive and another that insists that they be epistemically responsible. It will then, on his view, be possible to properly evaluate beliefs with regard to each conception of justification. Riggs, however, is mistaken in supposing that the two epistemic requirements are independent. If a belief is responsibly arrived at, it is therefore likely to be true. He is thus also mistaken in supposing that the two epistemic requirements are incompatible. This mistake arises because Riggs assumes that justification is possible or, at least, that it involves standards that are akin to our own. Moreover, once this assumption is made explicit, we can see why a notion of justification that connects epistemic practice with likely truth is significant. (shrink)

Perceptual attention is essential to both thought and agency, for there is arguably no demonstrative thought or bodily action without it. Psychologists and philosophers since William James have taken attention to be a ubiquitous and distinctive form of consciousness, one that leaves a characteristic mark on perceptual experience. As a process of selecting specific perceptual inputs, attention influences the way things perceptually appear. It may then seem that it is a specific feature of perceptual representation that constitutes what it is (...) like to consciously attend to an object. In fact conscious attention is more complicated. In what follows, I argue that the phenomenology of conscious attention to what is perceived involves not just a way of perceptually locking on to a specific object. It necessarily involves a way of cognitively locking on to it as well. (shrink)

Decision making and choices are frequent themes in medical ethics. Game theory is based upon modelled decision making. Game theory, and associated logic traps, may have relevance to the clinical practice of medicine and medical ethics. The “prisoner’s dilemma” is one logic trap from game theory in which “rational” decision making on the part of participating individuals can lead to “suboptimal” situations. An example of such a situation involving brain death is presented and discussed from the perspective of the prisoner’s (...) dilemma. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Foundations For Flow:A Philosophical Model For Studio InstructionKrista RiggsThe need for a new approach to studio instruction becomes evident when the current state of the profession and the effects of typical teaching methods are considered. In a profession with relatively little demand for a large supply of candidates for professional employment, realistically very few undergraduate music performance majors will achieve success as either orchestral players or as soloists. Extreme (...) competitiveness and the political hierarchy common in a typical music studio setting can squelch creativity and hinder a student's possibility to attain optimal experience in performance. Such an environment can pose a threat to a student's self-image and motivation, possibly becoming detrimental to the success of the student in any chosen occupation, whether ultimately within music or outside the profession.1As Roland Persson notes, studio teachers are generally hired primarily for their performance accomplishments and place in the historic lineage of their instrument's pedagogy without much regard for previous training in educational theories.2 With a lack of training in instructional methods or developmental theories, college music teachers tend to conduct lessons in the manner in which they were taught. Thus, little attention may be paid to individual differences or developmental issues.3 Studio instruction has also traditionally been approached [End Page 175] in a maestro-like, authoritarian manner with one-directional commands given as law from master teacher to seemingly subordinate students. Such a manner of teaching may contradict the tendency of creative individuals to show more deviant traits of critical and independent thought, possibly hindering the student's potential for artistic growth.4Many music students tend to gain much of their concept of self-worth based on how they perceive their musical ability to be assessed by their studio instructor.5 A dependency for approval can lead to the pursuit of unachievable perfection that can be detrimental to the emotional development and self-confidence of the student.6 A common focus on a final product in instruction rather than on the creative process of personal and artistic growth can also contribute to the detrimental setting of unrealistic goals and resulting lack of self-esteem in the student. Evaluation of artistically, intellectually, and emotionally developing students against an unattainable perceived aesthetic ideal or in comparison to other students of differing strengths and levels of development can hinder motivation while increasing anxiety, extreme competition, and negative emotional response in the learning experience.7 In a more personalized curriculum that centers on individual strengths and weaknesses through a mentoring approach, each student may be guided to develop the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual faculties leading to optimal experience. From creative flow and the peak experiences of self-actualization comes intrinsic motivation for students to pursue creativity as a way of life, with further motivation to find moments for artistic expression and personal satisfaction in all aspects of their being.8A new model concerned with the development of the "whole" student as an individual can serve as a philosophical supplement to studio instructors who may not have received much training in developmental issues, educational theories, or related facets of the psychology of learning and performance. Although each aspect of the model can be considered separately, the potential of guiding a student toward the attainment of optimal experience is increased when all aspects are considered according to strengths and weaknesses present in the individual student. Incorporating the theories and ideas in studio instruction may help enhance a student's artistic and personal development while also strengthening a healthy mentoring relationship between teacher and student. While the model presents aspects of psychology alongside developmental and educational theories, the focus remains as a philosophical synthesis of diverse ideas into a unified system with flow at the center. Rather than aiming to deconstruct or refute opposing theories, the model synthesizes supporting ideas. As Estelle Jorgensen notes, the purpose of a synthesis-oriented or "synoptic" model is not so much to argue or refute contrasting views as it is to build upon the supporting theories and ideas of other writers. The "body of thought" serves an explanatory purpose [End Page 176] of the "clarification of terms and exposition... (shrink)

This chapter will review selected aspects of the terrain of discussions about probabilities in statistical mechanics (with no pretensions to exhaustiveness, though the major issues will be touched upon), and will argue for a number of claims. None of the claims to be defended is entirely original, but all deserve emphasis. The first, and least controversial, is that probabilistic notions are needed to make sense of statistical mechanics. The reason for this is the same reason that convinced Maxwell, Gibbs, and (...) Boltzmann that probabilities would be needed, namely, that the second law of thermodynamics, which in its original formulation says that certain processes are impossible, must, on the kinetic theory, be replaced by a weaker formulation according to which what the original version deems impossible is merely improbable. Second is that we ought not take the standard measures invoked in equilibrium statistical mechanics as giving, in any sense, the correct probabilities about microstates of the system. We can settle for a much weaker claim: that the probabilities for outcomes of experiments yielded by the standard distributions are effectively the same as those yielded by any distribution that we should take as a representing probabilities over microstates. Lastly, (and most controversially): in asking about the status of probabilities in statistical mechanics, the familiar dichotomy between epistemic probabilities (credences, or degrees of belief) and ontic (physical) probabilities is insufficient; the concept of probability that is best suited to the needs of statistical mechanics is one that combines epistemic and physical considerations. (shrink)

This article provides a detailed overview of the neuroscience of consciousness.

From the leader of the nation's most powerful animal-protection organization comes a frontline account of how conscience and creativity are driving a revolution in American business that is changing forever how we treat animals and create wealth. Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States reveals how entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 CEOs, world-class scientists, philanthropists, and a new class of political leaders are driving the burgeoning, unstoppable growth of the "humane economy." Every business grounded on animal exploitation, Pacelle (...) argues, is ripe for disruption. Indeed each one of us is, and will be, touched by this far-reaching transformation in food and agriculture; in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and cosmetics industries; in film, television, and live entertainment; in tourism and wildlife management; in the pet trade for dogs and cats and exotic wildlife; and in fur and leather fashions. Collectively it promises to relieve or end the suffering of billions of creatures, while allowing businesses aligned with the best instincts and values of their customers to flourish. Pacelle shows, for instance, how the cruelties of industrial chicken farming are quickly becoming obsolete with a visit to Hampton Creek, the makers of a plant-based egg substitute and the world's fastest-growing food startup ever. Pacelle also recounts the stories of how established companies are joining in this economic transformation: from Petco and PetSmart, which have turned the conventional pet store model on its head by forswearing puppy mill suppliers in favor of shelter dogs; to John Paul Mitchell Systems, the Body Shop, and Lush, which use safe ingredients instead of animal tests for their cosmetics; to major food retailers like Whole Foods, Chipotle, and even Costco and Walmart, which are embracing animal welfare standards that are one by one unwinding the horrors of the factory farm. The Humane Economy is a clarion call to business leaders and to the world's growing animal protection movement; it is equally a warning to the static thinking of animal-use industries and their apologists: "Here, in this humane economy," Pacelle argues, "human ingenuity meets human virtue, and we discover at last that we can have it both ways--a better world for us and for animals, too. (shrink)

The most comprehensive book on the topic, Thinking about Good and Evil traces salient Jewish ideas about why innocent people seem to suffer, why evil individuals seem to prosper, and God's role in matters of (in)justice, from antiquity to modernity.

Plato, and a wide variety of ancient, Arabic, and medieval Platonisms had a significant influence on Aquinas. The Corpus, with its quasi-Apostolic origin for Aquinas, was his most authoritative and influential source of Neoplatonism. His most influential early sources of Platonism came from Aristotle and Augustine, that is besides the Dionysian Corpus and the Liber. Aquinas greatly acknowledged the Neoplatonic, and the Peripatetic, commentaries and paraphrases he gradually acquired, because they enabled getting to the Hellenic sources. A great part of (...) Aquinas's last writing was devoted to explicating Aristotle's works including the Liber de causis, which was attributed to him. Aquinas wished to understand the philosophical schools such as their characters, the differences between and within them, their memberships, influences, histories, and the extent to which they are complementary. Aquinas gave an extended treatment of the history of philosophy, including lists of differences and agreements between Plato and Aristotle, beginning with ‘the opinions of the ancients and of Plato’ in his On Separate Substances. When Aquinas treated Aristotle in On Separate Substances, he did not leave his Neoplatonic framework behind. There is much more in On Separate Substances concerning the numbers, including an elaborate reasoning that saves the verbally opposed positions of both Proclus and Dionysius. (shrink)

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Education identifies and confronts key ethical issues generated over years of AI research, development, and deployment in learning contexts. Adaptive, automated, and data-driven education systems are increasingly being implemented in universities, schools, and corporate training worldwide, but the ethical consequences of engaging with these technologies remain unexplored. Featuring expert perspectives from inside and outside the AIED scholarly community, this book provides AI researchers, learning scientists, educational technologists, and others with questions, frameworks, guidelines, policies, and (...) regulations to ensure the positive impact of artificial intelligence in learning. (shrink)

This is the story of North Carolina parent choice advocates' push for the creation and expansion of choice policies in the state. The exploration of the politics, ideology, and interests surrounding parent choice in this conversation includes but also stretches beyond the most frequently discussed choice policies of charter schools, school vouchers, and tuition tax credits. Here, Lewis makes the argument that parents push for these policies are closely akin to parents' rejection of busing and redistricting policies in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and (...) Raleigh-Durham, parents' advocating for the state-support of home-schooling options across the state, and parents' pushing for the expansion of magnet and intradistrict choice options. He shows how central to parents' advocacy for all of these policies lies a more foundational desire to reconceputalize public schooling, with parents having much more individual control over how public funding is used for the education of their children. (shrink)

Hegel's very first acknowledged publication was, among other things, an attack on Fichte. In 1801, Hegel was still laboring in almost complete obscurity, while Fichte was an international sensation, though already somewhat past the peak of his meteoric career. In the 1801 Differenzschrift, Hegel cut his teeth by criticizing Fichte's already widelycriticised Wissenschaftslehre, and by demonstrating that Schelling's philosophical system was not simply to be equated with it. Fichte himself never bothered to respond to Hegel's criticisms; indeed he never publicly (...) acknowledged their existence. This was not because he was unconcerned with criticisms of his views; quite the contrary. But at the time he had bigger fish to fry. He responded to Jacobi's criticisms, and to Schelling's; he replied in great detail to critical questions raised by Reinhold, and with vituperative intensity to objections raised by skeptics and purportedly loyal Kantians. But Hegel's Differenzschrift was left without a Fichtean rebuttal. This is a pity, both because of the missed opportunity to illuminate by controversy central issues at stake in the post-Kantian period, but also because it made it easier for Hegel simply to reiterate his youthful criticism as if it were the last word. And reiterate it he did: in one form or another Hegel's early criticisms of Fichte reappear at every subsequent stage of his career: in the Phenomenology, in the Science of Logic, in the Encyclopaedia, as the final chapter in Hegel's History of Philosophy, and in countless other minor works and documents from the Nachlass and correspondence. (shrink)

This books delineates the seismic shifts of the twentieth century humanities by way of a close examination of the dynamic landscape of modern language, criticism and philosophy. In this manner, it argues that both philosophy and literary criticism have dovetailed in the twenty-first century. Starting out as a survey of literary criticism in its broadest terms, later chapters - which are more expository - assess recent movements within modern literary theory. These are located with respect to the post-Russell and Fregean (...) “linguistic turn” in philosophy. Designed for specialists and non-specialists alike; philosophers, literary critics and even students of the modern critical tradition, the argument takes a novel stance towards modern criticism, language and philosophy, arguing for a return to a more formalist and rhetorical approach to literary criticism, while taking care not to indulge too many “political pathologies” when engaging with texts. (shrink)