Epistemological Sources

In “The Sources of Knowledge,” Robert Audi distinguishes what he calls the “four standard basic sources” by which we acquire knowledge or justified belief: perception, memory, consciousness, and reason. With the exception of memory, he distinguishes each of the above as a basic source of knowledge. Audi contrasts basic sources with nonbasic sources, concentrating on testimony. After clarifying the relationship between a source and a ground, or “what it is in virtue of which one knows or justifiedly believes,” Audi evaluates (...) the basic sources’ individual and collective autonomy as well as their vulnerability to defeasibility. He also examines the relationship of coherence to knowledge and justification, noting the distinction between a negative dependence on incoherence and a positive dependence on coherence. (shrink)

I reconstruct and critique two arguments Laurence BonJour has recently offered against skepticism about the a priori. While the arguments may provide anti-skeptical, internalist foundationalists with reason to accept the a priori, I show that neither argument provides sufficient reason for believing the more general conclusion that there is no rational alternative to accepting the a priori.

Intuition and introspection are very interesting terms in Elzenberg’s thought. The intuition is connected with the earlier phase of Elzenberg’s philosophy. Intuition is a form of world cognition. It is tool of selection of the contents. In Elzenberg’s philosophy introspection is a later term than intuition. It may lead intuition but is not a necessity. Process of cognition can finish with introspection which is a phase of information collection. In this meaning introspection creates circumstances for intuition. Introspection is a form (...) of analysis internal human world but intuition permits discovery of new worlds. According to Elzenberg we can find intuition in art and in mysticism. Introspection in ethical and aesthetical texts has often existed. Intuition has most spectacular character than introspection generally. Intuition is a form of discovery of different human worlds while introspection is form of research of them. (shrink)

Intuition and introspection are very interesting terms in Elzenberg’s thought. The intuition is connected with the earlier phase of Elzenberg’s philosophy. Intuition is a form of world cognition. It is tool of selection of the contents. In Elzenberg’s philosophy introspection is a later term than intuition. It may lead intuition but is not a necessity. Process of cognition can finish with introspection which is a phase of information collection. In this meaning introspection creates circumstances for intuition. Introspection is a form (...) of analysis internal human world but intuition permits discovery of new worlds. According to Elzenberg we can find intuition in art and in mysticism. Introspection in ethical and aesthetical texts has often existed. Intuition has most spectacular character than introspection generally. Intuition is a form of discovery of different human worlds while introspection is form of research of them. (shrink)

The former "Queen of Science" seems to be lacking both a specific subject and a particular method. Thus the need arises for intra- and metaphilosophical orientation – especially since the way philosophy sees itself stems from various influential schools and traditions whose mutual exchange is not as lively as one might have hoped.

Epistemological criticism will be applied in those cases when the claims of certain constructs to represent a particular kind of knowledge are not legitimate. The communication of knowledge in society must be made in a correct way. We understand correctness as “justness and neutrality towards knowledge”. However, there may be political, ideological, religious, or other interests in promoting certain kind of knowledge, which weaken the foundations of a society based on knowledge. Certainly, The incompetence, the lack of culture, the existential (...) or value-engagements, the material interests extend from incorrect information to disinformation and cheating, and reach as far as manipulation and recruitment. Therefore the timeliness of the proposed research topic is supported, on the one hand, by the recognized value of knowledge in society, and on the other hand, by the parazite phenomena which accompany the presence of knowledge in society - imposture, deception, credulity, hidden interests - which ask for an immediat response of the community directly involved in cognitive actions: philosophers, scientists, theologists, etc. In a society based on knowledge the critical attitude towards everything that pretends to represent itself as knowledge, and implicitely towards the consequences of such claims is a deontological and ethical demand. (shrink)

In the last two decades, the greatest threat to armchair philosophy has been the natural kinds approach. On this view, philosophic theorizing should not be obsessed with the ideas of justice, goodness, and truth but should look outward to the world of objects to find these things. And if these things happen to be natural kinds, like kinds of rock or fish for instance, then clearly we should reject the armchair for the lab. The philosopher should leave the office and (...) join the scientist out in the field. Philosophy should become a species of science. We attempt to defend traditional/armchair philosophy by examining Hilary Kornblith’s naturalistic methodological approach to epistemology. Among other things, we argue that Kornblith’s approach leads to some surprising, undesirable results , one of which is that Kornblith cannot discount epistemic internalism as a viable contender in the search for the nature of knowledge. His methodology actually requires that we take epistemic internalism seriously. (shrink)

This paper continues a recent exchange in this journal concerning explanationist accounts of epistemic justification. In the first paper in this exchange, Byerly argues that explanationist views judge that certain beliefs about the future are unjustified when in fact they are justified. In the second paper, McCain defends a version of explanationism which he argues escapes Byerly’s criticism. Here we contribute to this exchange in two ways. In the first section, we argue that McCain’s defense of explanationism against Byerly’s objection (...) is unsuccessful. Then, in the second section, we develop an independent objection to explanationism from a different direction. If our arguments in each section are sound, then not only do explanationist accounts of epistemic justification judge beliefs that are justified to be unjustified, but they judge beliefs that are unjustified to be justified. Explanationism faces problems on both sides. (shrink)

In charging argumentum ad hominem, we accuse someone of attacking the source of a claim. In charging argumentum ad verecundiam, we attack the source of a claim. This is reason for attending to "attacking the source." It is important to distinguish probabilistic reasons for doubting a claim and evidentiary reasons. Evidence that the source of a claim is likely to be wrong is not evidence against the claim. The tendency to overlook this is the essential feature of the ad hominem (...) fallacy. This is relevant in assessing the view that someone who regards his thinking as made possible by Godless arrangements of matter largely determined by chance is, in taking this attitude, advancing a hypothesis which undermines his theorizing about the world or himself. (shrink)

I draw attention to certain differences between how seventeenth-century philosophers thought about knowledge and how contemporary philosophers think about it. These differences do not strike me as particularly subtle; they are gross enough that we might wonder about the extent to which seventeenthth-century philosophers and modern philosophers are interested in the same thing. We might also wonder about the extent to which it is helpful to apply the same label—say, ‘epistemology’—to both sets of interests. I think, for example, one might (...) reasonably raise the question, Is there any epistemology, in our sense of the term, in Spinoza or Leibniz? (shrink)

How is knowledge of the external world possible? How is knowledge of other minds possible? How is a priori knowledge possible? These are all examples of how-possible questions in epistemology. In this highly original book Quassim Cassam explains how such questions arise and how they should be answered.

In ``Revising the Logic of LogicalRevision'' J. Salerno attempts to undermineCrispin Wright 's recent arguments forintuitionism, and to replace Wright andDummett's arguments with a revisionary argumentof his own. I show that Salerno's criticismsof Wright involve both attributing an inferenceto Wright that no intuitionist would make andfallaciously treating a negative universal asan existential negative. Then I show how verygeneral considerations about the nature ofwarrant undermine both Wright and Salerno'sarguments, when these arguments are applied todiscourses with defeasible warrants. WhileSalerno explicitly restricts his (...) discussion tomathematics, Wright and Dummett intend theirrevisionary arguments to have much widerscope. (shrink)

Laurence BonJour divides approaches to a priori justification into three kinds. Quine’s radical empiricism denies the existence of any special category of a priori justification; moderate empiricism attempts to explain a priori justification in terms of something like knowledge of meaning or grasp of concepts; and rationalism postulates an irreducible ‘rational insight’ into the nature of reality. The positions therefore form a familiar trio of eliminativism, reductionism and anti-reductionism concerning a priori justification. BonJour’s interesting and (in the present philosophical climate) (...) unusual project is to defend rationalism, the anti-reductionist position. Rationalism says that we have an ability to ‘directly or intuitively see or grasp or apprehend … a necessary fact about the nature or structure of reality’ (pp. 15-16). ‘An apparent rational insight,’ he says, ‘purports to be nothing less than a direct insight into the necessary character of reality’ (p. 107). Two clarifications will help to mark out the distinctive character of this view: first, that rational insight is fallible; and second, that although BonJour carefully distinguishes the concepts of necessity and apriority, he none the less claims that rational insight yields a priori knowledge of necessary truths only. On his view, the contingent a priori does not exist, although empirical necessities do... (shrink)

Since Descartes, epistemology has been based on first person knowledge. We must begin, according to the usual story, with what is most certain: knowledge of our own sensations and thoughts. In one way or another we then progress, if we can, to knowledge of an objective external world. There is then the final, tenuous, step to knowledge of other minds. I shall argue for a total revision of this picture. All propositional thought, whether positive or skeptical, whether of the inner (...) or of the outer, requires possession of the concept of objective truth, and this concept is accessible only to those creatures that are in communication with others. Knowledge of other minds is thus basic to all thought. But such knowledge requires and assumes knowledge of a shared world of objects in a common time and space. Thus the acquisition of knowledge is not based on a progression from the subjective to the objective; it emerges holistically, and is interpersonalfrom the start. (shrink)

I know, for the most part, what I think, want, and intend, and what my sensations are. In addition, I know a great deal about the world around me. I also sometimes know what goes on in other people's minds. Each of these three kinds of empirical knowledge has its distinctive characteristics. What I know about the contents of my own mind I generally know without investigation or appeal to evidence. There are exceptions, but the primacy of unmediated self-knowledge is (...) attested by the fact that we distrust the exceptions until they can be reconciled with the unmediated. My knowledge of the world outside of myself, on the other hand, depends on the functioning of my sense organs, and this causal dependence on the senses makes my beliefs about the world of nature open to a sort of uncertainty that arises only rarely in the case of beliefs about my own states of mind. Many of my simple perceptions of what is going on in the world are not based on further evidence; my perceptual beliefs are simply caused directly by the events and objects around me. But my knowledge of the propositional contents of other minds is never immediate in this sense; I would have no access to what others think and value if I could not note their behaviour. (shrink)

Gray mistakenly thinks I have rejected the sort of theoretical enterprise he is undertaking, because, according to him, I think that "more data" is all that is needed to resolve all the issues. Not at all. My stalking horse was the bizarre (often pathetic) claim that no amount of empirical, "third-person point-of-view" science (data plus theory) could ever reduce the residue of mystery about consciousness to zero. This "New Mysterianism" (Flanagan, 1991) is one that he should want to combat as (...) vigorously as I have done. (shrink)

Introductions to the theory of knowledge are plentiful, but none introduce students to the most recent debates that exercise contemporary philosophers. Ian Evans and Nicholas D. Smith aim to change that. Their book guides the reader through the standard theories of knowledge while simultaneously using these as a springboard to introduce current debates. Each chapter concludes with a “Current Trends” section pointing the reader to the best literature dominating current philosophical discussion. These include: the puzzle of reasonable disagreement; the so-called (...) “problem of easy knowledge”; the intellectual virtues; and new theories in the philosophy of language relating to knowledge. Chapters include discussions of skepticism, the truth condition, belief and acceptance, justification, internalism versus externalism, epistemic evaluation, and epistemic contextualism. Evans and Smith do not merely offer a review of existing theories and debates; they also offer a novel theory that takes seriously the claim that knowledge is not unique to humans. Surveying current scientific literature in animal ethology, they discover surprising sophistication and diversity in non-human cognition. In their final analysis the authors provide a unified account of knowledge that manages to respect and explain this diversity. They argue that animals know when they make appropriate use of the cognitive processes available to animals of that kind, in environments within which those processes are veridically well-adapted. _Knowledge_ is a lively and accessible volume, ideal for undergraduate and post-graduate students. It is also set to spark debate among scholars for its novel approaches to traditional topics and its thoroughgoing commitment to naturalism. (shrink)

Discussions on the perception and knowledge are interspersed throughout the books written in Islamic sciences- whether philosophy or theology or logic or even the science of methodology . The problem of the knowledge has led to many other problems, which should be studied. These problems are as follows:1- A part of philosophy is the topic of categories , and among the high genera is the category of quality, which is divided into 4 general parts. The psychical qualities form a kind (...) of qualities. Muslim philosophers have regarded the knowledge as being included in this kind, and approached to the knowledge from an ontological point of view.2- One of the most important philosophical issues is the knowledge of the soul in which the perception is discussed. In this regard, the role played by the philosopher of the 5th century , Ibn Sina is the most significant role.3- Also among the philosophical issues is the problem of the "intelligence, intelligent and intelligible" which was interjected in the time of Fakhr Razi; and inAsfar, it is more than any other issue of the knowledge topic discussed.4- The mental existence, which is among the novel issues. Introducing this issue, the philosophers were to show the importance of the knowledge and the mind being representative of the object.5- The secondary intelligibles, which is another philosophical issue that is in relation with the topic of the knowledge and perception.6-"The criterion for the truth of the propositions" which suggests that the propositions have a relation with the fact-itself. Though including only the Judgments and propositions, and not the imaginations, at the same time, it examines a part of man's acquired knowledge from a particular point of view.7- "The quiddity and its statements". In this regard, issues such as the mentally positedness of the quiddities, and the question of the particular and universal are introduced. These issues are, in fact, a sort of knowledge of the mind.8- In logic we come to questions, which are in relation with the issue of knowledge; and from a point of view, the logic is in fact, description and explanation of the mind.9- A part of Islamic philosophy is theology in the particular senseof the term, in which, after affirming the existence of God and analyzing the Divine attributes and names, the attributes of the Truth are discussed individually. Among the Necessary's attributes is His knowledge, in whose analyzing, the knowledge of man is accordingly discussed.10- In the methodology we are confronted with issues such as universal and particular, absolute and restricted. In this science some of verbal issues provide subtle analysis of the world of the mind. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Manuel Pérez Otero attempted to turn the tables on Paul Boghossian's claim that content externalism is incompatible with the 'a priority of our logical abilities'. In reply, Boghossian argued that Pérez Otero's criticism misses the main point of his argument through concentrating on the semantics of singular terms. I elaborate on Boghossian's reply by showing that even taken on its own terms Pérez Otero's paper fails to engage with internalism through systematically misrepresenting what a truly internalistic (...) account of the semantics of singular terms should be. (shrink)

In the modern philosophy the theory of knowledge has been among the main issues of philosophical researches, made by philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant. That is why they have to be, primarily, regarded as the epistemologist. If we classify the theory of knowledge under three categories: the range of knowledge, the sources of knowledge, and the nature of knowledge, difference between epistemologists' ideas will become clearer. In particular, as regards the range of knowledge, there is a wide (...) spectrum of various ideas, some of them opposing some other. At one end of this spectrum is skepticism claiming that our knowledge of the world is much less than what we usually think. Some extremist skeptics claim that our knowledge does not go beyond the sensible issues and the everyday experiences. At the other end of this spectrum are various kinds of realism, maintaining the possibility of man's knowledge of the internal and external world. Some other theories are centered in the spectrum. One of such theories is phenomenology.As regards the possible sources of knowledge also, the present philosophical ideas lead to a wide spectrum. At the one end, there are classical empiricists, such as Locke and Hume. At the other end we find Plato, who believes that the true knowledge cannot be found through experiment. In the middle of extremist rationality and extremist empiricism, there is a more moderate position, called classical rationality, which is supported by philosophers such as Descartes and Leibniz.The nature of knowledge, also among the main axes in epistemology, is, since the olden times down to the present time, disputed on. Particularly, in the recent times, this axis has attracted the attentions of philosophers and caused them to analyze the knowledge to find its main constituent. (shrink)