DOCSLIB.ORG

Lecture Notes on KNOWLEDGE Brian Weatherson

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Lecture Notes on KNOWLEDGE Brian Weatherson Lecture Notes on KNOWLEDGE Brian Weatherson 2015 Notes to Students These are the course notes for the first two-thirds of Philosophy 383: Knowledgeand Reality, in Winter 2015 at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. They are not meant to replace reading original sources. As the syllabus makesclear, there are other readings that you should be doing most weeks. You should do even more reading than that on the topics you are writing papers on. Contents 1 Introduction to Knowledge and Reality 3 1.1 Arguments for Scepticism ............................ 3 1.2 Analysis of Knowledge .............................. 5 1.3 Epistemology and the Social .......................... 8 I Scepticism 10 2 Pyrrhonian Scepticism 11 2.1 The Pyrrhonian Sceptical Challenge ...................... 11 2.2 Responses to the Pyrrhonian Challenge .................... 13 2.3 Foundationalism .................................. 14 3 Easy Knowledge 16 3.1 Cohen’s Challenge ................................. 16 3.2 The Easy Knowledge Argument ........................ 17 3.3 Responses to Cohen’s Argument ........................ 17 3.4 For Next Time ................................... 21 4 Demons and Disasters 22 4.1 Academic Scepticism ............................... 22 4.2 Varieties of Sceptical Argument ........................ 23 4.3 Why Care about Scepticism? .......................... 26 5 Scepticism and Intuitions 28 5.1 Scepticism and Closure ............................. 29 5.2 Scepticism and Sensitivity ............................ 30 6 Dialectic and Discrimination 33 6.1 Dialectic ....................................... 33 6.2 Discrimination ................................... 34 7 Evidence 38 7.1 Williamson on Evidence and Knowability . 38 7.2 Perceptual and Phenomenal Models of Evidence . 40 7.3 Evidence, Metaphysics and Methodology . 43 8 The Semantic Response to Scepticism 47 8.1 Semantic Externalism ............................... 47 8.2 Externalism and Scepticism ........................... 49 8.3 False Beliefs and Inconsistent Hypotheses . 51 9 Humean Scepticism 54 9.1 Methods Argument ................................ 54 9.2 A Priori and A Posteriori ............................. 55 9.3 Hume on Induction ............................... 56 9.4 What is the Sceptical Hypothesis? ....................... 57 9.5 Against A Priori Knowledge ........................... 57 9.6 Against A Posteriori Knowledge ........................ 58 9.7 Summing Up .................................... 59 II Analysis of Knowledge 60 10 Introduction, and Challenges to Necessity 61 10.1 The JTB Analysis ................................. 62 10.2 Knowledge without Truth ............................ 63 10.3 Knowledge without Belief ............................ 64 10.4 Justification ..................................... 66 11 Counterexamples to Sufficiency 68 11.1 Russell’s Stopped Clock ............................. 68 11.2 Dharmottara’s Examples ............................. 69 11.3 Gettier’s Target ................................... 71 11.4 Gettier’s First Case: Ten Coins ......................... 71 11.5 Case Two: Brown in Barcelona ......................... 72 11.6 Knowledge from Falsehood ........................... 73 11.7 True in the Wrong Way ............................. 74 11.8 Summing Up .................................... 75 12 More Counterexamples to JTB 76 12.1 Zagzebski’s Generalisation ............................ 76 12.2 Double Luck .................................... 77 12.3 Fake Barns ..................................... 78 12.4 Lotteries ....................................... 79 12.5 Margins ....................................... 81 12.6 Moving Forward .................................. 82 13 Sensitivity 83 13.1 Counterfactual Conditionals .......................... 83 13.2 Sensitivity ...................................... 85 13.3 Methods ....................................... 86 13.4 Advantages of the Sensitivity Account .................... 86 13.5 Scepticism and Closure ............................. 88 14 Kripke’s Response to Nozick 90 14.1 Barns, Real and Fake ............................... 90 14.2 Placebos and Rationality ............................. 91 14.3 Red and Green Barns ............................... 92 14.4 Negative Knowledge ............................... 93 14.5 Knowledge of the Future ............................. 94 14.6 Summary ...................................... 95 15 Safety 96 15.1 Williamson ..................................... 96 15.2 Lewis ......................................... 97 15.3 Sosa .......................................... 98 15.4 Method Safety and Content Safety . 100 15.5 A Safety-Based Analysis .............................101 16 Virtue Epistemology 103 16.1 Sosa’s Virtue Epistemology . 104 16.2 Sosa’s Theory and Gettier-Like Cases . 106 16.3 Other Puzzles for Sosa’s Theory . 109 16.4 Conclusion .....................................111 III Social Epistemology 112 17 Testimony 113 17.1 Testimonial Scepticism ..............................115 17.2 Reductionism ...................................116 18 Transfer and Its Discontents 120 18.1 Features of the Transfer Model . 120 18.2 Qualifications to the Transfer Model . 122 18.3 First Objection to Transfer: Creationist Teacher . 123 18.4 Second Objection to Transfer Model: Whale Spotting . 125 19 Reductionism, Children and Strangers 127 19.1 Global and Local Justifications . 127 19.2 Strangers .......................................128 19.3 Children .......................................129 19.4 Children - Poverty of Stimulus . 130 19.5 Children - Processing Power . 131 20 False Beliefs and False Reports 133 20.1 False Beliefs .....................................133 20.2 Children’s Attitude To Testimony . 135 20.3 Hearing and Believing ..............................137 21 Knowing about Knowing 139 21.1 Behaviorism ....................................141 21.2 Hard Cases and Experiments . 142 21.3 Hard Cases and Knowledge First . 143 22 Testimonial Injustice 146 22.1 Ethics and Epistemology .............................146 22.2 Basic Case ......................................148 22.3 Harms and Wrongs ................................148 22.4 Three Varieties ...................................149 22.5 Varieties of Prejudice ...............................150 23 Stereotypes and Injustice 152 23.1 Stereotypes .....................................152 23.2 Prejudice ......................................153 23.3 Putting the Two Together ............................154 23.4 Mistakes and Wrongs ...............................155 Bibliography 157 Last revised: April 14, 2015 Chapter 1 Introduction to Knowledge and Reality In this course we’re going to investigate three topics: 1. Arguments for Scepticism. 2. The Analysis of Knowledge. 3. Knowledge and Society In this chapter, I’ll briefly introduce the three topics, and say a little about whywefind each of them interesting. 1.1 Arguments for Scepticism There is an important kind of sceptical argument that traces back, in modernWest- ern philosophy, to Descartes (1641/1996a). (Though we will consider ways in which similar considerations arise in earlier philosophy, as well as in philosophy in other tra- ditions.) Consider some thing that you know, e.g., that you have hands. Now consider some scenario where you are tricked into thinking that is true. To use Descartes’s own idea, imagine that an evil demon implants in you the idea that you are sitting in a com- fortable chair, in a human sized and shaped body, reading some epistemology notes, etc. Meanwhile, none of this is true; you are an immaterial soul in an immaterial world, and totally without hands. There is some intuitive support for the idea that we can’t rule out such ascenario. And there is also intuitive support for the idea that if we can’t rule out such a scenario, then we don’t know that we have hands. After all, knowing something suffices for ruling out alternative possibilities. So, we might think, we don’t know we have hands. Now that argument is too quick on many levels. For one thing, I don’t find the initial intuition that strong. I can easily rule out the scenario, I think, by simply look- ing at the world and seeing that it is material. And even if I found the intuition more compelling, I would think it is much less compelling than the negation of the conclu- sion it is trying to draw. If I had to choose between the intuition that I know a lot about the world, and the intuition that I can’t rule out this Cartesian demon, I would certainly ditch the sceptical intuition. 4 Introduction to Knowledge and Reality But the sceptical argument isn’t merely an appeal to intuition. There are many ways to motivate the sceptical premise, i.e., that we can’t rule out the scenario of the Cartesian demon. Looking at those ways is interesting for three reasons. First, we might find scepticism more appealing than we did when it was supported byaraw intuition. Second, we might find some limited forms of scepticism at least somewhat appealing. But finally, we might learn what plausible sounding principles we haveto jettison if we are to remain anti-sceptics in good standing. We will look at five ways of developing the sceptical intuition into a full argument. One of these ways is dialectical. Whatever our reasons are for being anti-sceptical, they don’t seem sufficient to convince a sceptic. Indeed, they don’t even seem sufficient to move anyone who feels the pull of scepticism, but can’t bring herself to accept it. Perhaps there is an argument here, starting
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Between Mysticism and Philosophical Rationality
    Comparative Philosophy Volume 12, No. 2 (2021): 32-57 Open Access / ISSN 2151-6014 / www.comparativephilosophy.org https://doi.org/10.31979/2151-6014(2021).120205 BETWEEN MYSITICISM AND PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALITY: AL-GHAZĀLĪ ON THE REASONS OF THE HEART MARILIE COETSEE ABSTRACT: In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has caused them to systematically distort the claims and arguments of Eastern thinkers. While King focuses primarily on Western scholarship on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, this essay shows that his argument can also be extended to apply to Western scholarship on al-Ghazālī, whose sympathy for Sufism and apparent rejection of Greek philosophy has often earned him the reputation of being a champion of Islamic mysticism. I argue that al-Ghazālī transcends the dueling categories of ‘rationality’ and ‘mysticism’ that have been imposed on him by offering a conception of experiential knowledge that retains its roots in the ‘mystical’ Sufi tradition, even while also highlighting the rational merits of experientially-grounded modes of knowing. In particular, I argue that al-Ghazālī shows us how experiential knowledge is both important to providing motivation for rational action and also critical to underwriting persons’ genuine understanding of the evaluative properties of that which is known. Keywords: Al-Ghazālī, cognitive emotions, experiential knowledge, Ibn Sīnā, mysticism, Sufism In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has been used, both within and without the academy, as a tool to manage and marginalize the Orient.
    [Show full text]
  • Phenomenal Knowledge Without Experience
    Phenomenal Knowledge Without Experience Torin Alter [email protected] [Forthcoming in The Case for Qualia, edited by E. Wright, MIT Press] Abstract: Phenomenal knowledge usually comes from experience. But it need not. For example, one could know what it’s like to see red without seeing red—indeed, without having any color experiences. Daniel Dennett (2007) and Pete Mandik (forthcoming) argue that this and related considerations undermine the knowledge argument against physicalism. If they are right, then this is not only a problem for anti‐physicalists. Their argument threatens to undermine any version of phenomenal realism— the view that there are phenomenal properties, or qualia, that are not conceptually reducible to physical or functional properties. I will argue that this threat is illusory. Explaining why will clarify what is and is not at issue in discussions of the knowledge argument and phenomenal realism. This will strengthen the case for physically and functionally irreducible qualia. 2 Phenomenal knowledge usually comes from experience. For example, I know what it’s like to see red because I have done so. Does knowing what it’s like to have an experience with phenomenal character X require having an experience with X? No. A famous counterexample is Hume’s missing shade of blue, in which one can extrapolate from phenomenally similar experiences (A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. I, Sec. I).1 One might think that a weaker version of the no‐phenomenal‐knowledge‐without‐experience thesis remains tenable, e.g., that knowing what it’s like to see in color requires having or having had color experiences.
    [Show full text]
  • Ways of Knowing: Realism, Non‐
    Nursing Inquiry 2015; 22(2): 95–105 Feature Ways of knowing: realism, non-realism, nominalism and a typology revisited with a counter perspective for nursing science Bernard M Garretta and Roger L Cuttingb aUniversity of British Columbia, School of Nursing, Vancouver, BC, Canada, bInstitute of Education, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK Accepted for publication 22 March 2014 DOI: 10.1111/nin.12070 GARRETT BM and CUTTING RL. Nursing Inquiry 2015; 22:95–105 Ways of knowing: realism, non-realism, nominalism and a typology revisited with a counter perspective for nursing science In this paper, we reconsider the context of Barbara Carper’s alternative ways of knowing, a prominent discourse in modern nurs- ing theory in North America. We explore this relative to the concepts of realism, non-realism and nominalism, and investigate the philosophical divisions behind the original typology, particularly in relationship to modern scientific enquiry. We examine forms of knowledge relative to realist and nominalist positions and make an argument ad absurdum against relativistic interpre- tations of knowledge using the example of Borge’s Chinese Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. We propose a contentious postpositivist practical classification for nursing knowledge that demonstrates and supports the idea that knowledge has both individual and subjective components. This classification supports the practical application of nursing knowledge within the paradigm of realist postpositivist science. Key words: epistemology, nursing knowledge, nursing philosophy, nursing science, ontology, postpositivism, ways of knowing. THE RISE OF ALTERNATIVE EPISTEMOLOGIES and aesthetic.) was developed in this manner and is often used as an epistemological basis for nursing knowledge (Car- One of the more popular lines of thought that is frequently per 1978).
    [Show full text]
  • The Epistemology of Qualia, and in Particular, Their Givenness
    CDD: 126 THE MYTH OF THE MYTH OF THE GIVEN ANDREW BAILEY Department of Philosophy The University of Guelph Guelph, ONTARIO N1G 2W1 CANADA [email protected] Abstract: Qualia have historically been thought to stand in a very different epistemological relation to the knower than does the external furniture of the world. The ‘raw feels’ of thought were often said to be ‘given’, while what we might call the content of that thought – for example, claims about the external world – was thought only more or less doubtfully true; and this was often said to be because we are ‘directly’ or ‘non-inferentially’ confronted by qualia or experiences, whereas all other properties or objects are only mediately ‘connected’ to the perceiver. The modern turn in philosophy – spearheaded by Wittgen- stein, Sellars, Quine, Ryle and others – away from classical empiricism to today’s ‘post-postivistic’ philosophy, has apparently involved the rejection of this once familiar assumption. I argue a) that the rejection of a certain kind of epistemological foundationalism does not entail the rejection of phenomenal individuals tout court; and b) that qualia are in fact, in some epistemologically significant ways, given (pace Sellars et al.). Key-words: Givenness. Qualia. Consciousness. Sellars. Qualia have typically been thought to stand in a very different epistemological relation to the knower than does the external furniture of the world. The ‘raw feels’ of thought are often said to be ‘given’, while what we might call the content of that thought – for example, claims about the external world – is only more or less doubtfully true; and this is (or at least was) usually said to be because we are ‘directly’ or “non- Manuscrito – Rev.
    [Show full text]
  • Knowing What It's Like and Mindreading a DISSERTATION
    Knowing What It’s Like and Mindreading A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Anastasia Panagopoulos IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Peter Hanks December 2012 Copyright © 2012 Anastasia Panagopoulos All rights reserved Acknowledgements I would like to thank Peter Hanks (my advisor), my committee Jeanette Gundel, Alan Love, and Valerie Tiberius; the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Department of Philosophy; Minnesota State University, Mankato, Department of Philosophy; the management and staff at Grizzly’s in Mankato; my Mom and Dad; Piper and Josh. i Dedication For my family: Josh, Alda, Spiro, Dimitri, Frank, Deanna, Warren, Deb, and Piper. ~with love, always and forever, Ana~ ii Abstract I present a descriptive and normative account of mindreading with an epistemological foundation. I begin with the epistemology of knowing-what-it’s-like by developing two new concepts of knowledge: experiential-knowledge and shared experiential-knowledge . Experiential-knowledge, or “knowing-what-it-is-like,” is formulated from Frank Jackson’s (1986) notion of qualia and grounds shared experiential-knowledge, or “knowing-what-it-is-like-to-be-someone-else.” Shared experiential-knowledge is designed specifically for application in the mindreading debate of how we attribute mental states to other people, as it resolves outstanding issues regarding the cognitive processes used for reading the minds of other people. Next, I turn to the mindreading component and develop a unique independence theory of mindreading by showing how some instances of mindreading are achieved wholly by simulation and some wholly by theorizing.
    [Show full text]
  • Theology's Role in Western Epistemology
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 4-2019 The Theological Thesis: Theology's Role in Western Epistemology Thomas Rubino Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Rubino, Thomas, "The Theological Thesis: Theology's Role in Western Epistemology" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1377. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1377 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Theological Thesis: Theology’s Role in Western Epistemology A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from The College of William and Mary by Thomas J. Rubino Accepted for __________________________________ (Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors) ________________________________________ Kevin Vose, Director ________________________________________ Alexander Angelov ________________________________________ Jessica Stephens Williamsburg, VA May 3, 2019 1 INTRODUCTION The Theological Thesis explores faith and theology within, and tangential to, knowledge throughout the course of Western epistemological history. Chapter I studies qualifications for truth and knowledge in the pre-Enlightenment epistemologies of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354- 430), Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-1274) and William of Ockham (c. 1285-1345) to uncover how the understanding of faith’s relationship with knowledge changed throughout the Middle Ages. Chapter II does the same for the epistemologies of Enlightenment contemporaries David Hume (1711-1776) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), surveying epistemic modifications to the aforementioned relationship in the so-called Age of Reason.
    [Show full text]
  • Russell's Two Theories of Memory
    c:\users\ken\documents\type3702\red\rj 3702 064 red.docx 2018-01-25 6:31 AM RUSSELL’S TWO THEORIES OF MEMORY Iva Apostolova Philosophy / Dominican U. College Ottawa, on, Canada k1r 7g3 [email protected] In this paper I examine Russell’s account of memory in both the ac- quaintance and the neutral monist periods, more specifically, the years from 1910 until 1927, with emphasis on The Problems of Philosophy, The- ory of Knowledge, and The Analysis of Mind. I argue that memory is central for understanding how knowledge works, which is the main reason it remained in the focus of Russell’s analysis even after the gradual shift to neutral monism. I propose that memory played a not insignificant role in that shift. While this paper aims to show that Russell’s theory of memory in the acquaintance period faced serious difficulties—mainly re- lated to the commitment to direct realism—I argue that there is a con- sistent similarity and continuity between the theory of memory in the acquaintance period and that in the neutral monist period. Russell con- sidered a similar type of memory to be paradigmatic and epistemically primary in both periods—a consideration, dictated, no doubt, by his commitment to the principles of Occam’s razor and psychological plausibility. 1. introduction n this paper I examine what I claim are Bertrand Russell’s two theories of memory developed, respectively, in the acquaintance f=and the neutral monist periods, that is, from 1910 until about 1927. I will argue that memory is the only experiential cognitive fac- ulty that remained in the focus of his analysis after the shift to neutral monism.
    [Show full text]