Online research in philosophy

Thomas Nagel contends that facts regarding the qualitative character of conscious experience can be grasped from only a single point of view. This feature, he claims, is what renders conscious experience subjective in character, and it is what makes facts about the qualitative experience subjective facts. While much has been written regarding the ontological implications of the ‘point of view account’ relatively Iittle has been said on whether the account itself successfully defines the subjectivity of the mental. In this paper, I show that considerations of what can be grasped from only a single point of view provide neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for subjective experience.

The paper raises two questions, which seem central to understanding Kant's transcendental epistemology in the first Critique. First, Kant claims that the conditions for the possibility of experience are also conditions for the possibility of the objects of experience (A158/B197). Here the notion of an object is not conceived from the divine standpoint ('the view from nowhere') and is in some sense relativized to experience. But in what sense? Is the notion of an object relativized to one specific kind of experience, human experience? Or is it relativized only to any possible experience? Second, in what sense is Kant's transcendental epistemology a priori? Is it a priori in the strong sense that its starting-point - the notion of experience in the question 'How is experience possible?' - is a priori? Or is it a priori only in the weak sense that, while the notion of experience is obtained empirically, a priori reasoning is required to establish how experience is possible? It has recently been argued (by Patricia Kitcher, Kant's Transcendental Psychology) that (a) the results that Kant wants to establish transcenden-tally about objects are relative to one specific kind of experience, human experience, and (b) Kant's transcendental epistemology is a priori only in the weak sense that the reasoning is a priori, while the starting-point is empirical. These claims are indeed crucial to Kitcher's overall aim of naturalizing Kant's transcendental epistemology. The aim of the paper is to resist both claims. I argue that Kant's notion of an object of experience is the notion of an object of any possible experience, not the notion of an object of one specific kind of experience, human experience. It follows, I argue, that Kant's transcendental epistemology is a priori in the strong sense that its starting-point is a priori. If we deny strong apriority, we fail to account for Kant's move from the nature of experience to the nature of empirical reality: empirical reality as such, not empirical reality as experienced by a particular variety of creatures capable of experience. The upshot is that, for better or worse, Kant's transcendental epistemology cannot be naturalized.

Consider two people who disagree about some important claim (e.g. the future moral and political consequences of current U.S. economic policy are X). They each believe the other person is in possession of relevant evidence, is roughly equally competent to evaluate that evidence, etc. From the epistemic point of view, how should such recognized disagreement affect their doxastic attitude toward the original claim? Recent research on the epistemology of disagreement has converged upon three general ways of answering this question. The focus of this article is twofold: first, we summarize and give a brief evaluation of the main accounts of the epistemic significance of disagreement; then, we look at what these accounts suggest about how to epistemically assess both inter-religious and intra-religious disagreements. A final section offers recommendations for further research.

I place my analysis and naturalization of the problem of evil in relation to (1) Holmes Rolston’s views on disvalues in nature and (2) the challenge posed to theology by environmental philosophy in the work of Frederick Ferré. In the analysis of the problem of evil that follows my discussion of Rolston and Ferré, I first discuss the transformative power for the religious believer of reflection on the problem of evil, using the biblical Job as a case study. I point out difficulties with Job’s particular resolution of the problem of evil and suggest that these difficulties can be satisfactorily addressed by naturalizing spirituality.

I place my analysis and naturalization of the problem of evil in relation to (1) Holmes Rolston’s views on disvalues in nature and (2) the challenge posed to theology by environmental philosophy in the work of Frederick Ferré. In the analysis of the problem of evil that follows my discussion of Rolston and Ferré, I first discuss the transformative power for the religious believer of reflection on the problem of evil, using the biblical Job as a case study. I point out difficulties with Job’s particular resolution of the problem of evil and suggest that these difficulties can be satisfactorily addressed by naturalizing spirituality.

Yong Huang has recently claimed that after the demise of foundationalism, philosophy and theology can turn to Ludwig Wittgenstein's non-foundationalist or coherentist religious epistemology where, it is said, religious beliefs are justified by a 'reflective equilibrium' with other kinds of beliefs, with action, and with different 'forms of life'. I argue that there are very good reasons to reject this reading of Wittgenstein: not only unsupported, it is seriously mistaken. Once the epistemological terms of the debate are properly understood, the evidence indicates that Wittgenstein's view of religious beliefs is a form of foundationalism, not coherentism.

The aim of this paper is twofold: First, to generalize Quine’s epistemology, to show that what Quine refutes for traditional epistemology is not only Cartesian foundationalism and Carnapian reductionism, but also any epistemological program if it takes atomic verificationist semantics or supernaturalism, which are rooted in the linguistic/factual distinction of individual sentences, as its underlying system. Thus, we will see that the range of naturalization in the Quinean sense is not as narrow as his critics think. Second, to normalize Quine’s epistemology, to explain in what sense Quinean naturalized epistemology is normative. The reason I maintain that critics miss the point of Quinean naturalized epistemology is that they do not appreciate the close connection between Quine’s naturalistic approach and his holistic approach to epistemology. To show this I shall reconstruct Quine’s argument for naturalizing epistemology within his systematic philosophy, and focus specifically on his holism and its applications, on which Quine relies both in arguing against traditional epistemology, and in supporting his theses of underdetermination of physical theory and indeterminacy of translation. This is the key to understanding the scope and the normativity of Quine’s epistemology. In the conclusion I will point out what the genuine problems are for Quinean naturalized epistemology.

Quine’s (1969a) arguments for naturalizing epistemology have sparked dissent from the ranks of traditional epistemologists. For example, Kim (1988) complains that by making epistemology a “chapter of psychology,” the naturalist robs epistemology of its normative force and thereby its status of genuine epistemology. I agree with the spirit of Kim’s objection, but it is not likely that naturalized epistemology must abandon normativity in an explicit and obvious way, or that normative alternatives of the kind Kim envisions are available (Bayer 2007). Quine himself insists his epistemology is normative (1986a; 1992), and generic proposals for naturalizing normativity abound. But even if Quine nominally retains a major element of traditional epistemology, it may still be asked whether this element is enough, given the overall nature of Quine’s project.