The concept of truth lies at the heart of philosophy; whether one approaches it from epistemology or metaphysics, from the philosophy of language or the philosophy of science or religion, one must come to terms with the nature of truth.In this brisk introduction, Frederick Schmitt covers all the most important historical and contemporary theories of truth. Along the way he also sheds considerable light on such closely related issues as realism and idealism, absolutism and relativism, and the nature of contemporary (...) pragmatism.At a time when it is fashionable for scholars outside of philosophy to deny the possibility of truth, Schmitt’s lucid, technically accurate survey offers the easiest way to understand what is really at stake in such denials. Truth: A Primer is a quick but accurate and philosophically sophisticated overview that will prove invaluable to philosophers and their students in a wide range of courses, in particular epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. (shrink)
Socializing Epistemology: An Introduction through Two Sample Issues Frederick F. Schmitt Social epistemology is the conceptual and normative study of the ...
In Knowledge and Belief, Frederick Schmitt explores the nature and value of knowledge and justified belief through an examination of the dispute between epistemological internalism and externalism. Knowledge and justified belief are naturally viewed as belief of a sort likely to be true--an externalist view. It is also intuitive, however, to view them as an internal matter; justification must be accessible to the subject or constituted by the subject's epistemic perspective. The author argues against the view that internalism is the (...) historically dominant epistemology by examining closely the epistemological principles that underlie the treatment of skepticism in Plato, the Academic and Pyrrhonian skeptics, Descartes and Hume. Schmitt develops a sustained, detailed argument against many forms of internalism in favor of a reliabilist/externalist epistemology. His version of reliabilism, though strictly externalist, accommodates and explains the most durable intuitions alleged to support internalism. Knowledge and Belief assumes no knowledge of epistemology or its history. Readers of philosophy will find this an excellent introduction to ancient and modern epistemology; this systematic study of the internalist and externalist debate is the first of its kind. (shrink)
Theories of epistemically justified belief have long assumed individualism. In its extreme, or Lockean, form individualism rules out justified belief on testimony by insisting that a subject is justified in believing a proposition only if he or she possesses first-hand justification for it. The skeptical consequences of extreme individualism have led many to adopt a milder version, attributable to Hume, on which a subject is justified in believing a proposition only if he or she is justified in believing that there (...) is testimony in favor of the proposition deriving from a reliable source. I argue that this Humean individualism also leads to skepticism in a wide range of cases; it makes it impossible for a layperson to be justified on expert testimony. In addition, I argue that the apparent motivation for the Humean view, an insistence on intellectual autonomy in justification, does not succeed in motivating it. I then explore the contours of a collectivist view of justification on testimony, with special attention to the place of a subject's intellectual autonomy in such justification. I try to bring empirical results of the psychology of persuasion to bear on the epistemological issues. (shrink)
Despite important similarities, events differ from states of affairs. Recent theories of events (Davidson's, Kim's) have ignored the distinction, preferring to focus on relations of composition between events and states, indifferently conceived, and properties, objects, and times. It might be proposed, however, that events and states can be distinguished by their composition. I argue against a compositional approach, in favor of a modal approach, on which events are distinguished from states in virtue of being essentially dynamic. This view locates the (...) difference between events and states in their different existential statuses. While the view neither endorses nor forecloses dependency relations between events, states, and objects, it offers ways to do some of the explanatory work that recent theories assign to composition relations. (shrink)
Recent epistemology divides theories of knowledge according to their diagnoses of cases of failed knowledge, Gettier cases. Two rival camps have emerged: naturalism and justificationism. Naturalism attributes the failure of knowledge in these cases to the cognizer's failure to stand in a strong natural position vis-à-vis the proposition believed. Justificationism traces the failure to the cognizer's failure to be strongly justified in his belief. My aim is to reconcile these camps by offering a version of naturalism, a reliability theory of (...) knowledge, that conforms to the central justificationist tenets. I argue that proposed reliability theories of knowledge, reliable indication theories, offer no prospect of a reconciliation because they misdiagnose failed knowledge in such a way as to violate a basic justificationist tenet. Proposed versions of justificationism, it turns out, fare no better with this tenet. I offer an alternative reliability theory of knowledge, a reliable process theory, that conforms to the justificationist tenet. (shrink)
