The original Meno problem is to explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. In this paper I argue that evidentialists face an additional Meno problem, a Meno problem that, to date, no evidentialist has considered. Specifically, evidentialists must account for the additional epistemic value of a doxastically justified doxastic attitude as compared to a doxastic attitude that is merely propositionally justified. I consider the nature of the problem facing evidentialism and (...) critically discuss two attempts to account for this additional epistemic value. Then, I highlight the remaining options and present the alternative I favor. According to this alternative, while the nature of doxastic justification is analyzed in terms of propositional justification, the value of doxastic justification is not. Holding a doxastic attitude on the basis of propositionally justifying evidence is a fundamental epistemic good. In virtue of this, doxastically justified doxastic attitudes have fundamental epistemic value. (shrink)

The doxastic view (DV) of trust maintains that trust essentially involves belief. In a recent paper, Arnon Keren (Citation2020) gestures toward a new objection to the view, labeled Trust’s Meno Problem (TMP), which calls into question the DV’s ability to explain the widely held intuition that trust has distinct and indispensable value. As of yet, there has been no attempt to take up TMP on behalf of DV. This paper aims to fill precisely this lacuna. I do so (...) in three main stages. In §1 I contextualize and elucidate the problem, to which Keren gestures but does not address in detail. In §2 I disambiguate multiple possible interpretations of TMP, seeking to identify the most philosophically challenging. Finally, in §3, I argue that DV can solve even this interpretation. In order to do so, I make use ofthe highly plausible claim we find in the work of Katherine Hawley (Citation2012, 2019): that trust pays a compliment to the trustee. The payoffs of exploring the doxastic view in the context of Trust’s Meno Problem are twofold: we better understand the nature of the problem itself, and we see that the doxastic view can give a satisfying answer. (shrink)

I argue that Linda Zagzebski's proposed solution to the Meno Problem faces serious challenges. The Meno Problem, roughly, is how to explain the value that knowledge, as such, has over mere true belief. Her proposed solution is that believings—when thought of more like actions—can have value in virtue of their motivations. This meshes nicely with her theory that knowledge is, essentially, virtuously motivated true belief. Her solution fails because it entails that, necessarily, all knowledge is motivated (...) in a way that resembles the motivation of actions. Crucially, Zagzebski says the value derived from motivation comes from certain laudable feelings—like love of truth (she is explicit that love is a feeling). But there are possible cases of knowledge—probably some of which are actual—in which subjects do not or cannot experience these feelings. (shrink)

플라톤의 대화편 『메논』에서 제시되는 메논 문제는 지식이 단순하게 참인 믿음보다 더 가치 있는 이유가 무엇인지를 설명하는 문제이다. 이 문제에 대한 대답은, 지식이 단순하게 참인 믿음보다 더 가치가 있다는 플라톤의 결론을 받아들이는 비-교정주의와 그의 결론을 거부하는 교정주의로 나뉜다. 비-교정주의자인 티모시 윌리엄슨의 지식 이론에 의하면, 지식은 가장 보편적인 사실적 심적 상태이며 다른 인식론적으로 유관한 개념보다 더 근본적이다. 그리고 지식이 성립하기 위한 조건 역시 근본적이다. 즉 그는 지식 조건은 외재적 조건과 내재적 조건의 결합이라는 전통적인 생각을 거부한다. 이러한 지식 조건 근본성 논제로부터 지식은 단순하게 (...) 참인 믿음에 비해 장기간에 걸쳐 성공으로 이어질 개연성이 더 높으며 따라서 더 가치가 있는 이유가 설명된다. 그러나 윌리엄슨의 메논 문제 해결에 대해서 존 하이먼은 윌리엄슨의 메논 문제 해결이 만족스럽지 않은 몇 가지 이유를 제시한다. 본고는 하이먼의 비판을 중심으로 지식 조건 근본성 논제가 지닌 한계와 통찰을 논의할 것이다. 나는 하이먼의 비판에 대한 재반박을 제시함으로써 윌리엄슨의 지식 이론이 지닌 의미를 명료화하고자 한다. 그럼으로써 메논 문제가 오늘날 우리에게 어떤 의의를 가지는지를 모색할 것이다. (shrink)

I give an interpretation according to which Meno’s paradox is an epistemic regress problem. The paradox is an argument for skepticism assuming that (1) acquired knowledge about an object X requires prior knowledge about what X is and (2) any knowledge must be acquired. (1) is a principle about having reasons for knowledge and about the epistemic priority of knowledge about what X is. (1) and (2) jointly imply a regress-generating principle which implies that knowledge always requires an (...) infinite sequence of known reasons. Plato’s response to the problem is to accept (1) but reject (2): some knowledge is innate. He argues from this to the conclusion that the soul is immortal. This argument can be understood as a response to an Eleatic problem about the possibility of coming into being that turns on a regress-generating causal principle analogous to the regress-generating principle presupposed by Meno’s paradox. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to argue for the claim that the two problems of geometry presented in the Meno seems to be connected to each other, and secondly, to offer, in connection with the first claim, a conjecture concerning the nature of the second problem of geometry brought up in the dialogue at 86e. This paper offers, in particular, a historical reconstruction of how we should understand this problem of construction in geometry.

The aim of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to argue for the claim that the two problems of geometry presented in the Meno seem to be connected to each other, and secondly, to offer, in connection with the first claim, a conjecture concerning the nature of the second problem of geometry brought up in the dialogue at 86e. This paper offers, in particular, a historical reconstruction of how we should understand this problem of construction in geometry.

This paper addresses various solutions to Meno's Problem: Why is it that knowledge is more valuable than merely true belief? Given both a pragmatist as well as a veritist understanding of epistemic value, it is argued that a reliabilist analysis of knowledge, in general, promises a hopeful strategy to explain the extra value of knowledge. It is, however, shown that two recent attempts to solve Meno's Problem within reliabilism are severely flawed: Olsson's conditional probability solution and (...) Goldman's value autonomization solution. The paper proceeds with a discussion of the purpose of having a higher value of knowledge as opposed to merely true belief, both in evolutionary and social terms. It claims that under a reliabilist analysis of knowledge it can be explained how knowers could evolve rather than just truthful believers. Subsequently, the paper develops an account of how we can manipulate our testimonial environment in an epistemically beneficial way by valuing reliably produced true belief more that just true belief and so gives an indirect justification of the extra value of knowledge. (shrink)

The measurement of diagnostic accuracy is an important aspect of the evaluation of diagnostic tests. Sometimes, medical researchers try to discover the set of observations that are most accurate of all by directly inspecting diseased and not-diseased patients. This method is perhaps intuitively appealing, as it seems a straightforward empirical way of discovering how to identify diseased patients, which amounts to trying to correlate the results of diagnostic tests with disease status. I present three examples of researchers who try to (...) produce definitive diagnostic criteria by directly inspecting diseased and not diseased patients. Despite this method’s intuitive appeal, I will argue that it is impossible to carry out. Before researchers can inspect these patients to discover definitive diagnostic criteria, they must be able to distinguish diseased and not-diseased patients; and they do not know how to do this, because this is what they are trying to discover. I suspect the intuitive appeal of directly inspecting patients makes this difficult to appreciate. To counter this difficulty, I present this problem as a manifestation of ‘Meno’s paradox’, which was described in classical antiquity, and of ‘the problem of nomic measurement’, described more recently. Considering these philosophical problems may help researchers address the methodological issues they face when evaluating diagnostic tests. (shrink)

Scholars ubiquitously refer to the method εξ υποθεσεως, introduced at Meno 86e1-87d8, as a method of hypothesis. In contrast, this paper argues that the method εξ υποθεσεως in Meno is not a hypothetical method. On the contrary, in the Meno passage, υποθεσις means “postulate”, that is, cognitively secure proposition. Furthermore, the method εξ υποθεσεως is derived from the method of geometrical analysis. More precisely, it is derived from the use of geometrical analysis to achieve reduction, that is, (...) reduction of a less tractable problem to a more tractable problem. As such, the method εξ υποθεσεως does not by itself serve to solve problems. (shrink)

In most of the Socratic dialogues, Socrates professes to inquire into some virtue. At the same time, he professes not to know what the virtue in question is. How, then, can he inquire into it? Doesn't he need some knowledge to guide his inquiry? Socrates' disclaimer of knowledge seems to preclude Socratic inquiry. This difficulty must confront any reader of the Socratic dialogues; but one searches them in vain for any explicit statement of the problem or for any explicit (...) solution to it. The Meno, by contrast, both raises it explicitly and proposes a solution. (shrink)

This thesis will argue that Plato's influential philosophical puzzle known as the Meno Paradox and the related Problem of False Belief are a more serious threat to Plato's philosophical programme than many interpreters recognize. Furthermore, Plato's most obvious candidate for a solution to these problems, the Theory of Recollection, is not sufficient to explain how the Paradox misunderstands the epistemic processes of learning which it treats. ;This failure of Plato's account motivates a close consideration of Aristotle's sophisticated attempt (...) to resolve the difficulties Plato raises. I will argue that a proper understanding of Aristotle's philosophy of mind and the forms of cognition through which he thinks humans progress yields the key to a powerful and heretofore unrecognized Aristotelian solution to the Meno Paradox and the Problem of False Belief. (shrink)

In [1] Michael Polanyi argues that in order to understand how scientists come to recognize problems as problems, we must invoke a concept of “tacit knowing.” Tacit knowledge is a kind of knowledge of which we are aware but which cannot be made explicit. Polanyi argues that a paradox discussed in the Meno cannot be solved without appeal to this notion of tacit knowledge. Here I want to argue, quite simply, that Polanyi's formulation of the “paradox” can be easily (...) subverted without an appeal to tacit knowing. Polanyi puts the paradox thus:... to search for the solution of a problem is an absurdity; for either you know what you are looking for, and then there is no problem; or you do not know what you are looking for, and then you cannot expect to find anything. (shrink)

resumo: Há uma solidariedade entre o estilo do L'Individuation à la Lumière des Notions de Forme et d'Information e os princípios teóricos que a obra toma como ponto de partida para sua investigação dos diversos processos de individuação. Essa solidariedade torna o estilo da obra um programa filosófico que responde a demandas precisas quanto ao papel das ciências da natureza, das ciências humanas e da técnica, sua classificação, sua história e sua consistência teórica, demandas que pretendemos especificar no artigo. Ao (...) mesmo tempo esse programa de Simondon requer que o autor recolha os princípios teóricos de sua análise em um corpo teórico cujas linhas gerais desenham a fisonomia de toda uma filosofia, de caráter peculiar. É isso o que justifica, e até mesmo exige, que Simondon tome por objeto o problema da individuação nos termos em que o faz, e que possa apresentar essa aproximação do problema como uma crítica cujo valor é ele mesmo filosófico: uma resposta peculiar ao positivismo, ao pragmatismo, ao estruturalismo e, sobretudo, às formas de compreensão das ciências e das técnicas que era hegemônica no final dos anos 50, no ambiente intelectual francês. abstract: There is a strict allegiance between the style present in L'Individuation à la Lumière des Notions de Forme et d'Information and the theoretical principles by which this work inquires the diverse individuation processes. That allegiance makes this style a whole investigation program on the role of natural sciences, humanities and technology in general, their classification, history and theoretical nature. The clauses of that investigation will be shown in its general lines by the paper itself. But the point is that, at the same time, this investigation program requires the specific theoretical principles adopted by Simondon in this work as a theory and in its development as a complete philosophy. Indeed this is the reason why Simondon takes the problem about individuation processes as the focus of his discussions. Such discussions offer a critique whose value is itself philosophical. That strategy results in a peculiar response to positivism, pragmatism, structuralism and the hegemonic way of thinking about sciences and techniques in the French fifties. (shrink)

This paper examines the second geometrical problem in the Meno. Its purpose is to explore the implication of Cook Wilson’s interpretation, which has been most widely accepted by scholars, in relation to the nature of hypothesis. I argue that (a) the geometrical hypothesis in question is a tentative answer to a more basic problem, which could not be solved by available methods at that time, and that (b) despite the temporary nature of a hypothesis, there is a (...) rational process for formulating it. The paper also contains discussion of the method of analysis, problem reduction and a diorism, which have often been ambiguously explained in relation to the geometrical problem in question. (shrink)

The current situation in which the humanities are disparaged affects all university disciplines, including nursing, in whose historical evolution the humanities have always been present in one form or another. Looking beyond this disrepute, this study proposes that nursing renew its attention to classical philosophy. Specifically, it invites a close reading of Xenophon's Anabasis and Plato's Meno, to get three related goals: to show how the use of ancient texts are very valuable tools for the philosophical initiation of nursing (...) students and can help them reflect on their choice of nursing as a practical activity; to reflect on the problem of virtue and the nature of the good life; and to show how the interaction with ancient texts allows students to reflect on questions and issues of life, theirs and others, that are not open to investigation through a purely scientific method. Consequently, both Anabasis and Meno readings strengthen the intellectual relationship between philosophy and nursing, enabling the latter to delve deeper into the key questions of its own thought as a discipline. (shrink)

I focus on the distinction between universal and particular knowledge or knowledge simpliciter in APr 2.21 and APo 1.1 as Aristotle’s explicit response to the paradox of the Meno. I attempt to derive a picture of Aristotle’s understanding of the philosophical problem underlying that paradox by asking what that problem would have to be in order for this distinction to make sense as a response to it. I consider two ways of taking the distinction, and argue that (...) both point towards a problem about deriving knowledge of particulars from knowledge of universals as the fundamental problem underlying Aristotle’s understanding of the Meno paradox. (shrink)

The following article provides an interpretation of the structure of courage in Plato’s Laches, Meno and Protagoras. I argue that these dialogues present courage (ἀνδρεία) in the soul according to the same scheme: that there is a normatively neutral psychic state which is informed by the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) which informs this normatively neutral psychic state is called practical wisdom (which Plato refers to as φρόνησις or sometimes σοφία). This interpretation seems to negate the (...) claim that virtue is knowledge. I will show, however, that this is not a contradiction and that virtue is in fact knowledge, despite the complex moral psychology of courage. Finally, I will argue that the conception of courage in the Republic addresses some of the problems posed by the discussion of courage in the above-mentioned dialogues. (shrink)

Philosophy is a discipline characterized throughout its history by certain problems that seem to resist solution. How one is to begin a philosophical inquiry is one such problem. I examine this problem as it arises in Plato's Meno and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. My thesis is that this problem, which suggests that there is no way to proceed, conceals within itself its own solution. There is no way to proceed because this problem marks the site (...) where philosophical inquiry is to flourish. I call this flourishing activity dialectics. ;In my exposition of Plato's Meno I endeavor to show that when read within the context of the dialogue Meno's presentation of the problem of inquiry, which means to stifle all inquiry, really is nothing more than a recollection of what Meno has just experienced. Not knowing that the true end of the discussion has been to reveal to Meno the nature of his own ignorance, Meno is unable to recognize this end when he comes to it. A philosophical inquiry is prevented from proceeding because its true task is to recollect what first remains concealed as the unfounded assumptions from which it begins. In this dissertation I attempt to elucidate such an understanding of inquiry. ;With my exposition of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit I observe that we readers begin with an unexplained and unexamined ability to attend to the dialectic of natural consciousness. I then attempt to explain why this need not beg questions about how one is to begin a philosophical inquiry. I contend that the true task of a philosophical inquiry is not to grasp the truth but to comprehend those truths that we already possess. Thus our task as readers is to comprehend this dialectic which guides our reading. My thesis is that the Phenomenology of Spirit is about the reader. It is our experience as readers along the path of the exposition that is recollected with the presentation of each natural consciousness in turn. The exposition comes to an end when we are able to recollect in Absolute Knowing the entire course of our own knowing. (shrink)

Since the appearance of Dodds's edition of Gorgias a number of the dialogues in tetr. I-VII have benefited from a re-examination of the evidence for the Platonic text—most notably Meno, tetr. IV, Parmenides, and Phaedrus. Recently the textual tradition of Phaedo has been studied by A. Carlini in a useful book which traces the fortunes of the text from antiquity until the time of the major manuscripts. The evidence thus accumulated goes some way to lessening a problem which (...) has long been obvious—the difficulty of studying the tradition of any single dialogue in isolation from the rest of the Platonic corpus. I propose to argue, however, that the bulk of evidence now available for several dialogues should not blind us to another hazard—that of attempting to fit dialogues showing different textual features into what is basically a single stemmatic pattern. (shrink)

The Meno problem, asking for the surplus value of knowledge beyond the value of true justified belief, was recently much treated within reliabilist and virtue epistemologies. The answers from formal epistemology, by contrast, are quite poor. This paper attempts to improve the score of formal epistemology by precisely explicating Timothy Williamson's suggestion that ‘present knowledge is less vulnerable than mere present true belief to rational undermining by future evidence’. It does so by combining Nozick's sensitivity analysis of knowledge (...) with Spohn's fact‐asserting epistemic interpretation of conditionals. Accordingly, the surplus value of knowledge lies in a specific kind of stability of knowledge, which differs, though, from that claimed by other so‐called stability analyses of knowledge. (shrink)

The paradox in Inquiry in Plato's Meno raises the fundamental epistemological problem of how one can come to know the basic and primary criteria of philosophical reasoning. Two key tenets of the Socratic search for definitions underlie the paradox. First, Socrates argues in both the Euthyphro and Hippias Major, that knowledge of particular instances of a given Form presupposes knowledge of the universal Form. Secondly, Socrates insists in the Meno that knowledge of essence logically preceeds knowledge of (...) a Form's other properties. Taken together, these two principles entail that one cannot gain knowledge of essence either by inductive or by deductive reasoning. Thus when Socrates seeks to determine the correct definition of the essence of virtue, he faces the apparently insuperable problem of having no rational method for establishing the proper definition. The paradox of inquiry states in effect that Socratic elenchus is absurd because it posits an essence both as the goal and the necessary starting point of rational argumentation. ;It is in the face of this serious skeptical dilemma that Plato articulates a profoundly original conception of reasoning. According to Plato, the solution to the paradox is that reasoning toward a definition of essences involves raising to explicit consciousness one's implicit knowledge of the very essence being sought. The description of this process as a recalling of knowledge actually acquired in an earlier life is intended only as a metaphor: it illuminates the process of bringing to full awareness what one already implicitly knows. Both the problem and the solution presented in the Meno exhibit the characteristic Platonic interrelationship of metaphysicis and epistemology. When Socrates asks for a definition of virtue in the Meno, he means to uncover the nature of a Form which exists separately from its examples. Socratic definition is neither a form of conceptual analysis nor an analysis of immanent characteristics in particulars. The failure of many commentators to appreciate the recollection theory often derives from a failure to comprehend these metaphysical dimensions of Plato's solution. (shrink)

_Abstract_: Here, I examine the main philosophical solutions to the mind-body problem distinguishing between “historicist” solutions that (more or less clearly) separate philosophy from science and solutions that instead result from a double “cognitive turn”, and see “continuity” between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. The “historicist” solutions include ontological dualism (together with “skepticism” and “new mysterianism”), epistemological dualism, subjective idealism, and absolute idealism. In this group, transcendental idealism, phenomenology, and neutral monism are the solutions most open to (...) a dialogue between philosophy and science. The “naturalistic” solutions can be divided into four groups: (1) behaviorism (psychological, logical, philosophical-analytical behaviorism); (2) materialism (identity theory, physicalism); (3) “weak naturalism” (functionalism, anomalous monism, “biological naturalism”, liberal naturalism, emergentism); (4) “strong naturalism” (“cognitive neo-evolutionism”, eliminativism). These offer a physicalist-eliminative solution to the mind-body problem (here called “soft physicalistic eliminativism”) that allows for more continuity between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. _Keywords_: Mind/Body-Problem; Cognitive Science; Cognitive Turn; Naturalism; Eliminativism _Il problema mente-corpo in filosofia e le scienze cognitive___ _Riassunto_: Vengono esaminate le principali soluzioni filosofiche al problema mente-corpo al fine di distinguere le soluzioni di origine storicistica che separano (più o meno chiaramente) filosofia e scienza da quelle che invece, nate da una duplice “svolta cognitiva”, favoriscono la “continuità” tra filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive. Le soluzioni del primo gruppo sono anzitutto il dualismo ontologico (insieme allo “scetticismo” e al “neo-misterianismo”), il dualismo epistemologico, l’idealismo soggettivo e l’idealismo assoluto. L’idealismo trascendentale, la fenomenologia e il monismo neutrale sono invece soluzioni più aperte al dialogo tra filosofia e scienza. Le soluzioni del secondo gruppo, quelle “naturalistiche”, vengono suddivise in quattro grandi gruppi: (1) il comportamentismo (psicologico, logico e filosofico-analitico); (2) il materialismo (teoria dell’identità e fisicalismo); (3) il “naturalismo debole” (funzionalismo, monismo anomalo, “naturalismo biologico”, naturalismo liberalizzato e emergentismo); (4) il “naturalismo forte” (“neo-evoluzionismo cognitivo” ed eliminativismo). In conclusion, una soluzione di tipo fisicalistico-eliminativo (qui chiamata “eliminativismo fisicalistico moderato”) al problema mente-corpo è quella che più di altre favorisce la continuità tra filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive. _Parole chiave_: Problema mente/corpo; Scienza cognitiva; Svolta cognitiva; Naturalismo; Eliminativismo. (shrink)

Socratic cross-examination is used for a number of purposes in Plato's early dialogues; among the most important is inquiry. However, it is difficult to see how a method for rendering one's belief-set coherent is likely to move one closer to knowledge of a mind-independent reality. The Theory of Recollection is introduced in the 'Meno' to explain why successful moral inquiry by means of Socratic cross-examination is probable at least in the long run.

The Swamping Problem is one of the central problems in the new valuedriven approach to epistemology that has arisen recently. Issues concerning epistemic value, however, are not new. We can find them first in Plato’s dialogue Meno, where Socrates and Meno have a discussion about what type of guide one should prefer if one wants to get to Larissa. The first suggestion is that one should want a guide who knows the way, but Socrates notes that a (...) guide with true opinions will work just as well. Meno’s response to Socrates’ objection raises precisely the correct worries: he wonders about the nature of knowledge (whether it differs from true opinion) and about the value of knowledge (why we prize it over true opinion). The point of view of value-driven epistemology is that a myopic focus on the former question is a mistake and that questions about the value of knowledge and other epistemic phenomena are important in their own right and can help evaluate the adequacy of proposals concerning the nature of knowledge and other epistemic phenomena. (shrink)

Joel Feinberg : In Memoriam. Preface. Part I: INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY. 1. Joel Feinberg: A Logic Lesson. 2. Plato: "Apology." 3. Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy. PART II: REASON AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 1. The Existence and Nature of God. 1.1 Anselm of Canterbury: The Ontological Argument, from Proslogion. 1.2 Gaunilo of Marmoutiers: On Behalf of the Fool. 1.3 L. Rowe: The Ontological Argument. 1.4 Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Five Ways, from Summa Theologica. 1.5 Samuel (...) Clarke: A Modern Formulation of the Cosmological Argument. 1.6 William L. Rowe: The Cosmological Argument. 1.7 William Paley: The Argument from Design. 1.8 Michael Ruse: The Design Argument. 1.9 David Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. 2. The Problem of Evil. 2.1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Rebellion. 2.2 J. L. Mackie: Evil and Omnipotence. 2.3 Peter van Inwagen: The Argument from Evil. 2.4 Michael Murray and Michael Rea: The Argument from Evil. 2.5 B. C. Johnson: God and the Problem of Evil. 3. Reason and Faith. 3.1 W. K. Clifford: The Ethics of Belief. 3.2 William James: The Will to Believe. 3.3 Kelly James Clark: Without Evidence or Argument. 3.4 Blaise Pascal: The Wager. 3.5 Lawrence Shapiro: Miracles and Justification. 3.6 Simon Blackburn: Infini-Rien. Part III. HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: ITS GROUNDS AND LIMITS. 1. Skepticism. 1.1 John Pollock: A Brain in a Vat. 1.2 Michael Huemer: Three Skeptical Arguments. 1.3 Robert Audi: Skepticism. 2. The Nature and Value of Knowledge. 2.1 Plato: Knowledge as Justified True Belief. 2.2 Edmund Gettier: Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? 2.3 James Cornman, Keith Lehrer, and George Pappas: An Analysis of Knowledge. 2.4 Gilbert Ryle: Knowing How and Knowing That. 2.5 Plato: "Meno". 2.6 Linda Zagzebski, Epistemic Good and The Good Life. 3. Our Knowledge of the External World. 3.1 Bertrand Russell: Appearance and Reality and the Existence of Matter. 3.2 René Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy. 3.3 John Locke: The Causal Theory of Perception. 3.4 George Berkeley: Of the Principles of Human Knowledge. 3.5 G. E. Moore: Proof of an External World. 4. The Methods of Science. 4.1 David Hume: An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 4.2 Wesley C. Salmon: An Encounter with David Hume. 4.3 Karl Popper: Science: Conjectures and Refutations. 4.4 Philip Kitcher: Believing Where We Cannot Prove. Part IV: MIND AND ITS PLACE IN NATURE. 1. The Mind-Body Problem. 1.1 Brie Gertler: In Defense of Mind--Body Dualism. 1.2 Frank Jackson: The Qualia Problem. 1.3 David Papineau: The Case for Materialism. 1.4 Paul Churchland: Functionalism and Eliminative Materialism. 2. Can Non-Humans Think? 2.1 Alan Turing: Computing Machinery and Intelligence. 2.2 John R. Searle: Minds, Brains, and Programs. 2.3 William G. Lycan: Robots and Minds. 3. Personal Identity and the Survival of Death. 3.1 John Locke: The Prince and the Cobbler. 3.2 Thomas Reid: Of Mr. Locke’s Account of Our Personal Identity. 3.3 David Hume: The Self. 3.4 Derek Parfit: Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons. 3.5 Shelly Kagan: What Matters. 3.6 John Perry: A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. Part V: DETERMINISM, FREE WILL, AND RESPONSIBILITY. 1. Libertarianism: The Case for Free Will and Its Incompatibility with Determinism. 1.1 Roderick M. Chisholm: Human Freedom and the Self. 1.2 Robert Kane: Free Will: Ancient Dispute, New Themes. 2. Hard Determinism: The Case for Determinism and its Incompatibility with Its Incompatibility with Any Important Sense of Free Will. 2.1 James Rachels: The case against Free Will. 2.2 Derk Pereboom: Why We Have No Free Will and Can Live Without It. 3. Compatibilism: The Case for Determinism and Its Compatibility with the Most Important Sense of Free Will. 3.1 David Hume: Of Liberty and Necessity. 3.2 Helen Beebee: Compatibilism and the Ability to do Otherwise. 4. Freedom and Moral Responsibility. 4.1 Galen Strawson: Luck Swallows Everything. 4.2 Harry Frankfurt: Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility. 4.3 Thomas Nagel: Moral Luck. 4.4 Susan Wolf: Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility. Part VI: MORALITY AND ITS CRITICS. 1. Changes to Morality. 1.1 Joel Feinberg: Psychological Egoism. 1.2 Plato: The Immoralist’s Challenge. 1.3 Friedrich Nietzche: Master and Slave Morality. 1.4 Richard Joyce: The Evolutionary Debunking of Morality. 2. Proposed Standards and Right of Conduct. 2.1 Russ Shafer-Landau: Ethical Subjectivism. 2.2 Mary Midgley: Trying Out One’s New Sword. 2.3 Aristotle: Virtue and the Good Life. 2.4 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. 2.5 Plato: Euthyphro. 2.6 Immanuel Kant: The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative. 2.7 J.S. Mill: Utilitarianism, Chapters 2 and 4. 2.8 W. D. Ross: What Makes Right Acts Right? 2.9 Hilde Lindemann: What Is Feminist Ethics? 3. Ethical Problems. 3.1 Kwame Anthony Appiah: What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For? 3.2 Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence and Morality. 3.3 John Harris: The Survival Lottery. 3.4 James Rachels: Active and Passive Euthanasia. 3.5 Mary Anne Warren: The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. 3.6 Don Marquis: Why Abortion Is Immoral. 4. The Meaning of Life. 4.1 Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus. 4.2 Richard Taylor: The Meaning of Life. 4.3 Richard Kraut: Desire and the Human Good. 4.4 Leo Tolstoy: My Confession. 4.5 Susan Wolf: Happiness and Meaning. 4.6 Thomas Nagel: The Absurd. (shrink)

A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry: Problems and Their Progress presents a distinctive re-interpretation of Popper's 'critical rationalism', displaying the kind of spirit found at the L.S.E. before Popper's retirement. It offers an alternative to interpretations of critical rationalism which have emphasised the significance of research programmes or metaphysics (Lakatos; Nicholas Maxwell), and is closer to the approach of Jagdish Hattiangadi. Briskman gives priority to methodological argument rather than logical formalisms, and takes further his own work on creativity. In addition (...) to offering an important contribution to the understanding of critical rationalism, the book contains interesting engagements with Michael Polanyi and the Meno Paradox. This volume also contains an introduction by the editor, which situates Briskman's work in the history of the interpretation of 'critical rationalism'. (shrink)

: This paper focuses on cases of epistemically transformative experiences, as Paul calls them, cases where we have radically different experiences that teach us something we would not have learned otherwise. Paul raises the new and rather intriguing question of whether epistemic transformative experiences pose a general problem for the very possibility of rational decision-making. It is argued that there is an important grain of truth in Paul’s set up and solution when it is applied to a certain narrowly (...) defined set of cases – choices to have a new taste experience in a safe environment, where no important objective values are at stake. But the way she generalizes this approach to large-scale life choices, such as the choice to become a parent, is less convincing. Furthermore, given a proper understanding of revelatory value, there is no need to reconfigure the agent’s choice situation in order to enable rational decision-making. Keywords: Transformative Experience; Rational Decision-Making; Revelatory Value; Subjective Value La riconfigurazione dei problemi decisionali nell’ottica di Transformative Experiences di L.A. Paul Riassunto: Questo lavoro si concentra sui casi di esperienze epistemicamente trasformative, come le definisce Paul, casi in cui abbiamo esperienze radicalmente differenti che ci insegnano qualcosa che non avremmo appreso diversamente. Paul solleva una questione nuova e alquanto intrigante, ossia se le esperienze epistemicamente trasformative pongano un problema generale per l’effettiva possibilità della decisione razionale. Si sosterrà come vi sia un importante elemento di verità nella posizione e nella soluzione di Paul, se riferite a un ristretto numero di casi – la scelta di provare una nuova esperienza in un ambiente sicuro, dove non sono in gioco valori oggettivamente importanti. E, tuttavia, il modo in cui Paul generalizza questo approccio investendo un vasto ambito di scelte di vita, quali la scelta di diventare genitore, è meno convincente. Inoltre, data un’adeguata comprensione di valori rivelativi, non c’è bisogno di riconfigurare il contesto di scelta dell’agente per attivare un processo decisionale razionale. Parole chiave: Esperienza trasformativa; Decisione razionale; Valore rivelativo; Valore soggettivo. (shrink)

In chapters on the Gorgias and the Meno in his 1997 From Plato to Postmodernism, James Kasterly argues that an important point made in the Gorgias is that Socrates fails to persuade Callicles. Its lesson is that philosophers will never succeed in persuading nonphilosophers if they rely on dialectic, with its premises grounded in epistemology, and in the Meno, he finds a type of dialectic that functions rhetorically. In this new book, The Rhetoric of Plato's "Republic": Democracy and (...) the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion, Kastely builds on his earlier work. He reads the Republic as Plato's effort to address the implicit challenge posed by Socrates' defeat in the Gorgias. Plato's purpose in the... (shrink)

_A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry: Problems and Their Progress_ presents a striking re-interpretation of Popper’s ‘critical rationalism’. Briskman stresses methodological argument rather than metaphysics, develops a ‘Popperian’ response to the Meno Paradox, and takes further Briskman’s approach to problems concerning creativity.

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop and defend a method of elimination for determining justifiable basic normative ethical principles. The method is developed by considering Books I and X of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Plato's Meno. The method requires consideration on two different "levels." Aristotle and Plato use regulative endoxic premises as the evaluative criteria of the method. Such premises, which ideally are based upon universal agreement, guide an inquiry of our sort, i.e., determine the elimination or (...) nonelimination of the alternatives. Concerning the second "level," an adequate list of alternative possible solutions should be presented, and some principle or technique should be provided for determining such an adequate list. On the basis of the above premises, alternatives are evaluated in such a way that lack of accordance with any one of the relevant premises--assuming that there is more than one--is sufficient for the elimination of an alternative. The only alternative that is not eliminated by any of the premises provides the solution to the problem. The Aristotle chapter shows how regulative endoxic premises can be used, in an "ideal" sense, for choosing between two or more alternatives that generally accord with the premises. ;Our discussion of Aristotle and Plato shows that they do use this method and illustrates, in some detail, both how the method is used and specific variations of it. Our philosophers use different principles or techniques for determining the plausible alternatives. Aristotle chooses alternatives which are endoxic opinions. Plato uses the opinions of interlocutors, which are often endoxic, but he basically relies on a type of shared or cooperative rational inquiry to determine increasingly more adequate opinions, and, consequently, the plausible opinions that ought to be considered. On this "level," we attempt to show that the Platonic technique is more adequate than the Aristotelian procedure. ;Probably the most controversial feature of our method is the employment of regulative endoxic premises. Our final chapter is concerned with further clarification and defense of these premises. We attempt to show that regulative endoxic premises are different from and more adequate than the more objectionable opinions called conventionally moral opinions. We, then, attempt to provide a justifiable account of the differential value, in our method, in the evidential force of regulative endoxic premises and substantive endoxic opinions, and attempt to determine how adequate regulative endoxic premises relative to a specific inquiry can be identified. We argue that these premises provide the conditions necessary for the possibility of successful inquiry within, what I call, the ordinary ethical standpoint, and that the basic presupposition of this standpoint is an acceptable assumption. ;Two alternatives to our position concerning the defense of regulative endoxic premises are considered: They are intuitively self-evident. They are analytic truths based upon an appeal to ordinary usage. is readily seen to be objectionable. is, apparently, the position of Hare. We argue that Hare's position, which maintains that the probative force of regulative endoxic premises is based upon their analytic nature, is quite debatable, and does not, therefore, provide a viable alternative to our position. We also object to Hare's view of his regulative endoxa, viz., universalizability and prescriptivity. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to state a version of epistemic expressivism regarding knowledge, and to suggest how this expressivism about knowledge explains the value of knowledge. The paper considers how an account of the value of knowledge based on expressivism about knowledge responds to the Meno Problem, the Swamping Problem, and a variety of other questions that pertains to the value of knowledge, and the role of knowledge in our cognitive ecology.

Those in the Gricean tradition take it that successful human communication features an audience who not only arrives at the intended content of the signal, but also recognizes the speaker’s intention that they do so. Some in this tradition have also argued that there are yet further conditions on communicative success, which rule out the possibility of communicating by luck. Supposing that both intention-recognition and some sort of anti-luck condition are correctly included in an analysis of human communication, this article (...) asks what the value of events satisfying these conditions is. I present a puzzle concerning the value of intention-recognition which is analogous to the Meno Problem in epistemology, but ultimately argue that this puzzle is solveable: the signaling-relevant value of intention recognition can be vindicated. However, I argue that the version of this puzzle that concerns the further proposed luck-proofing conditions on communication can not be answered. I argue therefore that communication, as analyzed by many, is no more valuable qua signal than a proper subset of its conditions. Human communication is thennot a uniquely valuable signaling event. (shrink)

Názor, že poznanie je hodnotné, tvorí kľúčový predpoklad epistemológie. Vo svojej klasickej podobe je vyjadrený komparatívnou tézou, že poznanie je hodnotnejšie než pravdivá mienka. Rôzne teoretické pokusy o vysvetlenie hodnoty poznania však doteraz neboli definitívne úspešné. Môže za to najmä tzv. problém pohltenia, v dôsledku ktorého akýkoľvek konštituent poznania nad rámec pravdivej mienky nemôže byť zdrojom hodnoty poznania. Časť autorov preto obracia pozornosť k fenoménu porozumenia, ktoré označujú za primárnu epistemickú hodnotu, pričom skúmanie hodnoty poznania odsúvajú do úzadia. V tejto (...) situácii spočíva možné riešenie problému hodnoty poznania v odmietnutí predpokladu, že vysvetlenie hodnoty poznania musí byť univerzálne. Tým sa otvára priestor pre pluralistické koncepcie, ktoré rozličným poznatkom pripisujú odlišné druhy hodnôt. (shrink)

Názor, že poznanie je hodnotné, tvorí kľúčový predpoklad epistemológie. Vo svojej klasickej podobe je vyjadrený komparatívnou tézou, že poznanie je hodnotnejšie než pravdivá mienka. Rôzne teoretické pokusy o vysvetlenie hodnoty poznania však doteraz neboli definitívne úspešné. Môže za to najmä tzv. problém pohltenia, v dôsledku ktorého akýkoľvek konštituent poznania nad rámec pravdivej mienky nemôže byť zdrojom hodnoty poznania. Časť autorov preto obracia pozornosť k fenoménu porozumenia, ktoré označujú za primárnu epistemickú hodnotu, pričom skúmanie hodnoty poznania odsúvajú do úzadia. V tejto (...) situácii spočíva možné riešenie problému hodnoty poznania v odmietnutí predpokladu, že vysvetlenie hodnoty poznania musí byť univerzálne. Tým sa otvára priestor pre pluralistické koncepcie, ktoré rozličným poznatkom pripisujú odlišné druhy hodnôt. (shrink)