Several recent contextualist theorists have proposed contextualizing the skeptic. Their claim is that oneshould view satisfactory answers to global doubts regarding such subjects as theexternal world, other minds, and induction as requirements for justification incertain philosophical contexts, but not in everyday and scientific contexts. Incontrast, the skeptic claims that a satisfactory answer to a global doubt in eachof these areas is a context-invariant requirement for justified belief. In this paper,I consider and reject the arguments Michael Williams develops in his bookUnnatural (...) Doubts that are intended to show that the skeptic's interpretationof the significance of global doubts is mistaken. In addition, I argue that Williams'general strategy in opposing the skeptic is extremely interesting and worth furtherinvestigation, even if his particular execution of it is unsuccessful. To this end, Iclarify the general strategy, distinguish it from a variety of others, and discuss itsprospects as an answer to the skeptic. (shrink)

Several recent contextualist theorists (e.g. David Lewis, Michael Williams, andKeith DeRose) have proposed contextualizing the skeptic. Their claim is that oneshould view satisfactory answers to global doubts regarding such subjects as theexternal world, other minds, and induction as requirements for justification incertain philosophical contexts, but not in everyday and scientific contexts. Incontrast, the skeptic claims that a satisfactory answer to a global doubt in eachof these areas is a context-invariant requirement for justified belief. In this paper,I consider and reject the (...) arguments Michael Williams develops in his bookUnnatural Doubts that are intended to show that the skeptic's interpretationof the significance of global doubts is mistaken. In addition, I argue that Williams'general strategy in opposing the skeptic is extremely interesting and worth furtherinvestigation, even if his particular execution of it is unsuccessful. To this end, Iclarify the general strategy, distinguish it from a variety of others, and discuss itsprospects as an answer to the skeptic. (shrink)

In his book, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, John Pollock argues that all externalist theories of justification should be rejected on the grounds that they do not do justice to the action-guiding character of epistemic norms. I reply that Pollocks argument is ineffective — because not all externalisms are intended to involve action-guiding norms, and because Pollock does not give a good reason for thinking that action-guiding norms must be internalist norms. Second, I consider rehabilitating Pollocks argument by restricting his conclusion (...) to theories that do involve action-guiding norms and providing a better reason to think that action-guiding norms must be internalist norms. But I claim that if Pollocks argument is made strong enough to rule out all externalisms, it rules out too much, namely, any plausible conception of epistemic norms. (shrink)

In his influential paper ‘Two Types of Foundationalism,’ William Alston distinguishes two important conceptions of foundationalism: ‘simple foundationalism’ and ‘iterative foundationalism’. SF is the view that there are immediately justified beliefs of some kind or other. IF is the stronger view that certain epistemic propositions are immediately justified. Alston favors a reliability account of immediate justification of the kind defended by externalists such as Armstrong, Dretske, and Goldman. Alston rejects IF by appeal to what he calls the ‘second level argument.’ (...) He claims, further, that since IF is essential to the Cartesian project of reconstructing knowledge, the Cartesian project must be abandoned. (shrink)

In his influential paper ‘Two Types of Foundationalism,’ William Alston distinguishes two important conceptions of foundationalism: ‘simple foundationalism’ and ‘iterative foundationalism’. SF is the view that there are immediately justified beliefs of some kind or other. IF is the stronger view that certain epistemic propositions are immediately justified. Alston favors a reliability account of immediate justification of the kind defended by externalists such as Armstrong, Dretske, and Goldman. Alston rejects IF by appeal to what he calls the ‘second level argument.’ (...) He claims, further, that since IF is essential to the Cartesian project of reconstructing knowledge, the Cartesian project must be abandoned. (shrink)

Michael Williams e Keith DeRose defendem suas diferentes versões de contextualismo com base em que o contextualismo fornece uma explicação melhor do uso ordinário de termos epistêmicos que competidores invariantistas. Um objetivo deste trabalho é explicar por que seus argumentos não têm sucesso. Um objetivo adicional é mostrar que a disputa entre contextualistas e invariantistas tal como apresentada por Williams e DeRose é uma interpretação limitada da disputa: há importantes posições contextualistas e invariantistas que estão fora do alcance de seus (...) argumentos e que deveriam ser consideradas em uma defesa abrangente do contextualismo. DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2010v14n3p375. (shrink)

Michael Williams and Keith DeRose defend their different versions of contextualism on the grounds that contextualism gives a better account of the ordinary use of epistemic terms than invariantist competitors. One aim of this paper is to explain why their arguments do not succeed. A further aim is to show that the dispute between contextualists and invariantists portrayed by Williams and DeRose is a narrow interpretation of the dispute: there are important contextualist and invariantist positions which fall outside the scope (...) of their arguments and which a full defense of contextualism should consider. (shrink)

In his book, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, John Pollock argues that all externalist theories of justification should be rejected on the grounds that they do not do justice to the action-guiding character of epistemic norms. I reply that Pollock’s argument is ineffective -- because not all externalisms are intended to involve action-guiding norms, and because Pollock does not give a good reason for thinking that action-guiding norms must be internalist norms. Second, I consider rehabilitating Pollock’s argument by restricting his conclusion (...) to theories that do involve action-guiding norms and providing a better reason to think that action-guiding norms must be internalist norms. But I claim that if Pollock’s argument is made strong enough to rule out all externalisms, it rules out too much, namely, any plausible conception of epistemic norms. (shrink)

BackgroundKinarm Standard Tests is a suite of upper limb tasks to assess sensory, motor, and cognitive functions, which produces granular performance data that reflect spatial and temporal aspects of behavior. We have previously used principal component analysis to reduce the dimensionality of multivariate data using the Kinarm End-Point Lab. Here, we performed PCA using data from the Kinarm Exoskeleton Lab, and determined agreement of PCA results across EP and EXO platforms in healthy participants. We additionally examined whether further dimensionality reduction (...) was possible by using PCA across behavioral tasks.MethodsHealthy participants were assessed using the Kinarm EXO and EP. Four behavioral tasks were performed that quantified arm sensory and motor function, including position sense [Arm Position Matching ] and three motor tasks [Visually Guided Reaching, Object Hit, and Object Hit and Avoid ]. The number of components to include per task was determined from scree plots and parallel analysis, and rotation type was decided on a per-task basis. To assess agreement, we compared principal components across platforms using distance correlation. We additionally considered inter-task interactions in EXO data by performing PCA across all six behavioral assessments.ResultsBy applying PCA on a per task basis to data collected using the EXO, the number of behavioral parameters were substantially reduced by 58–75% while accounting for 76–87% of the variance. These results compared well to the EP analysis, and we found good-to-excellent agreement values between PCs from the EXO and those from the EP. Finally, we were able to reduce the dimensionality of the EXO data across tasks down to 16 components out of a total of 76 behavioral parameters, which represents a reduction of 79% while accounting for 73% of the total variance.ConclusionPCA of Kinarm robotic assessment appears to capture similar relationships between kinematic features in healthy individuals and is agnostic to the robotic platform used for collection. Further work is needed to investigate the use of PCA-based data reduction for the characterization of neurological deficits in clinical populations. (shrink)

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes is a popular-science book on cosmology (the study of the origin and evolution of the universe) by British physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who have no prior knowledge of the universe and people who are interested in learning.

Abstract It is widely assumed that the meaning of at least some types of expressions involves more than their reference to objects, and hence that there may be co-referential expressions which differ in meaning. It is also widely assumed that ?syntax does not suffice for semantics?, i.e. that we cannot account for the fact that expressions have semantic properties in purely syntactical or computational terms. The main goal of the paper is to argue against a third related assumption, namely that (...) what is responsible for a difference in meaning between co-referential expressions is the computational difference in the cognitive functioning of the expressions. ?Intentional aspects? of expressions?those features which their meanings involve in addition to reference?cannot be syntacticized, since they are individuated not in terms of any cognitive feature, but rather in terms of those properties of the referents through which the expressions refer to them, and cognitive features cannot determine such properties in exactly the same sense as they cannot determine reference. (shrink)

A comprehensive reassessment of the concept of mimesis in the history of ancient Greek aesthetics and philosophy of art, with particular attention to Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, and neoplatonism. There is also a wide-ranging review of arguments pro and contra the idea of artistic mimesis from the Renaissance to modern literar theory. The book challenges standard accounts in numerous respects and builds a new dialectical model with which to make sense of the entire history of mimeticist thinking in aesthetics.

Drawing on a wide range of resources, including the history of philosophy, her role as director of a cognitive neuroscience group, and her Wittgensteinian training at Oxford, Jacobson provides fresh views on representation, concepts, perception, action, emotion and belief.

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness-features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. But it has played no real role in philosophical semantics. This is surprising; sentences have aboutness-properties if anything does. Aboutness is the first book to examine through (...) a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth-conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection--about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. Stephen Yablo maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results--directed content--is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. Written by one of today's leading philosophers, Aboutness represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Against Yoga Theory: A Standard Objection Some Inadequate Responses to the Standard Objection The Standard Objection and Testimony Higher Up the Scale Conclusion.

In Return to Reason, Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of ...

Stephen Hetherington's prominent career within epistemology has been a series of distinctive, bold, varied and provocative arguments and ideas. Bringing together Hetherington's unique body of writing for the first time, this collection features previously published as well as new material that link his approaches to key issues including knowledge, justification, fallibility, scepticism and the Gettier Problem. Advancing our understanding of the systemic nature of Hetherington's thinking, Stephen Hetherington on Epistemology presents his distinctive perspective on some of philosophy's central (...) questions about knowledge - an inviting blend of forensic detail and 'big picture' proposals. (shrink)

Defenders of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology (or what I call practicalism) need to address two main problems. First, the view seems to imply, absurdly, that knowledge can come and go quite easily—in particular, that it might come and go along with our variable practical interests. We can call this the stability problem. Second, there seems to be no fully satisfying way of explaining whose practical interests matter. We can call this the “whose stakes?” problem. I argue that both problems can (...) be addressed in roughly the same terms. More exactly, I argue that by first clarifying the whose stakes? problem an answer to the stability problem naturally falls out. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anscombe famously argued that "modern moral philosophy" centrally involved unsupported notions of obligation and culpability. Modern Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to Kant exhibits, for the first time, resources that modern moral philosophers had to respond to Anscombe's challenge, also enhancing our own philosophical grasp of morality and its foundations.

In this paper I elucidate various ways in which understanding can be seen as an excellence of the mind or intellectual virtue. Along the way, I take up the neglected issue of what it might mean to be an “understanding person”—by which I mean not a person who understands a number of things about the natural world, but a person who steers clear of things like judgmentalism in her evaluation of other people, and thus is better able to take up (...) different perspectives and view them with a sympathetic eye. Being an understanding person in this sense seems to be a character-level virtue that interestingly combines moral and epistemic elements; it also seems to be a virtue particularly needed in our age of deep political division, where it is commonly said that failures of mutual understanding are partly to blame for this problem. (shrink)

Keith Augustine’s critical evaluation of the essay contest sponsored by the Bigelow Institute of Consciousness Studies (BICS) is an interesting but problematic review. It mixes reasonable and detailed criticisms of the contest and many of the winning essays with a disappointing reliance on some of the most trite and superficial criticisms of parapsychological research. Ironically, Augustine criticizes the winning essays for using straw-man arguments and cherry-picked evidence even though many of his own arguments commit these same errors.

Can hybridism about moral claims be made to work? I argue it can if we accept the conventional implicature approach developed in Barker (Analysis 2000). However, this kind of hybrid expressivism is only acceptable if we can make sense of conventional implicature, the kind of meaning carried by operators like ‘even’, ‘but’, etc. Conventional implictures are a form of pragmatic presupposition, which involves an unsaid mode of delivery of content. I argue that we can make sense of conventional implicatures, but (...) doing so requires we embrace a form of pure, non-hybrid expressivism. This is a cognitivist expressivism I have developed elsewhere. We need cognitivist expressivism to make sense of how we evaluate—judge as correct or incorrect—implicature-bearing sentences. Once we embraced the possibility of this pure expressivism, we might as well be pure expressivists about normative discourse too. I show how we can do that. The motivations for a specifically hybrid theory are dialectically undercut. (shrink)

Many experimental philosophers are philosophers by training and professional affiliation, but some best work in experimental philosophy has been done by people who do not have advanced degrees in philosophy and do not teach in philosophy departments. This chapter explains that the experimental philosophy is the empirical investigation of philosophical intuitions, the factors that affect them, and the psychological and neurological mechanisms that underlie them. It explores what are philosophical intuitions, and why do experimental philosophers want to study them using (...) the methods of empirical science. The positive program in experimental philosophy shares the goal of the substantial part of traditional philosophy that is concerned with the analysis of important philosophical concepts. The negative program has implications for philosophical projects whose goal is conceptual analysis. There have been a number of responses to the challenge posed by experimental philosophy's negative program. The chapter also focuses on the expertise defense. (shrink)

According to Slote's ``agent-based'' virtue ethics, the rightness orwrongness of an act is determined by the motive it expresses. Thistheory has a problem with cases where an agent can do her duty onlyby expressing some vicious motive and thereby acting wrongly. In sucha situation, an agent can only act wrongly; hence, the theory seemsincompatible with the maxim that `ought' implies `can'. I argue thatSlote's attempt to circumvent this problem by appealing to compatibilism is inadequate. In a wide range of psychologically (...) realistic cases, an agent's effective choice will be between failingto do her duty and doing it from inferior motives. Then anythingshe can do will be wrong, according to the agent-based theory,contrary to the maxim Slote wishes to preserve. (shrink)

In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, an incredibly sophisticated chatbot. Its capability is astonishing: as well as conversing with human interlocutors, it can answer questions about history, explain almost anything you might think to ask it, and write poetry. This level of achievement has provoked interest in questions about whether a chatbot might have something similar to human intelligence or even consciousness. Given that the function of a chatbot is to process linguistic input and produce linguistic output, we consider the (...) question whether a sophisticated chatbot might have inner speech. That is: Might it talk to itself, internally? We explored this via a conversation with ‘Playground’, a chatbot which is very similar to ChatGPT but more flexible in certain respects. We asked it questions which, plausibly, can only be answered if one first produces some inner speech. Here, we present our findings and discuss their philosophical significance. (shrink)

Why is there anything, rather than nothing at all? This question often serves as a debating tactic used by theists to attack naturalism. Many people apparently regard the question—couched in such stark, general terms—as too profound for natural science to answer. It is unanswerable by science, I argue, not because it’s profound or because science is superficial but because the question, as it stands, is ill-posed and hence has no answer in the first place. In any form in which it (...) is well-posed, it has an answer that naturalism can in principle provide. The question therefore gives the foes of naturalism none of the ammunition that many on both sides of the debate think it does. (shrink)

"This book takes a new angle on a much-studied phenomenon, focusing on the role of domination and identity construction, understanding and self-knowledge, moral transformation and the social community, systems of training and hierarchy used ...