Philosophical Papers, Volume 40, Issue 3, Page 421-438, November 2011.

Ivan Boh affirms and Robert Pasnau denies that William Heytesbury holds merely true belief to be sufficient for knowledge in the broad sense. I argue that Boh is correct and Pasnau is mistaken, and that there is a long-running orthodox medieval tradition agreeing with Heytesbury about the conditions for knowledge. I offer a hypothesis about the origins, continuance and demise of that medieval tradition, and some remarks about the tradition's significance.

A number of epistemologists have defended a necessary condition for knowledge that has come to be labeled as the “safety” condition. Timothy Williamson, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa are the foremost defenders of safety. According to these authors an agent S knows a true proposition P only if S could not easily have falsely believed P. Disagreement arises, however, with respect to how they capture the notion of a safe belief. This article is a treatment of the different presentations (...) and defenses of the safety condition for knowledge. Special attention is first paid to an elucidation of the various aspects or features of the safety condition. Following a short demonstration of the manner in which the safety condition handles some rather tough Gettier-like cases in the literature, some problems facing safety conclude this article. (shrink)

Most discussions in epistemology assume that believing that p is a necessary condition for knowing that p. In this paper, I will present some considerations that put this view into doubt. The candidate cases for knowledge without belief are the kind of cases that are usually used to argue for the so-called ‘extended mind’ thesis.

In this lecture, given on 17 June 2004, the author describes the conditions for proper disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah. He explains that today everyone is entitled and indeed is required to know about its true meaning. Expounding on the three past bans - "no need to disclose," "impossible to disclose," and "the Creator's personal secret" - Makaron demonstrates why today they have been (at least partially) lifted.

The ascription of intentional states to the self involves knowledge, or at least claims to knowledge. Armed with the working definition of knowledge as 'the ability to do things, or refrain from doing things, or believe, or want, or doubt things, for reasons that are facts' [Hyman, J. Philos. Quart. 49:432—451], I sketch a simple competence model of acting and believing from knowledge and when knowledge is defeated by un-experienced changes of state. The model takes (...) the form of three concentric circles. The 'periphery' is analogous to Fodor's [(1983), The modularity of mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA] input systems. The 'core' contains copies of peripheral representations, and between these representations there is executive competition. At the 'nucleus', operations are performed on the core representations of, at least, negation and recursion. I argue that this provides a fruitful way in which to conceptualise why theory-of-mind tasks challenge pre-school children, how some degree of first-person authority is mental state attribution is possible, and how executive inhibition is achieved. (shrink)

By using the general investigation framework offered by the cognitive science of religion (CSR), I analyse religion as a necessary condition for the evolutionary path of knowledge. The main argument is the "paradox of the birth of knowledge": in order to get to the meaning of the part, a sense context is needed; but a sense of the whole presupposes the sense (meaning) of the parts. Religion proposes solutions to escape this paradox, based on the imagination of sense (...) (meaning) contexts, respectively closures of these contexts through meta-senses. What is important is the practical effectiveness of solutions proposed by religion, taking into account the costs of faith and the costs of the absence of religious belief. The hypothesis has the following consequences: religion is a necessary condition for the initial evolution of knowledge and the emergence of religion is determined by the evolution of knowledge. The continuation of the solving of paradox is a Bayesian one, using explorations: a sense of the whole allows cognitive arrangements of the parties, which in turn open the possibility of a rearrangement of the whole. The contribution of religion to the emergence of sense (meaning) could be governed by the rule: any map of the world is more useful than no map; any meaning (of life) is better than no meaning. The human mind fills the perceptual and cognitive gaps, some (religious) filling solutions being true vault keys of the entire cognitive construction called the world. Knowledge is conditioned by the existence of an organized context, as the cosmos created by religion by means of explanatory meta-theories supports knowledge by closing the cognitive context and using meaning networks. The proposed analysis is consistent with a redefinition of rationality from the perspective of evolution: the importance and relevance of knowledge is determined by its practical outcome - survival. In the context of useful fictions, it does not matter what God actually does, but what we have done by believing in God. Existence has provided a pragmatic verification of the cognitive solutions that underlie the survival strategies promoted by religions. (shrink)

Modal epistemic conditions have played an important role in post-Gettier theories of knowledge. These conditions purportedly eliminate the pernicious kind of luck present in all Gettier-type cases and offer a rather convincing way of refuting skepticism. This motivates the view that conditions of this sort are necessary for knowledge. I argue against this. I claim that modal conditions, particularly sensitivity and safety, are not necessary for knowledge. I do this by noting that the (...) problem cases for both conditions point to a problem that cannot be fixed even by a revised similarity ranking or ordering of worlds. I offer as groundwork a set theoretical analysis of the profiles of the problem cases for safety and sensitivity. I then demonstrate that these conditions fail whenever necessary links constitutive of the epistemic situation actually obtain but are not modally preserved. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new argument for the safety condition on knowledge. It is based on the contention that the rejection of safety entails the rejection of the factivity condition on knowledge. But, since we should maintain factivity, we should endorse safery.

Justification has long been considered a necessary condition for knowledge, and theories that deny the necessity of justification have been dismissed as nonstarters. In this chapter, we challenge this long-standing view by showing that many of the arguments offered in support of it fall short and by providing empirical evidence that individuals are often willing to attribute knowledge when epistemic justification is lacking.

:In a recent paper in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics on the necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research David DeGrazia and Jeff Sebo claim that the key requirements for morally responsible animal research are an assertion of sufficient net benefit, a worthwhile-life condition, and a no-unnecessary-harm condition. With regards to the assertion of sufficient net benefit, the authors claim that morally responsible research offers unique benefits to humans that outweigh the costs and harms to humans and animals. In (...) this commentary we will raise epistemic, practical, and ethical challenges to DeGrazia and Sebo’s emphasis on benefits in the prospective assessment of research studies involving animals. We do not disagree with DeGrazia and Sebo that, at the theoretical level, the benefits of research justify our using animals. Our contribution intends to clarify, at the practical level, how we should understand benefits in the prospective assessment and moral justification of animal research. We argue that ASNB should be understood as an assessment of Expectation of Knowledge Production in the prospective assessment and justification of animal research. EKP breaks down into two further claims: that morally responsible research generates knowledge worth having and that morally responsible research is designed and executed to produce generalizable knowledge. We understand the condition called knowledge worth having as scientists’ testing a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances an important interest, and production of generalizable knowledge in terms of scientific integrity. Generalizable knowledge refers to experimental results that generalize to a larger population beyond the animals studied. Generalizable scientific knowledge is reliable, replicable, and accurately descriptive. In sum, morally responsible research will be designed and carefully executed to successfully test a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances important interests. Our formulation of EKP, crucially, does not require further showing that an experiment involving animals will produce societal benefits. (shrink)

An encyclopedia article on the epistemic or knowledge condition for moral responsibility, written for the SEP.

In this paper I suggest an account of knowledge by adding a fourth condition to the traditional analysis in terms of justified true belief. I am going to make a first proposal ruling out the Gettier-counterexamples.1 This proposal will then be corrected in the light of other counterexamples. The final analysis will be a combination of a justified-true-belief-account and a causal account of knowledge. Some philosophers have disputed that Gettier‟s examples must be accepted as refutations of the justified (...) true belief analysis of knowledge.2 Their rejection rests on declining a principle underlying Gettier‟s reasoning, namely – as Thalberg calls it – the principle of deducibility of justification (PDJ). PDJ reads as following: For any proposition p, if a person S is justified in believing p, and p entails q, and S deduces q from p and accepts q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing q. This principle allows, for example, the move in Gettier‟s first example from the proposition a) “Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones has ten coins in his pocket” to proposition b) “The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket”. 1. (shrink)

How do we know what we know? In this stimulating and rigorous book, Mark McBride explores two sets of issues in contemporary epistemology: the problems that warrant transmission poses for the category of basic knowledge; and the status of conclusive reasons, sensitivity, and safety as conditions that are necessary for knowledge. To have basic knowledge is to know some proposition immediately, i.e., knowledge that doesn't depend on justification for any other proposition. This book considers several (...) puzzles that arise when you take seriously the possibility that we can have basic knowledge. McBride's analysis draws together two vital strands in contemporary epistemology that are usually treated in isolation from each other. Additionally, its innovative arguments include a new application of the safety condition to the law. This book will be of interest to epistemologists―both professionals and students. (shrink)

The article analyzes an epistemic condition for moral responsibility. The condition is taken in a dispositional form: the attribution of responsibility is appropriate only if the agent was in an epistemic position suitable for obtaining knowledge relevant to moral re­sponsibility. The choice of a dispositional interpretation of the epistemic condition is jus­tified with the help of four thought experiments showing that the actualist understanding of this condition is unacceptable. The main question of the article concerns this epistemic position. The (...) article presents N. Levy’s criticism of the concept of responsibility that rests on the thesis that we never find ourselves in the epistemic position required for moral responsibility. Two lines of response to Levy’s criticism are briefly considered: the Reasonable Expectation Approach and the Attributionist Approach. With the help of the analysis of a thought experiment, the condition of basic knowledge of a morally significant situation is revealed. Further analysis of this condition exposes the condition of attention for moral responsibility. Attention refers to the ability to redirect one’s cogni­tive resources to different tasks. The moral significance of attention is demonstrated: inat­tention as an excusing factor is investigated, the connection between attention and such phenomena of moral life as care and respect is shown. The article shows that the require­ment of attention implies certain control over attention. The condition of attention pro­vides an answer to Levy’s criticism, according to which we have no control over the psy­chological states leading to actions. This is not the case since control of attention plays this role. In conclusion, the prospects for further research are discussed: the study of the concept of control over attention, the connection of moral responsibility and conscious­ness, and examination of the condition of attention in the context of virtue epistemology. (shrink)

This study explored patients' experiences of participation and non-participation in their health care. A questionnaire-based survey method was used. Content analysis showed that conditions for patient participation occurred when information was provided not by using standard procedures but based on individual needs and accompanied by explanations, when the patient was regarded as an individual, when the patient's knowledge was recognized by staff, and when the patient made decisions based on knowledge and needs, or performed self-care. Thus, to (...) provide conditions for true patient participation, professionals need to recognize each patient's unique knowledge and respect the individual's description of his or her situation rather than just inviting the person to participate in decision making. (shrink)

In “The Myth of Factive Verbs” (Hazlett 2010), I had four closely related goals. The first (pp. 497-99, p. 522) was to criticize appeals to ordinary language in epistemology. The second (p. 499) was to criticize the argument that truth is a necessary condition on knowledge because “knows” is factive. The third (pp. 507-19) – which was the intended means of achieving the first two – was to defend a semantics for “knows” on which <S knows p> can be (...) true even if p isn’t true. The fourth (Ibid.) – which seemed necessary for the success of the third – was to defend a pragmatic account of the fact that utterances of <S knows p> typically imply p, on which the implication in those cases is down to conversational implicature. In this paper I’ll go after these goals again, with an emphasis on the second. Our topic will be whether the factivity of “knows” (whatever this amounts to) supports the truth condition on knowledge. A new goal will be to defend my argument against some criticisms from John Turri (2011) and Savas Tsohatzidis (forthcoming). We’ll first look at the truth condition (§1) and factive presupposition (§§2 – 3), before turning to replies to Turri and Tsohatzidis (§§4 – 7). (shrink)

Writers on collective action are in broad agreement that in order for a group of agents to form a collective intention, the members of that group must have beliefs about the beliefs of the other members. But in spite of the fact that this so-called "interactive knowledge" is central to virtually every account of collective intention, writers on this subject have not offered a detailed account of the nature of interactive knowledge. In this paper, we argue that such (...) an account is necessary for any adequate analysis of collective intention. Furthermore, we argue that an application of Robert Aumann's theory of interactive knowledge may be used to address several puzzling features of collective intention. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The study offers an account of Hegel’s religious epistemology based on his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. It is understood as a result of Hegel’s efforts to determine the sufficient conditions, which make the knowledge of God possible. Firstly, Hegel’s philosophy of religion is sketched as an investigation of the religious consciousness as well its subject, i.e. God. Secondly, the concept of Absolute Spirit is construed as a self-manifestation to specify Hegel’s understanding of God. Finally, the paper (...) shows Hegel’s way to epistemological realism, which is a middle position between theological anti-realism and theological agnosticism. (shrink)

Safety purports to explain why cases of accidentally true belief are not knowledge, addressing Gettier cases and cases of belief based on statistical evidence. However, problems arise for using safety as a condition on knowledge: safety is not necessary for knowledge and cannot always explain the Gettier cases and cases of statistical evidence it is meant to address. In this paper, I argue for a new modal condition designed to capture the non-accidental relationship between facts and evidence (...) required for knowledge: causal safety. I argue that possible errors in belief can be captured by accounting for deviations in causal relationships and that there is a natural way to characterize which causal errors are relevant in an epistemic situation. Using this, I develop a causal analogue to safety, where one’s belief in p is causally safe if it is true in all causally relevant worlds where one believes p. Causal safety, I argue, can better explain the cases safety is meant to address and can avoid the arguments raised against the necessity of safety. (shrink)

The Western tradition has been in part defined by a characteristic bargain in which pain is "traded" for knowledge. An ascetic resistance to temptation, or renunciation of desire, is the condition for achieving the truth. This paper examines how the exchange is negotiated in three texts, including The Life of Antony by St. Athanasius , The Future of Science by Ernest Renan , and That the World May Know by James Dawes . In each, an act of voluntary renunciation (...) produces an increase in knowledge and in moral stature. (shrink)

Ontologies aim to represent what is general, by means of universal statements. In contrast, dispositional predications capture knowledge about what is likely to happen if a certain set of circumstances obtain, which is crucial in investigative research such as in drug discovery and systems biology, where entities which are constitutionally dissimilar can nevertheless have similar behavior in a biological context. While such dispositional properties are increasingly included in biomedical ontologies, the circumstances under which the dispositions are realized are seldom (...) explicitly modeled, and doing so is problematic due to the necessary restriction to binary relations in OWL ontologies. In this paper we address this shortcoming, focusing on the bioactivity of small molecules at varying levels of concentration within a living organism as our problem domain, although our approach is generalizable to other problems. We discuss the ontological nature and representation of dispositions and their realization; consider the nature of concentrations and their representation; and finally we detail an approach to linking dispositions to the conditions for their realization which regards conditions as triggers for the process in which the disposition is realized. (shrink)

1. This paper is an informal exposition of a model-theoretic semantics for knowledge and belief set out in full detail else where. Considerations of space and simplicity prevent any recapitulation of tracts of formal definitions. My aim is simply to inform the reader of the alleged existence of one “new direction” in semantics, and to direct him to the original source for its detailed development. I shall explain certain self-imposed limitations on the scope and adequacy conditions of this (...) treatment. Then, in subsequent discussion of the semantical problems which I claim to have treated, I shall try to impart the flavour of the technical methods involved. (shrink)

SummaryIn the first part of the paper necessary conditions for the rationality of the notions of belief, knowledge, and assumption are given: Among the different conditions it is stressed that one needs two different concepts of belief, one such that if someone knows something he also believes it, the other exclusive such that if someone knows something he need not to believe it and if he believes it he does not yet know it. Another important point is (...) that deductive infallibility has to be rejected as not being a property of human rationality. Similarly it is not a property of human rationality to know all logical true statements.The second chapter offers a deductive system which meets these and additional conditions of human rationality. The third chapter contains the semantics of the deductive system.RésuméDans le premier chapitre ľauteur énumére des conditions nécessaires à la rationalité des concepts croire, savoir et admettre. Entre autres, il relève qu'il faut distinguer au moins deux concepts croire, qui satisfont ľun àľénoncé: quand quelqu'un sait quelque chose, il la croit aussi, ľautre plus exclusif à: quand quelqu'un sait quelque chose, il n'a pas besoin de la croire et quand quelqu'un la croit , il ne la sait pas . Un autre point très important est que ľinfaillibilité déductive doit être rejetée comme n'appartenant pas à la rationalité humaine. Idem pour la connaissance de tous les énoncés logiquement vrais.Le deuxième chapitre décrit un système déductif qui remplit ces conditions de rationalité . Le troisième, la sémantique de ce système.ZusammenfassungIm ersten Kapitel werden notwendige Bedingungen für die Rationalität der Begriffe Glauben, Wissen und Annehmen gegeben: Unter anderem wird hervorgehoben, dass minde‐stens zwei verschiedene Begriffe von Glauben nötig sind; einmal so, dass gilt: wenn einer etwas weiss, dann glaubt er es auch, und dann auch im exklusiven Sinn: wenn einer etwas weiss, dann braucht er es nicht zu glauben und wenn einer etwas glaubt, dann weiss er es nicht. Ein anderer sehr wichtiger Punkt ist, dass deduktive Infallibilität (d.h. dass man von dem. (shrink)

In 'The Grasshopper' Suits proposes that ‘playing a game’ can be captured as an attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by rules (lusory means). These rules prohibit more efficient means, and are accepted because they make the activity possible (lusory attitude). I argue these conditions are not jointly sufficient. The starting point for the argument is the idea that goals, means and attitudes can pick out their content in different ways. They (...) can involve a direct reference (‘crossing this specific finish line’), or a description that picks out something (‘crossing a line on the track after running 100 m’). I provide cases in which one’s attitudes, accepted goals or accepted means pick out their content by a description such that the person does not play a game, even if Suits’s conditions are satisfied. I show that this demands an epistemic condition for playing a game that also applies to commitment based accounts. Finally, I discuss what such an epistemic condition could be. I argue that the condition does not require personal knowledge of all goals and means, but merely enough epistemic access that the goal and permissible means can guide one’s behavior safely enough. This might be satisfied by social extensions, such as access to tools (e.g. a rulebook) or other people (e.g. referees). (shrink)

Agents are morally responsible for their actions only if they understand what they are doing. This much seems clear, but it is unclear exactly what agents must understand in order to be morally responsible; in other words, the epistemic condition for moral responsibility is difficult to discover. In this paper, I will investigate Aquinas’s discussion of knowledge, voluntariness, and moral responsibility in order to discover his views on this condition. Although he never provides a formal expression of such a (...) condition, I will use his discussions of related issues to construct a three-part epistemic condition for moral responsibility. In the process I will raise and discuss several interpretative difficulties, arguing that while some can be resolved, others, despite recent claims to the contrary, resist resolution. Finally, I will draw out several consequences of his account, noteworthy for a variety of reasons. (shrink)

If the universe is a machine, consciousness is not possible. If the universe is more than a machine, then physics is incomplete. Since we are both part of the universe and conscious, physics must be incomplete and the understanding required to construct conscious mechanisms must be sought through the advancement of physics not the continued application of inadequate concepts. In this paper I will show that an impediment to this advancement is the confusion arising through the use of terms such (...) as 'physical reality' to refer to an absolute a priori Kantian 'Ding an Sich' when they should both be recognized as referring to data structures holding the knowledge upon which we act and nothing more. Once this confusion has been clarified, I will go on to suggest that the cycle of activity updating physical reality becomes a candidate for a conscious process. I will show how implementing algorithms in modern computers can mimic this process but if actual consciousness is to be achieved the update activity must correspond to a cycle in time. Such cycles have been identified with Whitehead's 'actual occasions' and thus I will argue that fundamental events should replace fundamental particles as the building blocks of the universe if consciousness is to be explained. (shrink)

The video game producers are currently in spotlight of market information services. Successes and huge budgets of such companies attract many readers. However, scientific studies related to this sector do not share the same popularity. A reflection on the source of value in this sector shows that what generates revenues is not disclosed in the report. Great examples are customers’ relationships or the value of employees creating the game code and story of the game. Video games producers sector presents a (...) good combination of business and culture that allows reflection on financial characteristics of knowledge based companies. Prior studies show that market’s valuation takes into account unrecognised assets but capital-intensive character of a production and intangibility of a product and its assets causes problems with exact valuation. In this paper the author asks about the impact of the characteristics on the assessment of a financial condition. The research question in this paper is whether it is possible to use and interpret correctly popular discriminant analysis model for knowledge based entities on the example of video game companies. Results are applicable by analysts and managers of this sector and help to determine the usefulness of this method, but it still depends on assumptions and accounting policies. The reflection presented also broadens the discussion on financialisation because analysed companies can oppose this trend in a specific way. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creating the Conditions for Intergenerational Justice: Social Capital and ComplianceAdelin-Costin DumitruIntroductionSuppose philosophers succeeded in putting forward two equally desirable theories of intergenerational justice. Both of them fare extremely well in regard to either a case-implication critique or a prior-principle strategy of argumentation (with the former requiring us to check the implications of a principle in counterfactual cases, and the latter testing the compatibility of a principle with certain (...) more fundamental values, according to Sen [197]). How are we to decide between them? To the extent that we believe that one of the purposes of political philosophy is to issue achievable and desirable recommendations (Stemplowska 319) or to be action-guiding (Swift 363), we might compare the two by applying a feasibility criterion. Such a criterion indicates that a state of affairs could be realized “if we were to summon sufficient practical will and direct our (individual or collective) efforts in the right direction” (Gheaus 450). In our case, the decision is a relatively easy one: both theories pass a threshold of acceptability and thus we would be morally justified in attempting to bring them about. Furthermore, by stipulation, world A in which theory x were implemented would be equally desirable as world B, in which theory y were implemented. The only distinction would be one concerning their feasibility.Nonetheless, this scenario is usually not one that is available to us. If theories differ based on their desirability as well as their feasibility, how are we to choose? One option would be to choose that moral theory which best satisfies the criteria mentioned by Buchanan, of moral accessibility, feasibility, and accessibility (Justice, Legitimacy). However, feasibility entails not only a static conception of duties, but a dynamic one, in which we postulate that agents have “duties that do not focus merely on what can be done in given [End Page 20] circumstances, but also on how to change circumstances so that new things can be done” (Gilabert and Lawford-Smith 812). In the present article, I argue that taking the idea of dynamic duties seriously requires that we redirect our efforts and resources toward those actions that would maximize the probability of achieving a successful transition from a non-ideal to an ideal state of the world. The argument is that, in the specific context of intergenerational justice, we ought to pay more attention to the matter of social capital extant in a society, if we want to achieve the ends of an intergenerational theory of justice. The concept of social capital puts under the same umbrella distinct features of social life such as networks and civic engagement, the role of reciprocity and trust in building institutions, and the effects that informal rules and institutions have on formal ones (Ostrom and Ahn, “Social Science Perspective” 4). Intuitively, these aspects are relevant for an account of intergenerational justice. The particular way in which they are relevant will be detailed later in this article.The claim that I defend is that the higher the level of social capital in a community, the more probable it will be that individuals are willing to redistribute resources to future generations. The underlying assumption that holds throughout the article is that public justification is important in construing a defense of a conception of justice. I proceed as follows. In the first section, I present an account of social capital. In the second section, I present the literature connecting social capital to political philosophy. In the third section, I argue why developing social capital is a worthwhile goal to pursue if we want to achieve intergenerational justice. The fourth section presents a series of measures that can increase the level of social capital. The fifth section responds to a series of potential objections that could be raised and concludes the paper.The Many Faces of Social CapitalMuch of the intellectual history of the twentieth century was dedicated to institutions and their function in shaping the social, economic, cultural, and political order. In a comprehensive definition put forward by March and Olsen, institutions represent “routines, procedures, conventions, roles, strategies, organizational forms, technologies..., beliefs, paradigms, codes, cultures and knowledge that surround, support, elaborate, and... (shrink)

The Posterior Analytics describes the structure of a science and of the content of scientific propositions. Aristotle sees the weaknesses observed in his methods, and his views on justification support and explain some of his demands on scientific knowledge. However, these same views seem to imply demands that he cannot meet within any plausible conception of justification.

In recent years the problem of scientific prediction has attracted a constantly increasing number of researchers. The fact that a number of philosophers, logicians, and representatives of concrete disciplines have turned to investigating the nature of scientific prediction is first of all because of the needs of the development of scientific knowledge itself, as well as of industry. The rapid progress of the natural and the social sciences puts in the foreground the task of studying the internal regularities of (...) the process of acquisition of knowledge, the techniques and methods of research, and in particular, so very important a function of science as prediction. (shrink)

Most organizations and/or their sub-units like ethics programs want to acquire the knowledge, skills and other resources needed to achieve their goals efficiently and effectively. Thus, they want to acquire or develop needed capacity. But there are pre-conditions to building capacity that are often overlooked or forgotten, but which nevertheless, must be in place before capacity can be developed. This essay identifies these pre-conditions and discusses why they are necessary before attempts are made to enhance the capacity (...) of any ethics program. The essay closes by offering a series of questions that ethics program leaders/and or members can asked themselves to assess whether or not these pre-conditions exist. (shrink)

The extensions of response-dependent concepts are a priori connected with the subjective responses that competent users of that concept have in normal conditions. There are two strategies for specifying normal conditions for response-dependent concepts: topic-specific and topic-neutral. On a topic-specific specification, a characterization of normal conditions would be given separately for each response-dependent concept (or a non-trivial subset of response-dependent concepts, such as our colour concepts), whereas a topic-neutral specification would be given in a uniform way for (...) all response-dependent concepts. In this paper I argue, using a thought experiment, that only topic-neutral specifications will deliver the a priori knowledge constitutive of response-dependence. (shrink)

. This article analyzes the epistemic contributions of models by distinguishing three roles that they might play: an evidential role, a revealing role and a stimulating role. By using an account of learning based on the philosophical understanding of propositional knowledge as true justified belief, the paper provides the conditions to be fulfilled by a model in order to play a determined role. A case study of an economic model of the labor market—the DMP model—illustrates the usefulness of (...) these conditions in articulating debates over the epistemic contributions of a given model. (shrink)

Many have written about trope ontology, but relatively few have considered its implications for some of the ontological conditions needed for us to have knowledge. I explore the resources of trope ontology to meet those conditions. With J. P. Moreland, I argue that, being simple, we can eliminate tropes’ qualitative contents without ontological loss, resulting in bare individuators. Then I extend Moreland’s argument, arguing that tropes undermine some of the needed ontological conditions for knowledge. Yet, (...) we do know many things, and trope nominalists presuppose that too. Therefore, I consider three counter-arguments, starting with David Lewis’s rebuttal based on appeal to brute facts. Second, I explore Jeffrey Brower’s recent proposal as a possible solution. Last, I consider Robert Garcia’s recent distinction between module and modifier tropes, to see if it can be of assistance. I conclude, however, that trope nominalism cannot preserve some of the needed ontology to have knowledge. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the putatively non-epistemic nature of propositional truth presents an interesting problem for those who reasonably believe that truth is normatively distinct from warrant or evidence and that such truth is an irreducible condition on propositional knowledge. After arguing that McDowell’s direct realist approach is rather inadequate to deal with the issue I am raising here, I introduce the notion of ‘epistemic gradient’ to show that even if one may plausibly maintain that a significant (...) portion of our empirical beliefs are presumably true in the alethic realist sense, there is no unproblematic transition from conceding that point to making the realist truth a panepistemic condition of propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function gives two major definitions of warrant. One states that reliable cognitive faculties aimed at true belief and functioning properly in the right environment are necessary and sufficient for warrant; the other definition only states that they are necessary. The latter definition is the more important one. There are different kinds of knowledge, and justification is necessary for some beliefs to be warranted. Even a belief warranted by proper function can receive a higher degree (...) of warrant by justification. This implies that natural theology has a useful role within the contours of a Plantingian epistemology. (Please note that the pagination here does not match the pagination in the published edition.). (shrink)

This article explores the story of ‘the other Mersault’ whose narrative is published in the posthumous and arguably incomplete work A happy death. That this work is incomplete and that it appears to be a precursor to The outsider, has arguably limited scholarly analysis of its character and plot. However, the themes that are explored in A happy death are significant in their distinction to those themes that are experienced by the other, younger, Meursault. In A happy death the world (...) must be conquered by the will of a young man to find his happiness. He is not an outsider, and he is not content with his lot. Given an opportunity to address this latter concern, he acts upon his life in a search for happiness and in so doing engages in an ultimately frustrating, yet in some way enlightening, quest. In this article Mersault’s search for happiness is plotted in relation to his thinking about time, childhood, happiness and death. His journey is considered in relation to other stories of the search for some greater human condition. It is argued that his will to be happy reveals the absurdity of searching or not searching. This absurdity is considered in relation to the nature and purpose of school in the sense that such a relation to the search for knowledge might free school from its disciplinary tasks … and frees the learner, the child, the teacher, from the violence of having to want to know. (shrink)

There has been considerable recent interest in the consequences of closed timelike curves (CTCs) for the dynamics of quantum mechanical systems. A vast majority of research into this area makes use of the dynamical equations developed by Deutsch, which were developed from a consistency condition that assumes that mixed quantum states uniquely describe the physical state of a system. We criticize this choice of consistency condition from an epistemic perspective, i.e., a perspective in which the quantum state represents a state (...) of knowledge about a system. We demonstrate that directly applying Deutsch’s condition when mixed states are treated as representing an observer’s knowledge of a system can conceal time travel paradoxes from the observer, rather than resolving them. To shed further light on the appropriate dynamics for quantum systems traversing CTCs, we make use of a toy epistemic theory with a strictly classical ontology due to Spekkens and show that, in contrast to the results of Deutsch, many of the traditional paradoxical effects of time travel are present. (shrink)

The analysis of the concept of knowledge is understandably regarded as central to the development of an adequate philosophical system. And yet, as is also apparent, no proposal of recent date has succeeded in meeting certain well-known objections, counterinstances, anomalies. It is reasonable, therefore, to step back from these would-be direct contributions to review the principal strategies by which the relevant puzzles may be supposed to be managed.Undoubtedly, it was Roderick Chisholm's recovery and revision of the account of the (...) Theaetetus that encouraged a sustained effort, by various hands, to formulate a definition of knowledge in terms of its necessary and sufficient conditions. (shrink)

This chapter lays out a case that with the proper perspective on the place of epistemology within normative inquiry more generally, it is possible to appreciate what was on the right track about some of the early approaches to the analysis of knowledge, and to improve on the obvious failures which led them to be rejected. Drawing on more general principles about reasons, their weight, and their relationship to justification, it offers answers to problems about defeat and the conditional (...) fallacy that plagued early defeasibility analyses of knowledge and offers a sketch of a contemporary alternative that is motivated by the idea that knowledge requires the right kind of “match” between objective and subjective factors. (shrink)

When confronted with especially complex ecological and social problems such as climate change, how are we to think about responsibility for collective inaction? Social and political philosophers have begun to consider the complexities of acting collectively with a view to creating more just and sustainable societies. Some have recently turned their attention to the question of whether more or less formally organized groups can ever be held morally responsible for not acting collectively, or else for not organizing themselves into groups (...) capable of so doing. In this paper I argue that several questionable assumptions have shaped the character and scope of inquiry to this point, precluding us from grappling with a range of important questions concerning the epistemic dimensions of collective inaction. I offer an overview of recent conversation concerning collective inaction, advance a critique of the picture of responsibility that has emerged from this conversation, and propose an alternative approach to th... (shrink)

Traditional philosophical discussions of knowledge have focused on the epistemic status of full beliefs. In this book, Moss argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. For instance, your .4 credence that it is raining outside can constitute knowledge, in just the same way that your full beliefs can. In addition, you can know that it might be raining, and that if it is raining then it is probably cloudy, where this knowledge is (...) not knowledge of propositions, but of probabilistic contents. -/- The notion of probabilistic content introduced in this book plays a central role not only in epistemology, but in the philosophy of mind and language as well. Just as tradition holds that you believe and assert propositions, you can believe and assert probabilistic contents. Accepting that we can believe, assert, and know probabilistic contents has significant consequences for many philosophical debates, including debates about the relationship between full belief and credence, the semantics of epistemic modals and conditionals, the contents of perceptual experience, peer disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, perceptual dogmatism, and transformative experience. In addition, accepting probabilistic knowledge can help us discredit negative evaluations of female speech, explain why merely statistical evidence is insufficient for legal proof, and identify epistemic norms violated by acts of racial profiling. Hence the central theses of this book not only help us better understand the nature of our own mental states, but also help us better understand the nature of our responsibilities to each other. (shrink)

The gist of modal epistemology is expressed in the idea that you fail to know if you do believe truly but it is seriously possible for you to believe falsely. According to subjunctivism, this idea is captured by certain subjunctive conditionals. One formulation invokes a safety condition—“If S had believed P, then P would have been the case,” while the other invokes a sensitivity condition—“If P had been false, S would not have believed that P.” According to simple subjunctivism, such (...) conditionals do not contrapose and Sosa derives important epistemological consequences which favor safety from this difference. However, simple subjunctivism is inadequate. I return to Goodman and his analysis of factuals and propose modal stability, which is restricted sensitivity or enhanced safety as a proper epistemic condition for the non-accidental connection between the basis for the belief and the relevant facts of the matter. The idea of modal stability combines robustness (benefi ts of safety) with responsiveness to facts (benefi ts of sensitivity) and recovers the original motivation for the relevant alternatives theory—when testing for claims of knowledge that p we ask what might be the case if not-p, but we ignore irrelevant possibilities. Epistemic modal conditions should be expressed in terms of conditionals of connection which contrapose within the limits of relevance. (shrink)