In his paper on transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl, which refers mainly to the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Schutz (1966a) marks out four stages in Husserl's argument and finds what are for him insurmountable problems in each stage. These stages are: (1) isolation of the primordial world of one's peculiar ownness by means of a further epoche; (2) apperception of the other via pairing; (3) constitution of objective, intersubjective Nature; (4) constitution of higher forms of community. Because of the problems Schutz encounters (...) in each of these stages, he concludes that Husserl's theory is unacceptable (Schutz, 1966a, p.82). Having already proved that it is unacceptable, he now explains why these problems arise in Husserl's theory. Intersubjectivity, says Schutz, is "a datum of the life-world," (1966a, p.82) not a transcendental problem. In other words, intersubjectivity must be dealt with as a problem of the life-world of the natural attitude, not a "problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere." (Schutz, 1966a, p.82). There is no such thing as transcendental intersubjectivity, if by that is meant intersubjectivity of a plurality of transcendental egos. The role of transcendental phenomenology in the problem of intersubjectivity is to explicate within the transcendental reduction the sense: "intersubjectivity in the life-world." Husserl was diverted from this proper role of phenomenology--in his words, to "explicate the sense which this world has for us prior to all philosophy" (trans. and quoted by Schutz from "Cartesianische Meditationen, para. 62, in fine," in Schutz, 1966a, p.82)--because of the unobtrusive transformation of sense of his concept of constitution from that of explication and clarification to "creation," in the sense of providing an ontology of the lifeworld. The fact that phenomenology is in principle incapable of doing this lies behind the failure of Husserl's theory of intersubjectivity (Schutz, 1966a, pp.83-84). Unlike Schutz, I will deal with this general issue explicitly in the context of the stages in Husserl's argument and Schutz's objections. It seems to me that Husserl does remain within the sphere of clarification of sense, but to do explication and clarification of certain "senses" results inevitably in doing a kind of ontology. (shrink)

Alan C. LoveDarwinian calisthenicsAn athlete engages in calisthenics as part of basic training and as a preliminary to more advanced or intense activity. Whether it is stretching, lunges, crunches, or push-ups, routine calisthenics provide a baseline of strength and flexibility that prevent a variety of injuries that might otherwise be incurred. Peter Bowler has spent 40 years doing Darwinian calisthenics, researching and writing on the development of evolutionary ideas with special attention to Darwin and subsequent filiations among scientists exploring (...) evolution . Therefore, we would expect that when Bowler engages in a counterfactual history—imagining a world without Darwin—he is able to avoid historical injury and generate novel insights. My assessment is that the results are mixed. Before we can see why, it is necessary to walk briskly through the main contours of his argument.Bowler begins with an apologia for a counterfactual appr .. (shrink)

Acknowledgments 1. Culture Is Essential 2. Culture Exists 3. Culture Evolves 4. Culture Is an Adaptation 5. Culture Is Maladaptive 6. Culture and Genes Coevolve 7. Nothing about Culture Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution.

Propositionalism explains the nature of knowledge-how as follows: P: To know how to ϕ is to stand in a special propositional attitude relation to propositions about how to ϕ. To know how to ride a bike is to have the required propositional attitude to propositions about how to do so. Dispositionalism offers an alternative view.D: To know how to ϕ is to stand in a behavioral-dispositional relation, a being-able-to relation, to ϕ-ing. To know how to ride a bike is to (...) have an ability to do so in the form of a complex disposition to behave in ways that constitute bike riding. Objectualism presents a third option.O: To know how to ϕ is to stand in a non-propositional, non-behavioral-dispositional objective attitude relation to a way of j-ing. To know how to ride a bike is to have an objectual attitude, perhaps a form of knowledge of, to a way of doing so.Dispositionalism is often dismissed on the basis of two criticisms designed to show its shortcomings relative to Propositionalism and Objectualism. According to the Epistemic Improvement Objection, Dispositionalism cannot account for the fact that gaining knowledge-how is an improvement in our epistemic state. According to the Modified Ability Objection, it cannot account for the fact that being able to do something is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowing how to do it. I develop a form of Dispositionalism, the Special Ability View, that avoids both objections. (shrink)

Ambitiously identifying fresh issues in the study of complex systems, Peter J. Taylor, in a model of interdisciplinary exploration, makes these concerns accessible to scholars in the fields of ecology, environmental science, and science studies. Unruly Complexity explores concepts used to deal with complexity in three realms: ecology and socio-environmental change; the collective constitution of knowledge; and the interpretations of science as they influence subsequent research. For each realm Taylor shows that unruly complexity-situations that lack definite boundaries, where what (...) goes on "outside" continually restructures what is "inside," and where diverse processes come together to produce change-should not be suppressed by partitioning complexity into well-bounded systems that can be studied or managed from an outside vantage point. Using case studies from Australia, North America, and Africa, he encourages readers to be troubled by conventional boundaries-especially between science and the interpretation of science-and to reflect more self-consciously on the conceptual and practical choices researchers make. (shrink)

This volume critically explore and extend Hayek's Nobel Prize-winning work on knowledge and social interconnectedness from the disciplines of law, economics, philosophy, anthropology, political science, and history. Hayek's insights about knowledge become even more important once it is recognized that nothing in the social world occurs in isolation. There is no such thing as a distinct economic, political, or social sphere--they are inextricably intertwined. Given the range of both Hayek's work and the contributing authors' perspectives, the range of topics covered (...) in this volume is extraordinarily wide, running the gamut from immigration, to white supremacy, to ancient agricultural practices, to the nature of what it means to be free. (shrink)

Modern political conflict characteristically reflects and represents deep-seated but also unacknowledged and un-analyzed disagreements about what it means to be 'objective'. In defending this proposition, Peter J. Steinberger seeks to reaffirm the idea of rationalism in politics by examining important problems of public life explicitly in the light of established philosophical doctrine. The Politics of Objectivity invokes, thereby, an age-old, though now widely ignored, tradition of western thought according to which all political thinking is inevitably embedded in and underwritten (...) by larger structures of metaphysical inquiry. Building on earlier studies of the idea of the state, and focusing on highly contested practices of objectivity in judgement, this book suggests that political conflict is an essentially discursive enterprise deeply implicated in the rational pursuit of theories about how things in the world really are. (shrink)

Two centuries after Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, his name and reputation stand alongside Locke, Montesquieu, and Hume - the other still-cited grand political thinkers of the eighteenth century. For those great nations that have fallen into what Burke called "the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion and unavailing sorrow," the work of Burke supplies that sense of order, justice and freedom the present age seems to require. This volume by Peter Stanlis has (...) grown out of almost four decades of studying Burke. Today, Professor Stanlis is called by Russell Kirk "the leading American authority on the political thought of the great conservative reformer." The book is divided into three categories: Burke on law and politics; Burke's criticism of Enlightenment rationalism and sensibility; and Burke's theory of revolution and critique of the English revolution of 1688. Stanlis' reasons' for linking Burke to the English Revolution rather than the later, and admittedly more decisive American and French Revolutions of his own time, is that for Burke, that earlier event was the normative pivot for judging how to make important changes in civil society. Indeed, even in his writings on the contemporary revolutions of his time,. Stanlis reminds us that Burke interpreted revolutionary events in France and Americas through the prism of the bloodless Revolution of 1688. (shrink)

Metaphysicians should pay attention to quantum mechanics. Why? Not because it provides definitive answers to many metaphysical questions-the theory itself is remarkably silent on the nature of the physical world, and the various interpretations of the theory on offer present conflicting ontological pictures. Rather, quantum mechanics is essential to the metaphysician because it reshapes standard metaphysical debates and opens up unforeseen new metaphysical possibilities. Even if quantum mechanics provides few clear answers, there are good reasons to think that any adequate (...) understanding of the quantum world will result in a radical reshaping of our classical world-view in some way or other. Whatever the world is like at the atomic scale, it is almost certainly not the swarm of particles pushed around by forces that is often presupposed. This book guides readers through the theory of quantum mechanics and its implications for metaphysics in a clear and accessible way. The theory and its various interpretations are presented with a minimum of technicality. The consequences of these interpretations for metaphysical debates concerning realism, indeterminacy, causation, determinism, holism, and individuality are explored in detail, stressing the novel form that the debates take given the empirical facts in the quantum domain. While quantum mechanics may not deliver unconditional pronouncements on these issues, the range of possibilities consistent with our knowledge of the empirical world is relatively small-and each possibility is metaphysically revisionary in some way. This book will appeal to researchers, students, and anybody else interested in how science informs our world-view. (shrink)

Shows that the dialogue in Plato's Phaedo is primarily devoted to presenting Socrates' final defense of the philosophical life against the theoretical and political challenge of religion.

This volume provides the first major study of worldviews in international relations. Worldviews are the unexamined, pre-theoretical foundations of the approaches with which we understand and navigate the world. Advances in twentieth century physics and cosmology and other intellectual developments questioning anthropocentrism have fostered the articulation of alternative worldviews that rival conventional Newtonian humanism and its assumption that the world is constituted by controllable risks. This matters for coming to terms with the uncertainties that are an indelible part of many (...) spheres of life including public health, the environment, finance, security and politics – uncertainties that are concealed by the conventional presumption that the world is governed only by risk. The confluence of risk and uncertainty requires an awareness of alternative worldviews, alerts us to possible intersections between humanist Newtonianism and hyper-humanist Post-Newtonianism, and reminds us of the relevance of science, religion and moral values in world politics. (shrink)

Few fields in philosophy are so seemingly distant from ordinary human experience as theories of knowledge. How much information do we draw in from bodies outside of us? And to what degree do our perceptual and mental processes subjectify that information to the point of becoming non-objective? The Heart of Matter: Bridging the Kantian Gap in How we Know Things presents both a back history of current theories of perception, and a plausible theory to span the gap between subject and (...) object. This book begins with K. Popper's theory of falsifiability, as a twentieth-century version of Kantian subjectivism. Before considering eighteenth-century transcendental philosophy, a look at both the empirical and rational theories that inspired Kant helps place his Critique of Pure Reason in context. This book highlights the developments in Kant's thought, as he struggled to solve important problems within his Copernican revolution. How far does Kant's theory coincide with our actual perceptual experience? Twentieth-century experimentation in perception sheds important light on human knowing. The Heart of Matter follows C. Fabro's study of those psychological findings, and especially his ability to incorporate those findings into a coherent description and explanation. Many current theories of knowledge dismiss any possibility of our objectively knowing bodies outside of us; this book takes a candid look at both the major dilemmas implied in such a dismissal, as well as our actual perception of things. On this account, a fruitful exchange does appear to take place between the mind and reality in perception. (shrink)

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction the Transaction Edition -- Foreword -- Preface -- ONE The Pliilosophic Content and Historical Importance of Natural Law -- TWO Natural Law and Revolutionary "Natural Rights"--THREE Burke and the Natural Law -- FOUR The Law of Nations -- FIVE Revolutionary "Natural Rights"--SIX Human Nature -- SEVEN Church and State -- EIGHT Burke and the Sovereignty of Natural Law -- Appendix I -- Appendix II -- (...) Bibliography -- Notes -- Index. (shrink)

Politics is, at its core, a kind of activity, a particular type of doing. It comprises a distinctive and varied repertoire of human practices that we regularly characterize as political and that we think of as somehow defining the essence of public life. One might say that specific forms of political engagement are to politics as batting, throwing, catching and running are to baseball. They constitute, in effect, the sum and substance of the enterprise.

The Causal Theory of Quantum Mechanics provides a better understanding of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics than is provided by Orthodox (i.e. Copenhagen) Quantum Theory by describing micro-phenomena in terms of entities and processes in space and time, thereby embracing causality at the quantum level. The book focuses especially on finding solutions to conceptual issues about the nature of energy, the conservation of energy, forces, and the Exclusion Principle within the context of the Causal Theory of Quantum Mechanics.

Although much has been written about the vigorous debates over science and religion in the Victorian era, little attention has been paid to their continuing importance in early twentieth-century Britain. Reconciling Science and Religion provides a comprehensive survey of the interplay between British science and religion from the late nineteenth century to World War II. Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the (...) Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularists—including Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxists—tended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart. Because the tensions between science and religion—and efforts at reconciling the two—are still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues. Contents: Illustrations Preface Introduction: A Legacy of Conflict? Confrontation, Cooperation, or Coexistence? Victorian Background Science and Religion in the New Century Part One: The Sciences and Religion 1. The Religion of Scientists Changing Patterns of Belief Scientists and Christianity Scientists and Theism Method and Meaning Science and Values 2. Scientists against Superstition Science and Rationalism Religion without Revelation Marxists and Other Radicals Science, Religion, and the History of Science 3. Physics and Cosmology Ether and Spirit The New Physics The Earth and the Universe 4. Evolution and the New Natural Theology Science and Creation Evolution and Progress The Role of Lamarckism Darwinism Revived 5. Matter, Life, and Mind The Origin of Life Vitalism and Organicism Mind and Body Psychology and Religion Part Two: The Churches and Science 6. The Churches in the New Century The Challenge of the New The Churches’ Response 7. The New Theology in the Free Churches Precursors of the New Theology Campbell and the New Theology Modernism in the Free Churches 8. Anglican Modernism Modernism and the New Natural Theology Charles F. D’Arcy E. W. Barnes W. R. Inge Charles Raven 9. The Reaction against Modernism Evangelicals against Evolution Liberal Catholicism The Menace of the New Psychology Science and Modern Life Theology in the Thirties Roman Catholicism Part Three: The Wider Debate 10. Science and Secularism Against Idealism Popular Rationalism The Social Reformers 11. Religion’s Defenders From Idealism to Spiritualism Creative and Emergent Evolution Evolution and the Human Spirit Progress through Struggle The Christian Response Epilogue Biographical Appendix Bibliography Index. (shrink)

Putnam and Laudan separately argue that the falsity of past scientific theories gives us reason to doubt the truth of current theories. Their arguments have been highly influential, and have generated a significant literature over the past couple of decades. Most of this literature attempts to defend scientific realism by attacking the historical evidence on which the premises of the relevant argument are based. However, I argue that both Putnam's and Laudan's arguments are fallacious, and hence attacking their premises is (...) unnecessary. The paper concludes with a discussion of the further historical evidence that would be required if the pessimistic induction is to present a serious threat to scientific realism. (shrink)

Explores some of the major topics in metaphysics, such as essence, existence, substance, purpose, space, time, mind, causality, God, freedom, and the possibilities of immortality. An excellent companion to metaphysical studies.

Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwinism reconfigured biological progress as a 'tree of life' (...) with multiple lines of advance not necessarily leading to humans, each driven by the rare innovations that generate entirely new functions. Popular writers such as H. G. Wells used a similar model to depict human progress, with competing technological innovations producing ever-more rapid changes in society. Bowler shows that as the idea of progress has become open-ended and unpredictable, a variety of alternative futures have been imagined. (shrink)

Know-how has a distinctive, non-instrumental value that a mere reliable ability lacks. Some, including Bengson and Moffett Knowing how, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 161–195, 2011) and Carter and Pritchard :799–816, 2015b) have cited a close relation between knowhow and cognitive achievement, and it is tempting to think that the value of know-how rests in that relation. That’s not so, however. The value of know-how lies in its relation to the fundamental value of autonomy.

This book seeks to restore Homer to his rightful place among the principal figures in the history of political and moral philosophy. Through this fresh and provocative analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Peter J. Ahrensdorf examines Homer's understanding of the best life, the nature of the divine, and the nature of human excellence. According to Ahrensdorf, Homer teaches that human greatness eclipses that of the gods, that the contemplative and compassionate singer ultimately surpasses the heroic warrior in (...) grandeur, and that it is the courageously questioning Achilles, not the loyal Hector or even the wily Odysseus, who comes closest to the humane wisdom of Homer himself. Thanks to Homer, two of the distinctive features of Greek civilization are its extraordinary celebration of human excellence, as can be seen in Greek athletics, sculpture, and nudity, and its singular questioning of the divine, as can be seen in Greek philosophy. (shrink)

In A Professor's Duties, distinguished philosopher Peter J. Markie adds to the expanding discussion of the ethics of college teaching. Part One concentrates on the obligations of individual professors, primarily with regard to issues about what and how to teach. Part Two expands Professor Markie's views by providing a selection of the most significant previously published writings on the ethics of college teaching.

For a half-century or more, political theory has been characterized by a pronounced distrust of metaphysical or ontological speculation. Such a disposition has been sharply at odds with influential currents in post-war philosophy - both analytic and continental - where metaphysical issues have become a central preoccupation. The Idea of the State seeks to reaffirm the importance of systematic philosophical inquiry into the foundations of political life, and to show how such an approach can cast a new and highly instructive (...) light on a variety of controversial, seemingly intractable problems of tolerance, civil disobedience, democracy and consent. The author considers the problem of the state in light of recent developments in philosophy and social thought, and seeks to provide an account of what the state really is. In doing so he pursues a range of fundamental issues pertaining to the office, the authority and the internal organization of political society. (shrink)

The case of very young children is a test case for the plausibility of reductionism about testimonial warrant. Reductionism requires reductive reasons, reductively justified and actively deployed for testimonial justification. Though nascent language-users enjoy warranted testimony based beliefs, they do not meet these three reductionist demands. This paper clearly formulates reductionism and the infant/child objection. Two rejoinders are discussed: an influential conceptual argument from Jennifer Lackey’s paper “Testimony and the Infant/Child Objection” and the growing empirical evidence from developmental psychology on (...) selective trust in children. Neither Lackey’s argument nor the empirical evidence vindicate reductionism. (shrink)

A history of science text imagining how evolutionary theory and biology would have been understood if Darwin had never published his "Origin of Species" and other works.--publisher summary.

All parties to the Sleeping Beauty debate agree that it shows that some cherished principle of rationality has to go. Thirders think that it is Conditionalization and Reflection that must be given up or modified; halfers think that it is the Principal Principle. I offer an analysis of the Sleeping Beauty puzzle that allows us to retain all three principles. In brief, I argue that Sleeping Beauty’s credence in the uncentered proposition that the coin came up heads should be 1/2, (...) but her credence in the centered proposition that the coin came up heads and it is Monday should be 1/3. I trace the source of the earlier mistakes to an unquestioned assumption in the debate, namely that an uncentered proposition is just a special kind of centered proposition. I argue that the falsity of this assumption is the real lesson of the Sleeping Beauty case. (shrink)

This paper argues for the general proper functionalist view that epistemic warrant consists in the normal functioning of the belief-forming process when the process has forming true beliefs reliably as an etiological function. Such a process is reliable in normal conditions when functioning normally. This paper applies this view to so-called testimony-based beliefs. It argues that when a hearer forms a comprehension-based belief that P (a belief based on taking another to have asserted that P) through the exercise of a (...) reliable competence to comprehend and filter assertive speech acts, then the hearer's belief is prima facie warranted. The paper discusses the psychology of comprehension, the function of assertion, and the evolution of filtering mechanisms, especially coherence checking. (shrink)

Oedipus the tyrant and the limits of political rationalism -- Blind faith and enlightened statesmanship in Oedipus at colonus -- The pious heroism of Antigone -- Conclusion: Nietzsche, Plato, and Aristotle on philosophy and tragedy.

Radical skepticism about the external implies that no belief about the external is even prima facie justified. A theoretical reply to skepticism has four stages. First, show which theories of epistemic justification support skeptical doubts (show which theories, given other reasonable assumptions, entail skepticism). Second, show which theories undermine skeptical doubts (show which theories, given other reasonable assumptions, do not support the skeptic’s conclusion). Third, show which of the latter theories (which non-skeptical theory) is correct, and in so doing show (...) that all of the rival theories of justification, skeptical and non-skeptical alike, are mistaken. Fourth, explain why skeptical doubts are sometimes (or sometimes merely seem) intuitive, and thereby accommodate skeptical doubts without capitulation. Michael Williams has pioneered the very idea of a theoretical reply. A theoretical diagnosis consists in just the first two stages. An adequate reply, which is correct at each stage, would rebut the skeptic entirely. Williams’ own reply, I argue, is inadequate. I offer in its place an exhaustive and accurate diagnosis of skepticism. I distinguish four kinds of skepticism and five theories of justification. I then show which theories do, and which theories do not, support which kinds of skepticism. (shrink)

I hold that epistemic warrant consists in the normal functioning of the belief-forming process when the process has forming true beliefs reliably as an etiological function. Evolution by natural selection is the central source of etiological functions. This leads many to think that on my view warrant requires a history of natural selection. What then about learning? What then about Swampman? Though functions require history, natural selection is not the only source. Self-repair and trial-and-error learning are both sources. Warrant requires (...) history, but not necessarily that much. (shrink)

The use of socially learned information (culture) is central to human adaptations. We investigate the hypothesis that the process of cultural evolution has played an active, leading role in the evolution of genes. Culture normally evolves more rapidly than genes, creating novel environments that expose genes to new selective pressures. Many human genes that have been shown to be under recent or current selection are changing as a result of new environments created by cultural innovations. Some changed in response to (...) the development of agricultural subsistence systems in the Early and Middle Holocene. Alleles coding for adaptations to diets rich in plant starch (e.g., amylase copy number) and to epidemic diseases evolved as human populations expanded (e.g., sickle cell and G6PD defi- ciency alleles that provide protection against malaria). Large-scale scans using patterns of linkage disequilibrium to detect recent selection suggest that many more genes evolved in response to agriculture. Genetic change in response to the novel social environment of contemporary modern societies is also likely to be occurring. The functional effects of most of the alleles under selection during the last 10,000 years are currently unknown. Also unknown is the role of paleoenvironmental change in regulating the tempo of hominin evolution. Although the full extent of culture-driven gene-culture coevolution is thus far unknown for the deeper history of the human lineage, theory and some evidence suggest that such effects were profound. Genomic methods promise to have a major impact on our understanding of gene-culture coevolution over the span of hominin evolutionary history. (shrink)

Epistemic defeat is standardly understood in either evidentialist or responsibilist terms. The seminal treatment of defeat is an evidentialist one, due to John Pollock, who famously distinguishes between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. More recently, an orthogonal distinction due to Jennifer Lackey has become widely endorsed, between so-called doxastic (or psychological) and normative defeaters. We think that neither doxastic nor normative defeaters, as Lackey understands them, exist. Both of Lackey’s categories of defeat derive from implausible assumptions about epistemic responsibility. Although Pollock’s (...) evidentialist view is superior, the evidentialism per se can be purged from it, leaving a general structure of defeat that can be incorporated in a reliabilist theory that is neither evidentialist nor responsibilist in any way. (shrink)

What is good political judgment? Is it a science subject to strict standards of logic and inference, or is it more like an art, the product of intuition, feeling, or even chance? Peter J. Steinberger shows how the seemingly contradictory claims of inference and intuition are reconciled in the concept of political judgment. Resting his argument on the larger notion of judgment itself, Steinberger develops an original model of how political judgments are made and how we justify calling some (...) of them "good." His systematic analysis of such thinkers as Machiavelli, Kant, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, and Oakeshott introduces an original notion of judgment as "intelligent performance," incorporating both intuition and rational reconstruction. Steinberger's conclusion—that a coherent political society must also be a judgmental one—flies in the face of much contemporary thinking. (shrink)

Stewart Cohen has recently presented solutions to two forms of what he calls “The Problem of Easy Knowledge”. I offer alternative solutions. Like Cohen’s, my solutions allow for basic knowledge. Unlike his, they do not require that we distinguish between animal and reflective knowledge, restrict the applicability of closure under known entailments, or deny the ability of basic knowledge to combine with self-knowledge to provide inductive evidential support. My solution to the closure version of the problem covers a variation on (...) the problem that is immune to Cohen’s approach. My response to the bootstrapping version presents reasons to question whether the problem case, as Cohen presents it, is even possible, and, assuming it is, my solution avoids a false implication of Cohen’s own. The key to my solutions for both versions is the distinction between an inference’s transferring epistemic support, on the one hand, and its not begging the question against skeptics, on the other. (shrink)

Rational intuitions involve a particular form of understanding that gives them a special epistemic status. This form of understanding and its epistemic efficacy are not explained by several current theories of rational intuition, including Phenomenal Conservatism (Huemer, Skepticism and the veil of perception, 2001 ; Ethical intuitionism, 2005 ; Philos Phenomenol Res 74:30–55, 2007 ), Proper Functionalism (Plantinga, Warrant and proper function, 1993 ), the Competency Theory (Bealer Pac Philos Q 81:1–30, 2000 ; Sosa, A virtue epistemology, 2007 ) and (...) the Direct Awareness View (Conee, Philos Phenomenol Res 4:847–857, 1998 ; Bonjour, In defense of pure reason, 1998 ). Some overlook it; others try to account for it but fail. We can account for the role of understanding in rational intuition by returning to the view of some of the early Rationalists, e.g. Descartes and Leibniz. While that view carries a prohibitive cost, it does contain an insight that may help us solve the problem of giving understanding its due. (shrink)

What is the biological function of perception? I hold perception, especially visual perception in humans, has the biological function of accurately representing the environment. Tyler Burge argues this cannot be so in Origins of Objectivity (Oxford, 2010), for accuracy is a semantical relationship and not, as such, a practical matter. Burge also provides a supporting example. I rebut the argument and the example. Accuracy is sometimes also a practical matter if accuracy partly explains how perception contributes to survival and reproduction.