The relationship between knowledge, belief, and ethics is an inaugural theme in philosophy; more recently, under the title “ethics of belief” philosophers have worked to develop the appropriate methodology for studying the nexus of epistemology, ethics, and psychology. The title “ethics of belief” comes from a 19th-century paper written by British philosopher and mathematician W.K. Clifford. Clifford argues that we are morally responsible for our beliefs because each belief that we form creates the cognitive circumstances for related beliefs to follow, (...) and we inevitably influence each other through those beliefs. This study argues that recent cognitive research supports Cliffordian insights regarding patterns of belief formation and social influence. From the confirmation offered by such research, it follows that informational accuracy holds serious ethical significance in public discourse. Although scientific and epistemological matters are not always thought to be linked to normative morality, this study builds on Clifford's initial insights to show their linkage is fundamental to inquiry itself. In turn, Clifford's ethical and epistemic outline can inform a framework grounded in “public reason” under which seemingly opposed science communication strategies are philosophically united. With public discourse on climate change as the key example, empirically informed and grounded strategies for science communication in the public sphere are considered. (shrink)

We offer a novel interpretation of the argumentative role that Meditation IV plays within the whole of the Meditations. This new interpretation clarifies several otherwise head-scratching claims that Descartes makes about Meditation IV, and it fully exonerates the Fourth Meditation from either raising or exacerbating Descartes’ circularity problems.

In this article, I draw resources from Deleuze's Difference and Repetition to develop an explanation and critique of invasive policing techniques on certain populations in the United States. First, I analyse recent studies revealing the neighbourhood effects of aggressive policing on those who never directly encounter officers. Second, I use Deleuze's concepts of the virtual, potentiality, the Idea and problems to illuminate the limitations to studying these effects that are inherent in a social scientific approach. I then use Deleuze's discussion (...) of the Image of Thought to theorise a racialised Image of the Human that justifies the aggressive policing policies in certain neighbourhoods. I argue instead for an open, unsettled, in-process category of the human that continues to creatively actualise. Finally, I offer two normative claims that again derive from Deleuze's philosophy: the first is a preliminary strategy for mitigating the non-localisable and virtual effects of policing policy by ‘conjugating’ oneself in a complex set of neighbourhood relations, particularly in response to inequitably distributed spaces of oppression; the second is an attempt to avoid reducing humanity to calculability by ‘fully explicating’ the other. In combination, the goal is to undermine the dogmatic Images of Thought and the Human that ground oppressive policing practices, and to foster an intensive potentiality for newness that might take these Images' place. (shrink)

In the Fifth Meditation Descartes considers the problem of knowledge preservation : the challenge of accounting for the diachronic certainty of perfect knowledge [scientia]. There are two general solutions to PKP in the literature: the regeneration solution and the infallible memory solution. While both readings pick up on features of Descartes’ considered view, I argue that they ultimately fall short. Salvaging pieces from both readings and drawing from Descartes’ virtue theory, I argue on textual and systematic grounds for a dispositionalist (...) solution. On this view, the diachronic certainty of scientia is achieved through virtuous habits of belief. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore René Descartes' conception of human freedom. I begin with the key interpretive challenges of Descartes' remarks and then turn to two foundational issues in the secondary literature: the philosophical backdrop of Descartes' remarks and the notions of freedom that commentators have used to characterize Descartes. The remainder of the paper is focused on the main current debate: Descartes' position on the relationship between freedom and determinism.

Descartes’s meditator thinks that if she does not know the existence of God, she cannot be fully certain of anything. This statement seems to contradict the cogito, according to which the existence of I is indubitable and therefore certain. Cannot an atheist be certain that he exists? Atheistic knowledge has been discussed almost exclusively in relation to mathematics, and the more interesting question of the atheist’s certainty of his existence has not received the attention it deserves. By examining the question (...) of atheistic knowledge in relation to the cogito, I articulate the advantage Descartes sees in having knowledge of God. I challenge a long-held reading of the cogito where “I exist” is the first full certainty and argue that while atheistic cogito is more certain than atheistic knowledge in mathematics, it cannot be a starting point for lasting and stable science, because science requires knowing the existence of the non-deceiving God. (shrink)

This version has been superseded by the one published in Spring, 2014.

Translated from: W.V.O.Quine, W. H. O. (1986): Philosophy of Logic. Second Edition. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 47-61.

Descartes insists, “[...] there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me [...]” (AT-VII, 25; CSM-II, 17). In what way can we draw evidence that our existence can be drawn from our being deceived? The interpretations that the earlier studies have shown is not a monolith. Then I will search for some inherent characteristics of deception, and analyse the construction of the (...) reasoning, “if a deceiver deceives me, I exist.” To be concrete, I show: 1) that it is not “I exist” but “I think” that is concluded from the supposition “a deceiver deceives me/I am deceived by a deceiver”; 2) that the attributions of the self as a thinking thing, i.e. understanding, affirming, and denying (AT-VII, 28; CSM-II, 19), are discovered in the very supposition of a deceiver. (shrink)