Online research in philosophy

There is a tendency, a bad tendency, to make epistemic agency the central focus of epistemology. In brief, epistemologists have traditionally elevated epistemic agency as the crucial issue to be addressed, and ask all other epistemological questions in light of that issue. This is not surprising given the Cartesian influence on epistemology, but I argue that epistemic agency should not always be the central focus of epistemology. There are times when giving central place to epistemic agency gets in the way (...) of good epistemology. In this paper, I show how one approach to a communitarian epistemology falters precisely because of the primacy given to epistemic agency. Specifically, I take a close look at Lynn Hankinson Nelson?s notion of epistemological communities in terms of epistemic agency and analyze both its merits and its shortcomings. This is an important analysis for general consideration given the trend in non-traditional epistemologies to look towards social complexes as the real seats of knowledge. But this is also important because my analysis pushes one to consider an alternative framing concept for epistemology?that of epistemic practises instead of epistemic agency. (shrink)

In Heidi Grasswick?s response to ??Epistemological communities? and the problem of epistemic agency,? she criticizes my move to reconceptualize epistemology as an affair primarily centered on epistemic practises instead of epistemic agency. In this paper, I address some of Grasswick?s counterpoints, and I restate my argument for why epistemology should be centered on practises instead of epistemic agency. However, to advance the discussion, I urge that a more fruitful dialogue would engage looking at what consequences and advantages might follow from (...) reframing epistemology around practises. Therefore, I entertain an additional advantage this turn to practises makes regarding the danger of apriorism, the prior construction and application of theoretical structures upon groups of people and their practises without consideration for the actuality of these people and their practises. I argue that reorientating one?s epistemology around practises gives adequate grounds to avoid aprioristic tendencies, whereas an epistemology primarily centered on epistemic agency can fall into trouble. (shrink)

Second Life is a free, three-dimensional, multi-user, online virtual world program created in 2003 by Linden Research Inc. In this paper, I recount the Introduction to Philosophy course I taught in Second Life for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and address five areas of interest: (1) traditional vs. non-traditional learning environments, (2) communication, (3) illustrative props, (4) student feedback, and (5) and potential concerns. My conclusion is that philosophy courses can be taught online in Second Life effectively and that philosophy instructors (...) need to be more aware of the educational possibilities of Second Life as education becomes increasingly more digital. (shrink)

Realism about the external world enjoys little philosophical support these days. I rectify this predicament by taking a relatively pragmatist line of thought to defend commonsense realism; I support commonsense realism through an interpretation and application of Donald Davidson’s notion of triangulation, the triangle composed of two communicators coordinating and correcting their responses with a shared causal stimulus. This argument is important because it has a crucial advantage over the often used abductive argument for realism. My argument avoids unwarranted conclusions, (...) whereas the abductive argument is “inflationary” because it reaches beyond the limits of evidence for its realist conclusion. To illustrate the problems of the abductive argument and motivate my Davidsonian approach, I take a brief look at the abductive argument for realism in Frederick Will’s work. (shrink)