How should we understand both the nature, and the epistemic potential, of Descartes’s Cogito? Peter Slezak’s interpretation of the Cogito’s nature sees it strictly as a selfreferential kind of denial: Descartes cannot doubt that he is doubting. And what epistemic implications flow from this interpretation of the Cogito? We find that there is a consequent lack of knowledge being described by Descartes: on Cartesian grounds, indubitability is incompatible with knowing. Even as the Cogito halts doubt, therefore, it fails to (...) be knowledge. (shrink)

This reissue of his collection of early essays, Logico-Linguistic Papers, is published with a brand new introduction by Professor Strawson but, apart from minor ...

Doing epistemology -- Kinds of knowledge? -- A first theory of knowledge -- Refining our theory of knowledge -- Is it even possible to have knowledge? -- Applying epistemology.

When philosophers try to understand the nature of knowledge, they have to confront the Gettier problem. This problem, set out in Edmund Gettier's famous paper of 1963, has yet to be solved, and has challenged our best attempts to define what knowledge is. This volume offers an organised sequence of accessible and distinctive chapters explaining the history of debate surrounding Gettier's challenge, and where that debate should take us next. The chapters describe and evaluate a wide range of ideas about (...) knowledge that have been sparked by philosophical engagements with the Gettier problem, including such phenomena as fallibility, reasoning, evidence, reliability, truth-tracking, context, luck, intellectual virtue, wisdom, conceptual analysis, intuition, experimental philosophy, and explication. The result is an authoritative survey of fifty-plus years of epistemological research - along with provocative ideas for future research – into the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

A complete system of classical Aristotelian logic intended for honors high school and college.

Ohne Rücksicht auf disziplinäre Schranken bringt dieses Buch verschiedene nicht-reduktionistische Lerntheorien miteinander ins Gespräch. In einem offenen Diskurs, der die Konzepte zueinander in Beziehung setzt, werden die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven kritisch abgewogen und hinsichtlich ihrer Stärken und Schwächen diskutiert.

Delo se loteva vprašanja aktualnosti pojma subjekta v filozofiji in politiki skozi analizo tistih avtorjev, ki so ga domnevno najbolj radikalno pokopali: pokaže, da vznik radikalno novega in problematika subjekta zavzema osrednje mesto v Deleuzovi filozofiji, kakor tudi v Lyotardovi pozni misli posvečeni praznini, v Foucaultovi obravnavi biopolitike in biooblasti, v delu Negrija in Hardta o Imperiju, ter nazadnje v Badioujevi predelavi temeljnih filozofskih kategorij biti, resnice in subjekta, na osnovi katerih je dandanes znova možna renesansa filozofije. Ta ima po (...) Badiouju štiri razsežnosti, ki se v delu Vznik subjekta nenehno prepletajo: »V osnovi želja filozofije implicira razsežnost upora: ni filozofije brez nezadovoljstva mišljenja v njegovem soočenju s svetom, kakršen je. Pa vendar želja filozofije vključuje tudi logiko: to je, prepričanje v moč argumenta in uma.«. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: ‘Knowing is a Belief State (or Something Similar)’ ‘Knowledge is Well Supported’ ‘Knowledge is Absolute’ ‘Knowing Includes not being Gettiered’ ‘Knowledge‐that is Fundamentally Theoretical, not Knowledge‐how’ The Standard Analytic Conception of Knowledge Prima Facie Core Problems.

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is; this is the first and only full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. 'Parts could easily be the standard book on mereology for the next (...) twenty or thirty years.' Timothy Williamson, Grazer Philosophische Studien. (shrink)

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but (...) has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light or recent research on the evolution of morality.--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Narrative thinking -- Narrative thinking about one's past -- Grief : a case study -- Narrative thinking about one's future -- Self-forgiveness : a case study -- The narrative sense of self -- Narrative, truth, life, and fiction.

In their substantive introduction, the editors first revisit two classical sites of controversy which have offered frameworks for theorizing the interplay between materiality and sociality: reification and fetishism. Obviously, these critical vocabularies emerge as crucial sites of perplexity as soon as the ontological boundary between subjects and objects is rendered equally problematic and fluid as the epistemological boundary between the imaginary and the real. A thumbnail sketch of the history of the two discursive traditions provides an elaborate systematic framework for (...) introducing the individual articles. The first axis of debate is generated by conceptual residues of the traditional tug-of-war between idealism and materialism which continues to infiltrate recent redescriptions of the web of sociality/materiality. The concern here is how much autonomy and agency can be granted to material objects in view of their social inscription and symbolic construction, and how far conceptual experiments with the ontological symmetry between humans and nonhumans may take us and/or should be permitted to go. The second axis of debate concerns the fate of critical theory and of ethico-political sensibility in the face of heightened uncertainties about the distinction between what is real, what is constructed, and what is imaginary, and between what may count as a person and what as a thing. (shrink)

While Hermann Levin Goldschmidt didn’t read Yiddish anarchists, there seems to have been a convergent evolution in their thinking. Goldschmidt’s looking up to Jewish lore as a source of liberating creativity is commonly encountered in Yiddish anarchist texts. His view of action as a constant response to internal and external challenges in the struggle for an open future is developed by Isaac Nachman Steinberg on the basis of nineteenth-century vitalism. Goldschmidt’s theory of anarchist individualism as willed self-limiting solidarity has a (...) compelling parallel in Hillel Solotaroff’s view of history. His use of impressionism and photography to eternalize the immediacy of human actuality is akin to Rudolf Rocker’s championing of decadent literature. In both cases, the goal of anarchism is not a dictatorship of the former downtrodden, but a continuous and contradictory evolution of freedom in ever-changing contexts. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: This Book's Theory: A Summary and a Name Core Problems Evaded Further Practicalist Reconceptions A Predictive Practicalism? J. L. Austin on ‘Trouser‐words’ Wittgensteinian Certainty — Generalised.

This chapter contains sections titled: Gettier Situations A Counter‐Example to ‘Gettier's Official Result’ Ordinary Gettiered Knowledge A Meta‐Gettier Problem Objections Answered Gettier‐Luck as Veritic Luck? Gettier‐Luck is not Veritic Luck Gettier‐Luck is Combinatorial Luck Combinatorial Luck: Applications Knowing in a Combinatorially Lucky Way Gettier‐Holism Versus Gettier‐Partialism Combinatorial Safety Combinatorial Gradational Safety Epistemological Privilege and Epistemological Empathy Gettier Situations and Sceptical Situations Timothy Williamson.

This chapter contains sections titled: Justificationism, Broadly Understood The ‘Causally Stable World’ (CSW) Thesis Knowledge Within Causally Fluky Worlds Knowledge as Putatively Pervasive Non‐tethering Justification Linguistic Intuitions Kinds of Intension Conditional Justificationism Knowledge Within Different Possible Worlds Wholly General Justificationism A Thin or Minimal Concept of Justificationism Knowledge Within Causally Semi‐fluky Worlds Evidence and Counter‐Evidence Timothy Williamson.

This chapter contains sections titled: Knowing How it is that p How‐Knowledge that p and Gradualism Degrees of Knowledge and Degrees of Belief How‐Knowledge that p and Truthmakers Knowledge that p and Gradualism Knowledge‐Gradualism's Central Concept Can there be Minimal Knowledge? Minimal Knowledge as Foundational Knowledge Knowledge‐Gradualism: Closure and Scepticism Knowledge‐Gradualism: Content Externalism and Self‐Knowledge How not to Argue for Knowledge‐Absolutism Linguistic Evidence: Igor Douven Linguistic Evidence: Jason Stanley How‐Knowledge‐how that p Knowing as Understanding?

This chapter contains sections titled: The Rylean Distinction The Rylean Argument Wittgenstein on Rule‐following The Knowledge‐as‐Ability Hypothesis Justification Grades of Knowledge Denying Knowledge‐Absolutism: Clear Precedents Denying Knowledge‐Absolutism: Possibly only Apparent Precedents Sceptical Challenges Sceptical Limitations Epistemic Agents Abilities Rylean Mistakes Conclusion.

_Living Skepticism_ challenges the philosophical orthodoxy that dismisses skepticism as an intellectual embarrassment or overreaction. In this original collection of adventurous and engaging papers, skepticism is demonstrated to be true or insightful enough to form the core of an enlightened philosophy.

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgements.

Metz holds that we can use African communal ethics to constitute global economic practices such as appropriation, production, distribution and consumption in such a way that promotes harmonious relations. In this article, I will show that Metz’s reformist approach to constituting the global economic practices is problematic as it fails to deal with the fundamental problem that pertains to a racialised world order that is structurally configured by coloniality of being. I will show that reformist approaches such as Metz’s use (...) of African communal ethics to constitute global economic practices in a way that promotes harmonious relations are undesirable attempts that are opposed and curtailed by a structural racialised logic/ontology of the world that governs and supervises the evolution of the world economic structures and practices in a way which undermines harmonious relations and in a way which causes economic marginalisation and impoverishment of historically disadvantaged indigenous Africans. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Karl Marx’s acerbic observation in the opening lines of The Eighteenth Brumaire that “all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur the first time as tragedy, the second as farce” may be profitably applied to a reconsideration of literary farce sui generis, a genre represented in this article by a long-neglected work of utopian fiction, Archibald Marshall’s Upsidonia (1915). Although Upsidonia’s current disregard is arguably undeserved, the article’s chief interest is not to reclaim the novel on aesthetic (...) grounds but to illuminate the mechanics of what Marx would call its “serious buffoonery.” In its persistent reversal of capitalist principles and relations, Upsidonia naturally invites readers to revisit Marx, whose mordant gambit may serve as a key to Marshall’s own farcical plot and praxis, rooted in return and repetition, the essential maneuvers of farce itself. (shrink)

This introduction by leading scholar Peter Trawny is the first to tackle the Black Notebooks, whose recent publication revealed the extent of Heidegger's anti-Semitism. Trawny directly confronts the most problematic aspects of Heidegger's thought, also fully surveying his work, from early writings to his magnum opus, Being and Time.

Morality and economic rationality: integrative economic ethics as the rational ethics of economic activity; Part II. Reflections on the Foundations of Economic ...

"Divided chronologically into four volumes, The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History presents the history of one of Western philosophy's greatest challenges: understanding the nature of knowledge. Each volume follows conceptions of knowledge that have been proposed, defended, replaced, and proposed anew. Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy covers discussions about scientific knowledge, social knowledge, and self-knowledge, along with attempts to understand knowledge naturalistically, contextually, and normatively. How did contemporary epistemology begin? What shape is it now in? What future seems to await it? (...) The past hundred or so years have included excitement, puzzlement, and apparent progress within epistemology. This volume conveys much of that philosophical ferment and energy."--Bloomsbury Publishing. (shrink)

Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism (...) about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. (shrink)

Philosophy of music has flourished in the last thirty years, with great advances made in the understanding of the nature of music and its aesthetics. Peter Kivy has been at the center of this flourishing, and now offers his personal introduction to philosophy of music, a clear and lively explanation of how he sees the most important and interesting philosophical issues relating to music. Anyone interested in music will find this a stimulating introduction to some fascinating questions and ideas.

Von Peter Sloterdijk kann man zu Recht sagen, daß jeder seiner Aufsätze, jeder seiner Vorträge auch ein ungeschriebenes Buch ist.

This introduction to mathematical logic starts with propositional calculus and first-order logic. Topics covered include syntax, semantics, soundness, completeness, independence, normal forms, vertical paths through negation normal formulas, compactness, Smullyan's Unifying Principle, natural deduction, cut-elimination, semantic tableaux, Skolemization, Herbrand's Theorem, unification, duality, interpolation, and definability. The last three chapters of the book provide an introduction to type theory (higher-order logic). It is shown how various mathematical concepts can be formalized in this very expressive formal language. This expressive notation facilitates proofs (...) of the classical incompleteness and undecidability theorems which are very elegant and easy to understand. The discussion of semantics makes clear the important distinction between standard and nonstandard models which is so important in understanding puzzling phenomena such as the incompleteness theorems and Skolem's Paradox about countable models of set theory. Some of the numerous exercises require giving formal proofs. A computer program called ETPS which is available from the web facilitates doing and checking such exercises. Audience: This volume will be of interest to mathematicians, computer scientists, and philosophers in universities, as well as to computer scientists in industry who wish to use higher-order logic for hardware and software specification and verification. (shrink)