The concept of privacy is intimately related to epistemological concepts such as information and knowledge, yet for the longest time had received only scant attention from epistemologists. This has begun to change in recent years, and different philosophical accounts have been proposed. On the liberal model of privacy, what privacy aims at is the protection of individuals from interference in personal matters. On the (more narrowly epistemological) informational model, privacy is a matter of limiting access to (...) (or maintaining control over) certain types of information. Furthermore, it is sometimes claimed that privacy aims at preventing the formation of (potentially negative) judgments by others. This paper compares and contrasts the various approaches and identifies a number of shortcomings. It then outlines an alternative account, the disattendability/civil inattention model of privacy, according to which what constitutes a breach of privacy is neither the acquisition of new information per se, nor the formation of judgments by others, but the fact that undue attention is being paid to routinized (or otherwise unobtrusive) aspects of the target’s everyday life. This account, it is argued, is explanatorily superior to its competitors, in that it accounts both for the cultural contingency of privacy conventions and for the emergence of new threats to privacy (e.g. from electronic surveillance). The paper concludes by reflecting on remaining tensions within the proposed account of privacy and by commenting on its social ramifications. (shrink)

It seems obvious that informational privacy has an epistemological component; privacy or lack of privacy concerns certain kinds of epistemic relations between a cogniser and sensitive pieces of information. One striking feature of the fairly substantial philosophical literature on informational privacy is that the nature of this epistemological component of privacy is only sparsely discussed. The main aim of this paper is to shed some light on the epistemological component of informational privacy.

In this paper, we defend what we call the ‘Hybrid View’ of privacy. According to this view, an individual has privacy if, and only if, no one else forms an epistemically warranted belief about the individual’s personal matters, nor perceives them. We contrast the Hybrid View with what seems to be the most common view of what it means to access someone’s personal matters, namely the Belief-Based View. We offer a range of examples that demonstrate why the Hybrid (...) View is more plausible than the Belief-Based View. Finally, we show how the Hybrid View generates a more plausible fit between the concept of privacy, and a (morally objectionable) violation of privacy. (shrink)

Advocates of communal living often urge that life in a commune provides the framework for a deeper knowledge of other people. I believe this is clearly true and because it is true, communal living is also instrumental in promoting self knowledge. The dialogue that is part of the life of a commune enables one to incorporate the insights of the other members into his understanding of himself and his world.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 462-464 [Access article in PDF] The Phantom Table: Woolf, Fry, Russell and the Epistemology of Modernism,by Ann Banfield; 452 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, $55.00. We have grown accustomed to reading Woolf philosophically. Lucio Ruotolo, Mark Hussey, Gillian Beer, and Pamela Caughie are just a few notable scholars who have used philosophical texts and themes to shed light on Woolf's novels and (...) life, but Ann Banfield's The Phantom Table marks the beginning of a new approach. Contrary to the poststructuralist readings of the last two decades, Banfield treats Woolf as a "philosophical realist" (p. 294), an interpretation that presupposes that "Truth, although logically constructed, remains nonetheless objective, a discovery, as opposed to a creation, of the mind" (p. 94). To justify this approach, Banfield makes a case for privileging Bertrand Russell's "symbolic logic" (p. 42) as "a key if limited influence on Woolf's thinking about language" (pp. 42-43). Simply appropriating elements of Russell's rigorous epistemology, however, is not enough to determine Woolf's thinking, for as Banfield claims: "Woolf's philosophically inflected aesthetic is not one Russell would have foreseen" (p. 54). Roger Fry's astute reflections on Post-Impressionism aesthetics complement Russell's philosophical approach and thereby provide Woolf with a framework for the "novel's realism [which] must relate two competing realities, the private world and the public persona" (p. 324). Through an extraordinarily insightful analysis of the work of Russell and Fry, Banfield offers an intelligent interdisciplinary interpretation of the rigorous epistemological presuppositions at the base of Woolf's aesthetic.Central to Banfield's project is the conviction that reality is mind-independent (p. 101). On this view, "modern fiction ultimately aims to describe a reality beyond privacy" (p. 298), but to understand how we can access that reality we must carefully distinguish sensations, sense-data, and sensibilia. According to Russell, sensations are the private experiences or awareness of a subject, whereas a sense-datum is "that external object of which in sensation the subject is aware" (p. 70). Sensibilia, the lynchpin of Russell's and Banfield's theory, have the same ontological status as sense-data, though they are not necessarily data to a specific mind. Banfield cleverly articulates the ontological priority of sensibilia by reversing Berkeley's famous dictum: "What brings about" sensibilia's "actualization is the perspective's occupation by a subject and the corresponding interception of sensibilia by sense-organs located in time and space" (pp. 74-75). Sensibilia need not be perceived to exist, which places the perceiving subject at the mercy of sensibilia, rather than making sensibilia ontologically dependent upon the perceiving mind.Given the primacy of sensibilia, the epistemological "goal is now to leave one's perspective and imaginatively project oneself into other perspectives, even the possible ones inhumanly occupied, to experience the world as it would be without the thinker" (p. 213). According to this system, the perceiving [End Page 462] subject and the modernist artist become irrelevant because they can inhibit our experience and/or understanding of sensibilia. Eliminating the subject and effacing the author, therefore, become necessary so that "artistic creativity" (p. 173) is given free flow, which means that for art to achieve its goal of seeing "the world 'as far as possible as it is in itself, and not merely through the distorting medium of personal desire'" (p. 382), the death of the subject is mandatory—though this death of the subject differs considerably from Roland Barthes's, Michel Foucault's, and Paul de Man's. Once the subject is eliminated, which occurs in Woolf's novels according to Banfield, the novelist will be able to create a "method of multiple perspectives" which functions as a "route to wider knowledge" (p. 312) of sensibilia.In the last part of the book, Banfield examines how "Fry's aesthetic derives from analytic philosophy" (p. 248) and then argues that Woolf incorporates much of this aesthetic into her work. Fry makes a clear distinction between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Impressionism represents the "totality... (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of a hybrid conception of identity. A common conception of identity in datafied society is a split between a digital self and a real self, which has resulted in concepts such as the data double, algorithmic identity, and data shadows. These data-identity metaphors have played a significant role in the conception of informational privacy as control over information—the control of or restricted access to your digital identity. Through analyses of various data-identity metaphors as well (...) as philosophical accounts of identity, we argue in favor of a hybrid conception of identity that emphasizes the relations between the ‘real’ and the ‘digital’. A hybrid conception of identity—where the digital is an aspect on par with social relations, self-understanding, and values—ultimately calls for an understanding of privacy as the right to influence one’s own identity. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Dimensions of Privacy Theories of Privacy Liberty and Decisional Privacy Justifying a Right to Informational Privacy Secrecy and Authority Note References.

In this chapter I re‐examine the basic conditions required for a study of conscious experiences in the light of progress made in recent years in the field of consciousness studies. I argue that neither dualist nor reductionist assumptions about subjectivity versus objectivity and the privacy of experience versus the public nature of scientific observations allow an adequate understanding of how studies of consciousness actually proceed. The chapter examines the sense in which the experimenter is also a subject, the sense (...) in which all experienced phenomena are private and subjective, the different senses in which a phenomenon can nevertheless be public and observations of it objective, and the conditions for intra‐subjective and intersubjective repeatability. The chapter goes on to re‐examine the empirical method and how methods used in psychology differ from those used in physics. I argue that a reflexive understanding of these relationships supports a form of “critical phenomenology” that fits consciousness studies smoothly into science. (shrink)

Do privacy rights restrict what is permissible to infer about others based on statistical evidence? This paper replies affirmatively by defending the following symmetry: there is not necessarily a morally relevant difference between directly appropriating people’s private information—say, by using an X-ray device on their private safes—and using predictive technologies to infer the same content, at least in cases where the evidence has a roughly similar probative value. This conclusion is of theoretical interest because a comprehensive justification of the (...) thought that statistical inferences can violate privacy rights is lacking in the current literature. Secondly, the conclusion is of practical interest due to the need for moral assessment of emerging predictive algorithms. (shrink)

This is a prepublication version of the final chapter from the Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. In it I re-examine the basic conditions required for a study of conscious experiences in the light of progress made in recent years in the field of consciousness studies. I argue that neither dualist nor reductionist assumptions about subjectivity versus objectivity and the privacy of experience versus the public nature of scientific observations allow an adequate understanding of how studies of consciousness actually proceed. The (...) chapter examines the sense in which the experimenter is also a subject, the sense in which all experienced phenomena are private and subjective, the different senses in which a phenomenon can nevertheless be public and observations of it objective, and the conditions for intra-subjective and intersubjective repeatability. The chapter goes on to re-examine the empirical method and how methods used in psychology differ from those used in physics. I argue that a reflexive understanding of these relationships supports a form of “critical phenomenology” that fits consciousness studies smoothly into science. (shrink)

Augmented reality (AR) technologies function to ‘augment’ normal perception by superimposing virtual objects onto an agent’s visual field. The philosophy of augmented reality is a small but growing subfield within the philosophy of technology. Existing work in this subfield includes research on the phenomenology of augmented experiences, the metaphysics of virtual objects, and different ethical issues associated with AR systems, including (but not limited to) issues of privacy, property rights, ownership, trust, and informed consent. This paper addresses some epistemological (...) issues posed by AR systems. I focus on a near-future version of AR technology called the Real-World Web, which promises to radically transform the nature of our relationship to digital information by mixing the virtual with the physical. I argue that the Real-World Web (RWW) threatens to exacerbate three existing epistemic problems in the digital age: the problem of digital distraction, the problem of digital deception, and the problem of digital divergence. The RWW is poised to present new versions of these problems in the form of what I call the augmented attention economy, augmented skepticism, and the problem of other augmented minds. The paper draws on a range of empirical research on AR and offers a phenomenological analysis of virtual objects as perceptual affordances to help ground and guide the speculative nature of the discussion. It also considers a few policy-based and designed-based proposals to mitigate the epistemic threats posed by AR technology. (shrink)

This paper investigates epistemological and ethical implications of the growingavailability of direct-to-consumer genetic testing for the science and society. Direct-toconsumer genetic testing is characterized as the genetic testing sold directly to consumerswithout any assistance from professionals. By offering empowerment and control, companiesconvince consumers to sequence their genome by granting the company access to theirgenetic data in exchange to results that are not always accurate. To which extent doconsumers properly understand the results of their genetic testing? Are consumers aware ofthe possible (...) implications for disclosing genetic information to private companies? I addressthese questions in two steps: firstly, I discuss epistemological implications of thedevelopment of Genomics, understood as a data-intensive science, by delving into thetheoretical commitments of the concept of gene and the notion of circular causality.Secondly, I reflect upon the privacy risks of taking direct-to-consumer genetic testing in adata-rich world. Finally, I draw some conclusions on the possible consequences of direct-toconsumer genetic testing by suggesting key-concepts that may help to clarify the limits andscope of genetic testing. (shrink)

In the age of big data and a machine epistemology that can anticipate, predict, and intervene on events in our lives, the problem once again is that a few individuals possess the knowledge of how to regulate these activities. But the question we face now is not how to share such knowledge more widely, but rather of how to enjoy the public benefits bestowed by this knowledge without freely sharing it. It is not merely personal privacy that is (...) at stake but a range of unsung benefits that come from ignorance and forgetting, traits that are inherently human and integral to the functioning of our society. (shrink)

How much privacy must be sacrificed by the partners in a romantic relationship? I begin by showing that we are obligated to reveal to our lovers information about ourselves that we believe could possibly cause them to withdraw their affections from us. If we were to conceal this information, then the lover would be mistaken about whom they loved, yet continue to respect obligations towards, and make sacrifices for, us. I conclude, though, by discussing some problems with both the (...) intelligibility of this obligation and our ability to fulfil it. These problems arise from epistemological and metaphysical problems connected with the notion of a self. (shrink)

Aims To examine the understanding of the ethical dilemmas associated with Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) among Jordanian medical students, physicians in training, and senior practitioners. Methods We implemented a literature-validated questionnaire to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the target population during the period between April and August 2023. Themes of ethical debate included privacy breaches, consent, ownership, augmented biases, epistemology, and accountability. Participants’ responses were showcased using descriptive statistics and compared between groups using t-test (...) or ANOVA. Results We included 466 participants. The greater majority of respondents were interns and residents (50.2%), followed by medical students (38.0%). Most participants were affiliated with university institutions (62.4%). In terms of privacy, participants acknowledged that Big Data and AI were susceptible to privacy breaches (39.3%); however, 59.0% found such breaches justifiable under certain conditions. For ethical debacles involving informed consent, 41.6% and 44.6% were aware that obtaining informed consent posed an ethical limitation in Big Data and AI applications and denounced the concept of “broad consent”, respectively. In terms of ownership, 49.6% acknowledged that data cannot be owned yet accepted that institutions could hold a quasi-control of such data (59.0%). Less than 50% of participants were aware of Big Data and AI’s abilities to augment or create new biases in healthcare. Furthermore, participants agreed that researchers, institutions, and legislative bodies were responsible for ensuring the ethical implementation of Big Data and AI. Finally, while demonstrating limited experience with using such technology, participants generally had positive views of the role of Big Data and AI in complementing healthcare. Conclusion Jordanian medical students, physicians in training and senior practitioners have limited awareness of the ethical risks associated with Big Data and AI. Institutions are responsible for raising awareness, especially with the upsurge of such technology. (shrink)

Brain-imaging technologies have posed the problem of breaching our brain privacy. Until the invention of those technologies, many of us entertained the idea that nothing can threaten our mental privacy, as long as we kept it, for each of us has private access to his or her own mind but no access to any other. Yet, philosophically, the issue of private, mental accessibility appears to be quite unsettled, as there are still many philosophers who reject the idea of (...) private, mental accessibility. I have attempted to refute such rejections and to establish this idea on firmer grounds. My arguments in this paper show that brain imaging allows no access to our mind and that mind privacy is quite different from brain privacy, as the latter can be breached by brain imaging, whereas the former cannot. A reduction of the mind to the body inescapably fails, as there is a categorial difference between mind and body or brain, which is compatible with their inseparability. Brain imaging cannot enable one to “read” the mind or to breach our mental privacy. There is no external access to one’s mind. Each of us has exclusive access to his or her own mind. (shrink)

Conjoined with the claim that there is a moral right to privacy, each of the major contemporary accounts of privacy implies a duty of ignorance for those against whom the right is held. In this paper I consider and respond to a compelling argument that challenges these accounts (or the claim about a right to privacy) in the light of this implication. A crucial premise of the argument is that we cannot ever be morally obligated to become (...) ignorant of information we currently know. The plausibility of this premise, I suggest, derives from the thought that there are no epistemically ways in which we can cause ourselves to become ignorant of what we already know. Drawing on some recent work in the epistemology and psychology of self-deception and forgetting, I seek to undermine this thought, and thus provide a defense against the challenging argument, by arguing that there are indeed such ways. (shrink)

This paper clarifies the nature of genetic screening and morally evaluates using it to deny people employment. Four sets of variables determine screening’s ability to forecast disorder. The first two concern epistemological limitations: whether the gene itself has been located; whether knowledge of other family members is necessary. The latter two refer to genetic causality: whether other genes are needed; whether the gene causes the disorder or just a susceptibility to it.Considerations of privacy and justice warrant restricting screening to (...) job-specific disorders, without prejudice to the worker. Screening is more of an invasion of privacy than most “searches” because our very selves are disclosed; serious stigmatizing can result. It is unjust to penalize someone for a susceptibility to a disorder. It is also unjust to use the genetic knowledge and technology, developed with public monies allocated for public good, against members of the public. (shrink)

Big data techniques, data-driven science and their technological applications raise many serious ethical questions, notably about privacy protection. In this paper, we highlight an entanglement between epistemology and ethics of big data. Discussing the mobilisation of big data in the fields of biomedical research and health care, we show how an overestimation of big data epistemic power – of their objectivity or rationality understood through the lens of neutrality – can become ethically threatening. Highlighting the irreducible non-neutrality at (...) play in big data tools, we insist upon the ethical importance of a critical epistemological approach in which big data are understood as possibly valuable only when coupled with human intelligence and evaluative rationality. (shrink)

According to Bem’s self-perception theory, people know their own minds in the same way that they know those of others: they infer their own minds by observing their own behavior and the circumstances in which this behavior takes place. Although Bem’s theory seems anti-introspectionistic, it claims that people infer their minds by observing their own behavior only when internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or un-interpretable. This has led some to argue that Bem does not rule out a priori introspective access (...) to the mind and thus introspection as a research method. This paper will discuss self-perception theory and its influence over recent research and will argue that introspection is not an autonomous research method. This is so because of its radical behavioristic outlook, according to which all methods and data of psychology must be public and not private. Then, the paper will discuss the epistemological implications of this behavioristic attitude on psychology. Finally, it will argue in favor of introspection as an autonomous research method and an independent source of data for psychology. (shrink)

The epistemology of risk examines how risks bear on epistemic properties. A common framework for examining the epistemology of risk holds that strength of evidential support is best modelled as numerical probability given the available evidence. In this essay I develop and motivate a rival ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for theorising about the epistemology of risk. I describe three loci for thinking about the epistemology of risk. The first locus concerns consequences of relying on a belief for (...) action, where those consequences are significant if the belief is false. The second locus concerns whether beliefs themselves—regardless of action—can be risky, costly, or harmful. The third locus concerns epistemic risks we confront as social epistemic agents. I aim to motivate the relevant alternatives framework as a fruitful approach to the epistemology of risk. I first articulate a ‘relevant alternatives’ model of the relationship between stakes, evidence, and action. I then employ the relevant alternatives framework to undermine the motivation for moral encroachment. Finally, I argue the relevant alternatives framework illuminates epistemic phenomena such as gaslighting, conspiracy theories, and crying wolf, and I draw on the framework to diagnose the undue skepticism endemic to rape accusations. (shrink)

The capacity to collect and analyse data is growing exponentially. Referred to as ‘Big Data’, this scientific, social and technological trend has helped create destabilising amounts of information, which can challenge accepted social and ethical norms. Big Data remains a fuzzy idea, emerging across social, scientific, and business contexts sometimes seemingly related only by the gigantic size of the datasets being considered. As is often the case with the cutting edge of scientific and technological progress, understanding of the ethical implications (...) of Big Data lags behind. In order to bridge such a gap, this article systematically and comprehensively analyses academic literature concerning the ethical implications of Big Data, providing a watershed for future ethical investigations and regulations. Particular attention is paid to biomedical Big Data due to the inherent sensitivity of medical information. By means of a meta-analysis of the literature, a thematic narrative is provided to guide ethicists, data scientists, regulators and other stakeholders through what is already known or hypothesised about the ethical risks of this emerging and innovative phenomenon. Five key areas of concern are identified: informed consent, privacy, ownership, epistemology and objectivity, and ‘Big Data Divides’ created between those who have or lack the necessary resources to analyse increasingly large datasets. Critical gaps in the treatment of these themes are identified with suggestions for future research. Six additional areas of concern are then suggested which, although related have not yet attracted extensive debate in the existing literature. It is argued that they will require much closer scrutiny in the immediate future: the dangers of ignoring group-level ethical harms; the importance of epistemology in assessing the ethics of Big Data; the changing nature of fiduciary relationships that become increasingly data saturated; the need to distinguish between ‘academic’ and ‘commercial’ Big Data practices in terms of potential harm to data subjects; future problems with ownership of intellectual property generated from analysis of aggregated datasets; and the difficulty of providing meaningful access rights to individual data subjects that lack necessary resources. Considered together, these eleven themes provide a thorough critical framework to guide ethical assessment and governance of emerging Big Data practices. (shrink)

Theodore Sider’s recent book, “Writing the Book of the World”, employs a primitive notion of metaphysical structure in order to make sense of substantive metaphysics. But Sider and others who employ metaphysical primitives face serious epistemological challenges. In the first section I develop a specific form of this challenge for Sider’s own proposed epistemology for structure; the second section develops a general reliability challenge for Sider’s theory; and the third and final section argues for the rejection of Siderean structure (...) in the course of answering a transcendental argument against such rejection. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to sketch, with a broad brush and in bare outlines, an approach to modal epistemology that is characterized by three distinctive features. First, the approach is agency-based: it locates the roots of our modal thought and knowledge in our experience of our own agency. Second, the approach is ambitious in that it takes the experience of certain modal properties in agency to be the sole distinctive feature of specifically modal thought and knowledge; everything (...) that we know about modality beyond the experience of agency is a matter of applying standard methods of inquiry such as deduction, induction and abductive methods for choosing between theories. Third, the account holds that modal thought and knowledge is, first and foremost, about modal properties that are sufficiently like those encountered in agency. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is an argument to the conclusion that the definition of metaphysical possibility in terms of correct conceivability, conceivability informed by knowledge of relevant essences, found in Rosen (2006) is equivalent to a version of the essentialist definition of metaphysical necessity. This argument appears to show that correct conceivability is a notion of conceivability by name only and is therefore of no interest to epistemologists of modality. In this paper, I present the equivalence argument, explain (...) the idealizing assumptions involved in it and sketch a version of the conceivability approach which weakens these assumptions in order to show that the notion of correct conceivability can still play a specific limited role in the epistemology of modality. (shrink)

The article explores the private nature of subjectivity in programs of integration the phenomenology with naturalism. It is considered if their tools are relevant for the phenomenological, rather than naturalistic way of subjectivity’s explaining. Justification of the key ideas is provided with the help of such concepts as “body image”, “body scheme”, (Sh. Gallagher), “ontological significance” (L. Baker), “experience”, “cognitive niches” (F. Varela), “transparent body” (T. Fuchs). Based on the traditional phenomenology of E. Husserl, it is shown that a set (...) of approaches that integrate phenomenology and naturalism within the framework of “first-person philosophy” can be characterized as a phenomenology without a phenomenological subject. It is shown that the phenomenological nature of the self-perspective in integrative programs is more likely to be understood as the qualification and privacy of subjectivity, while the transcendental aspect of the unobservable and biased consciousness is practically not taken into account. The article concludes that the logic of some projects of integration of phenomenology and naturalism overlook this transcendental peculiarity of consciousness, its fundamentally unobserved character. The classical phenomenological approach emphasizes on the extra-natural, biased, and non-empirical nature of consciousness. The role and significance of the phenomenological approach is not limited to the idea of “what-is-likeness” and privacy of subjective states. Phenomenology, which preserves the idea of the subject, means a radical break with the ontology of things and, in general, with the ontology of something objective at all. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks almost universally accepted the thesis that virtues are skills. Skills have an underlying intellectual structure , and having a particular skill entails understanding the relevant logos. possessing a general ability to diagnose and solve problems . as well as having appropriate experience. Two implications of accepting this thesis for moral epistemology and epistemology in general are considered. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable virtue epistemology in which moral knowledge is a species of (...) a general kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. Also, the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology is subversively resolved as moot by adopting this strategy: the locus of justification for a belief is in the nature of skill. Thus, the contingent fact that some skills allow Homo Sapiens an ‘internal access’. while others do not, is theoretically neutral when considering the nature of justification per se. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that it’s possible to lose your faith in God by the actions of other people. In particular, we argue that spiritually violent religious trauma, where religious texts are used to shame a person into thinking themselves unworthy of God’s love, can cause a person to stop engaging in activities that sustain their faith in God, such as engaging in the worship of God. To do this, we provide an analysis of faith, worship, and love on (...) which to have faith in God is to have an attitude of worship to him; to have such an attitude of worship to God is to love him; and to love God is to desire union with him. We apply this analysis particularly to the case of LGBT Christians and their experience in the church today. (shrink)

One way of looking at conspiracy is to consider it a deliberately enhanced political weapon cultivated by those who push ‘fake news’ in a post-truth media environment. Thus, the story that Obama’s...

An overview of the current epistemic literature concerning conspiracy theories, as well as indications for future research avenues on the topic.

Our world is under going an enormous digital transformation. Nearly no area of our social, informational, political, economic, cultural, and biological spheres are left unchanged. What can philosophy contribute as we try to under- stand and think through these changes? How does digitization challenge past ideas of who we are and where we are headed? Where does it leave our ethical aspirations and cherished ideals of democracy, equality, privacy, trust, freedom, and social embeddedness? Who gets to decide, control, and (...) harness the powers of digitization and for which purposes? Epistemologically, do most of us understand these new mediations – and thus fabrics – of our new world? Lastly – how is the new technological landscape shaping not only our living conditions but also our collective imaginary and our self-identities? (shrink)

The ancient Greeks almost universally accepted the thesis that virtues are skills. Skills have an underlying intellectual structure (logos), and having a particular skill entails understanding the relevant logos. possessing a general ability to diagnose and solve problems (phronesis). as well as having appropriate experience. Two implications of accepting this thesis for moral epistemology and epistemology in general are considered. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable virtue epistemology in which moral knowledge is a species of (...) a general kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. Also, the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology is subversively resolved as moot by adopting this strategy: the locus of justification for a belief is in the nature of skill. Thus, the contingent fact that some skills allow Homo Sapiens an ‘internal access’. while others do not, is theoretically neutral when considering the nature of justification per se. (shrink)

This essay attempts to clarify the project of explaining the possibility of ‘blind reasoning’—namely, of basic logical inferences to which we are entitled without our having an explicit justification for them. The role played by inferentialism in this project is examined and objections made to inferentialism by Paolo Casalegno and Timothy Williamson are answered. Casalegno proposes a recipe for formulating a counterexample to any proposed constitutive inferential role by imaging a subject who understands the logical constant in question but fails (...) to have the capacity to make the inference in question; Williamson’s recipe turns on imagining an expert who continues to understand the constant in question while having developed sophisticated considerations for refusing to make it. It’s argued that neither recipe succeeds. (shrink)

Philosophers, Henri Bergson once observed, "seem to philosophize as if they were sealed in the privacy of their study and did not live on a planet surrounded by the vast organic world of animals, plants, insects, and protozoa." Providing a solid overview of ecological philosophy and original insights into this developing field, Minding Nature focuses on some of the most influential thinkers who, in fact, have emphasized our natural relations to the earth, our social creations, and each other. Combining (...) philosophy, ecology, and political theory, chapters thoroughly examine, critique, and build upon the ideas of such luminaries as Thomas Hobbes, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Bloch, Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Barry Commoner, Rachel Carson, and Jurgen Habermas, among others. Each thinker considered has contributed significantly to both contemporary discussion and historical understanding of political, epistemological, or social aspects related to nature and, with several exceptions, stimulated constructive dialogue within progressive, democratic, and radical left circles. By challenging the notion that conservation is inherently politically conservative or that our oikos (home) must be rendered uniformly economic where ecology is concerned, they enable us to rethink the possibility of creating a more democratic and ecological society. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory is a paradigmatic example of a well-supported scientific theory. In this chapter we consider a number of objections to evolutionary theory, and show how responding to these objections reveals aspects of the way in which scientific theories are supported by evidence. Teaching these objections can therefore serve two pedagogical aims: students can learn the right way to respond to some popular arguments against evolutionary theory, and they can learn some basic features of the structure of scientific theories and (...) evidence. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to develop an epistemology of scientific models in scientific research practices, and to show that disciplinary perspectives have crucial role in such an epistemology. A transcendental approach is taken, aimed at explanations of the kinds of questions relevant to the intended epistemology, such as “How is it possible that models provide knowledge about aspects of reality?” The approach is also pragmatic in the sense that the questions and explanations must be adequate (...) and relevant to concrete scientific practice. First it is explained why the idea of models as representations in terms of similarity or isomorphism between a model and its target is too limited as a basis for this epistemology. An important finding is that the target-phenomenon is usually not something that can be observed in a straightforward manner, but requires both characterization in terms of measurable variables and subsumption under concepts. The loss of this basis leads to a number of issues, such as: how can models be interpreted as representations if models also include conceptually meaningful linguistic content; how can researchers identify non-observable real-world target-phenomena that are then represented in the model; how do models enable inferential reasoning in performing epistemic tasks by researchers; and, how to justify scientific models. My proposal is to deal with these issues by analyzing how models are constructed, rather than by looking at ready-made models. Based on this analysis, I claim that the identification of phenomena and the construction of scientific models is guided and also confined by the disciplinary perspective within which researchers in a scientific discipline have learned to work. I propose a Kuhnian framework by which the disciplinary perspective can be systematically articulated. Finally, I argue that harmful forms of subjectivism, due to the loss of the belief that models objectively represent aspects of reality, can be overcome by making the disciplinary perspective in a research project explicit, thereby enabling its critical assessment, for which the proposed Kuhnian framework provides a tool. (shrink)

Many philosophers have maintained that secondary qualities are private mental entities. In this paper I use the discussions of H. A. Prichard, Berkeley and G. E. Moore on the status of secondary qualities to bring out the assumptions that underlie this view. One of these is that secondary qualities are particular. I show that Prichard holds these assumptions and then I attempt to diagnose why he holds them. In the course of this diagnosis I explore several senses of 'dependent' which (...) play a role in this view. Finally, I show that a causal dependence of secondary qualities upon the perceiver will not lead to the conclusion that secondary qualities are private unless the philosophical thesis that they are particular is already assumed. (shrink)

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy ‘at the bedside’? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions – about what we should do in any given situation – are (...) embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case, what it is that we feel we can claim to know, as well as the meaning we ascribe to different aspects of the situation or to our perception of it. Philosophy concerns fundamental questions: it is a discipline requiring us to examine the underlying assumptions we bring with us to our thinking about practical problems. Traditional academic philosophers divide their discipline into distinct areas that typically include logic: questions about meaning, truth and validity; ontology: questions about the nature of reality, what exists; epistemology: concerning knowledge; and ethics: how we should live and practice, the nature of value. Any credible attempt to analyse clinical reasoning will require us to think carefully about these types of question and the relationships between them, as they influence our thinking about specific situations and problems. So, the answers to the question we posed, about the role of philosophy at the bedside, are numerous and diverse, and that diversity is illustrated in the contributions to this thematic edition. (shrink)

In this article, we put forward a new strategy for teaching the concept of energy. In the first section, we discuss how the concept is currently treated in educational programmes at primary and secondary level (taking the case of France), the learning difficulties that arise as well as the main teaching strategies presented in science education literature. In the second section, we argue that due to the complexity of the concept of energy, rethinking how it is taught should involve teacher (...) training specifically developed for the concept. In our view, Epistemology and the History of Science and Technology (EHST) is the best method for a full understanding of the concept of energy and should thus be included in the teacher training programme. In the third section, we provide a general framework for a teacher training programme on energy, based on the history and epistemology of the concept and structured on the following three questions: ‘What is the origin of the concept of energy?’, ‘What is energy?’ and ‘What purpose does the concept of energy serve?’. (shrink)