1 Knowledge and Justification This book is an investigation of one central problem which arises in the attempt to give a philosophical account of empirical ...

A comprehensive defence of the rationalist view that insight independent of experience is a genuine basis for knowledge.

One of the many problems that would have t o be solved by a satisfactory theory of empirical knowledge, perhaps the most central is a general structural problem which I shall call the epistemic regress problem: the problem of how to avoid an in- finite and presumably vicious regress of justification in ones account of the justifica- tion of empirical beliefs. Foundationalist theories of empirical knowledge, as we shall see further below, attempt t o avoid the regress by locating a (...) class of empirical beliefs whose justification does not depend on that of other empirical beliefs. Extemalist theories, the topic of the present paper, represent one species of foundationalism. (shrink)

Outlines a tenable version of a traditional foundationalist account\nof empirical justification and its implications for the justification\nof beliefs about physical or material objects. Presupposing the acceptability\nof other beliefs about physical objects; Concept of a basic belief;\nMetabeliefs about one's own occurrent beliefs; Beliefs about sensory\nexperience.

In Defense of Pure Reason is an elaboration and defense of what I characterize as a moderate rationalist conception of a priori justification and knowledge: “rationalist,” because it holds that a priori justification genuinely exists and is not in general to be explained away as merely analytic or definitional in character; “moderate,” because it holds that a priori insight is both fallible and corrigible.

Several approaches to clinical ethics consultation (CEC) exist in medical practice and are widely discussed in the clinical ethics literature; different models of CECs are classified according to their methods, goals, and consultant’s attitude. Although the “facilitation” model has been endorsed by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and is described in an influential manual, alternative approaches, such as advocacy, moral expertise, mediation, and engagement are practiced and defended in the clinical ethics field. Our Clinical Ethics Center in (...) Paris was founded in 2002 in the wake of the Patients’ Rights Act, and to date it is the largest center that provides consultation services in France. In this article we shall describe and defend our own approach to clinical ethics consultation, which we call the “Commitment Model,” in comparison with other existing models. Indeed commitment implies, among other meanings, continuity through time, a series of coherent actions, and the realization of important social goals. By drawing on a recent consultation case, we shall describe the main steps of our consultation procedure: interviews with major stakeholders, including patients and proxies; case conferences; and follow up. We shall show why we have chosen the term “commitment” to represent our approach at three different but interrelated levels: commitment towards patients, within the case conference group, and towards society as a whole. (shrink)

Summary The article discusses the decline of Aristotelian physics at the University of Paris in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A course of physics remained essentially Aristotelian until the final decade of the seventeenth century, when it came under the influence of Descartes. But the history of physics teaching over this period cannot be properly appreciated if it is simply seen in terms of the replacement of one physical philosophy by another. Long before the 1690s, the traditional Aristotelianism of (...) the Schools had been forced to come to terms with the New Science to some degree, while the Cartesianism of the early eighteenth century was always alive to the challenges to Descartes's particular physical theories. Except in the early seventeenth century the physics course at Paris was always in a state of change. The replacement of Aristotelian by Cartesian physics too involved the development of a novel epistemology. Although both Aristotelian and Cartesian professors believed that natural philosophy was a science of causes based upon a priori principles, the latter had a far more probabilist conception of physics. (shrink)

The article traces the changes that occurred in the teaching of theoretical medicine at the University of Paris in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as the Faculty came under the influence of new medical ideas and discoveries. As a result it is essentially a study in the history of the transmission of ideas; the article illustrates how quickly and in what form these new ideas and discoveries became part of the common medical inheritance of one region of Europe. At (...) Paris, it is shown, the Faculty of Medicine was completely under the influence of the theories of Galen and Hippocrates at the beginning of the period, and rival ideas were greeted with hostility for much of the seventeenth century. By the early eighteenth century, however, the Faculty was completely abreast of contemporary developments and no longer wedded to a particular ‘school’. This change, it is emphasised, was associated with and closely influenced by, the growth of a more humble and discerning attitude among the Faculty's doctors with regards to the limits and the objectivity of their medical knowledge. The article is largely based on a hitherto unused source: the collection of abstracts of theses sustained in the period, to be found in the present-day Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine at Paris. (shrink)

Aristotelianism remained the dominant influence on the course of natural philosophy taught at the University of Paris until the 1690s, when it was swiftly replaced by Cartesianism. The change was not one wanted by church or state and it can only be understood by developments within the wider University. On the one hand, the opening of a new college, the Collège de Mazarin, provided an environment in which the mechanical philosophy could flourish. On the other, divisions within the French Catholic (...) Church between Austinians and Molinists led to Cartesianism finding support within an important section of the faculty of theology, which was the traditional guardian of philosophical orthodoxy. The conversion of the University of Paris to Cartesianism had important consequences. It encouraged similar changes to the natural philosophical curriculum throughout France and affected the structure and raison d'être of the Académie des Sciences. (shrink)

Perhaps the most pervasive conviction within the Western epistemological tradition is that in order for a belief to constitute knowledge it is necessary that it be epistemically justified: that the person in question have a reason or warrant which makes it at least highly likely that the belief is true. Historically, most epistemologists have distinguished two main sources from which such justification might arise. It has seemed obvious to all but a very few that many beliefs are justified by appeal (...) to one’s experience of the world. But it has seemed equally obvious to most that there are other beliefs, including many of the most important ones that we have, which are justified in a way which is entirely independent of any appeal to such experience, justified, as it is usually put, a priori, by reason or pure thought alone. (shrink)

Abstract:There is an inconsistency in the Apology between Socrates' claim to ignorance and his numerous knowledge claims. Scholars have attempted to dispel the inconsistency by weakening the claim to ignorance, the knowledge claims, or both. The author suggests a different tack. He argues that the inconsistency is intentional on Plato's part as a creative means of motivating for the conclusion that the life of inquiry—the examined life—is the best human life. Surprisingly, the claim that said life is best is not (...) a knowledge claim in any ordinary sense. Rather, the claim rests, for Plato, on the awareness of the absence of any worthwhile knowledge. In other words, the claim rests on the claim to ignorance. So too for any subsequent claims which, in turn, rest upon it. Why the claim to ignorance is not a claim like any other is the heart of the article. (shrink)

The distinction usually made between Western and non-Western philosophy is one that disguises a more relevant and informative distinction: that between non-modern and modern forms of philosophy. In this article, I argue for taking the latter distinction as primary. The main reason for doing so is that it relates more intimately to the actual contents and methodologies of the philosophies being distinguished. In particular, the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle have more in common with those of precolonial (i.e. non-modern) Africa (...) than they do with those of modern Europe. I argue this through the close analysis of a few central examples. Further, I show how the distinction between the non-modern and the modern, as well as our appreciation of it, both strengthens and is strengthened by an understanding of Plato’s praise for the life of inquiry as the best life for a human being. (shrink)

In my book In Defense of Pure Reason, I offer an extended defense of the idea of a priori justification and, more specifically, of a rationalist conception of such justification: one according to which rational insight or intuition provides genuine justification for claims that need not be merely definitional or tautological in character. In the relatively brief space available to me on the present occasion, I want to present and defend, necessarily in rather broad strokes, four of the most central (...) claims that are discussed at much greater length in that book. I will say the most about the first of these theses, somewhat less about the second and third, and only a very little about the fourth. (shrink)

I argue that while Fumerton’s criticisms of pure coherence theories of truth are both important and extremely cogent, their application both to the main historical views usually identified as coherence theories of truth, viz. the views of the absolute idealists, and to contemporary anti-realism is more problematic. In addition, while Fumerton is again undeniably correct in his objection to pure coherence theories of justification, an impure coherence theory of justification may still be defensible.

This chapter offers the preferred account of internalism and its basic rationale, contrasting it with the one adopted by C&F and then with the ones that Goldman suggests in these two papers. It discusses the supposed problems pertaining to logical and probabilistic relations and to epistemic principles, arguing that they have no real force and mostly result from misunderstandings of the internalist view. The chapter considers the only problem that seems to even initially troublesome, what Goldman refers to in Internalism (...) exposed (IE) as “the problem of forgotten evidence” and in “Internalism, Externalism, and the Architecture of Justification” as the problem of “preservative memory”, arguing both that there are adequate, albeit not entirely unproblematic internalist responses available; and also that one of the standard problems for externalism is especially conspicuous here, enough to prevent this problem from counting in favor of externalism to any serious degree. (shrink)

L’objet de cette contribution est de montrer comment le recours « aveugle » aux caractères et au formalisme transforme, pour Leibniz, l’exercice de l’attention. Plus précisément, il s’agira de montrer en s’appuyant sur divers opuscules que le formalisme permet à la fois d’épargner l’attention, de la concentrer, de l’élargir, de la séquencer et de la transformer en un exercice collectif.

Cette étude s’annonce dans le prélude (p. 9-17) comme une réflexion délibérément affranchie des critères historiques et des écoles doctrinales pour dégager d’une « constellation » d’images choisies les lignes-forces de la notion complexe (« contradictoire », préfère l’auteur) de ravissement, qui épouse à la fois les termes de la dépossession et de la possession, de l’extériorité et de l’intériorité, de l’actif et du passif, de l’absence et de la présence, de la perte de soi et de sa conquête....

Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy demonstrates that intelligence is ultimately at the behest of responsibility. He is one of a number of philosophers who made the paradigm shift from an individualized notion of self to a social conception of self. He used the language of his teachers, Husserl and Heidegger, to move beyond their philosophies to a fundamental paradigm shift, in which ethics is prior to epistemology.

This article explores the speed and form in which the mechanical philosophy was absorbed into the college curriculum in Louis XIV’s France. It argues that in general a mechanist approach to nature only began to be received sympathetically after 1690. It also emphasizes that it was the Cartesian not Gassendist form of the mechanical philosophy that professors espoused. While admitting that at present it is impossible to explain successfully the history of the reception of the mechanical philosophy in the classroom, (...) the article concludes by attempting to throw light on the French preference for Descartes. This, it is suggested, is linked to the relative familiarity of Cartesian mechanism, the way the philosophy was packaged, and the political and religious environment. (shrink)

(1995). Discoursing on method in the university world of Descartes's France 1 . British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 3-28.