A week-long, intensive introduction to philosophy during the summer. The program's content, methods, and results.

Perception is commonly regarded by philosophers as being the only basis of empirical knowledge. I challenge this assumption by investigating how we come to have beliefs about the emotional experiences of ourselves and others, and how we come to have beliefs about the emotional properties of inanimate objects, such as the belief that the church is somber. Before presenting my account of this type of belief formation, I argue that the observation that someone is in a particular emotional state, or (...) the observation that an inanimate object displays an emotional property, should not be subsumed under the rubric of perception. I argue that this subsumption oversimplifies the nature of such observations and leaves too many interesting and important philosophical questions unanswered. In addition to suggesting how these sorts of beliefs are formed, I argue that philosophers should endeavor to include them in their discussions of knowledge, and I examine how three contemporary accounts of knowledge can be expanded to accommodate such beliefs in the capacity of knowledge claims. (shrink)

In 'Knowing That One Knows', Roderick Chisholm suggests that perceptual experiences are the paradigmatic substrates of beliefs of the highest epistemic credibility about the experiences. But perceptual experiences are not the only experiences capable of justifying such higher-order beliefs. In this article I briefly examine the project of generalizing Chisholm's account of the justification of higher-order beliefs to include justification by emotional experience. In the course of doing this, I will argue that Chisholm's account is too closely tied to the (...) perceptual case to be so generalized, and I will briefly indicate some of what is involved in countenancing emotional experiences as epistemic justifiers. (shrink)

In 'Knowing That One Knows', Roderick Chisholm suggests that perceptual experiences are the paradigmatic substrates of beliefs of the highest epistemic credibility about the experiences. But perceptual experiences are not the only experiences capable of justifying such higher-order beliefs. In this article I briefly examine the project of generalizing Chisholm's account of the justification of higher-order beliefs to include justification by emotional experience. In the course of doing this, I will argue that Chisholm's account is too closely tied to the (...) perceptual case to be so generalized, and I will briefly indicate some of what is involved in countenancing emotional experiences as epistemic justifiers. (shrink)