A Defense of Moderate Invariantism
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Skepticism and Pluralism Ways of Living a Life Of
SKEPTICISM AND PLURALISM WAYS OF LIVING A LIFE OF AWARENESS AS RECOMMENDED BY THE ZHUANGZI #±r A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AUGUST 2004 By John Trowbridge Dissertation Committee: Roger T. Ames, Chairperson Tamara Albertini Chung-ying Cheng James E. Tiles David R. McCraw © Copyright 2004 by John Trowbridge iii Dedicated to my wife, Jill iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completing this research, I would like to express my appreciation first and foremost to my wife, Jill, and our three children, James, Holly, and Henry for their support during this process. I would also like to express my gratitude to my entire dissertation committee for their insight and understanding ofthe topics at hand. Studying under Roger Ames has been a transformative experience. In particular, his commitment to taking the Chinese tradition on its own terms and avoiding the tendency among Western interpreters to overwrite traditional Chinese thought with the preoccupations ofWestern philosophy has enabled me to broaden my conception ofphilosophy itself. Roger's seminars on Confucianism and Daoism, and especially a seminar on writing a philosophical translation ofthe Zhongyong r:pJm (Achieving Equilibrium in the Everyday), have greatly influenced my own initial attempts to translate and interpret the seminal philosophical texts ofancient China. Tamara Albertini's expertise in ancient Greek philosophy was indispensable to this project, and a seminar I audited with her, comparing early Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy, was part ofthe inspiration for my choice ofresearch topic. I particularly valued the opportunity to study Daoism and the Yijing ~*~ with Chung-ying Cheng g\Gr:p~ and benefited greatly from his theory ofonto-cosmology as a means of understanding classical Chinese philosophy. -
Beyond Skepticism Foundationalism and the New Fuzziness: the Role of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Legal Theory Robert Justin Lipkin
Cornell Law Review Volume 75 Article 2 Issue 4 May 1990 Beyond Skepticism Foundationalism and the New Fuzziness: The Role of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Legal Theory Robert Justin Lipkin Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert Justin Lipkin, Beyond Skepticism Foundationalism and the New Fuzziness: The Role of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Legal Theory , 75 Cornell L. Rev. 810 (1990) Available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol75/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Review by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BEYOND SKEPTICISM, FOUNDATIONALISM AND THE NEW FUZZINESS: THE ROLE OF WIDE REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM IN LEGAL THEORY Robert Justin Liphint TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................. 812 I. FOUNDATIONALISM AND SKEPTICISM ..................... 816 A. The Problem of Skepticism ........................ 816 B. Skepticism and Nihilism ........................... 819 1. Theoretical and PracticalSkepticism ................ 820 2. Subjectivism and Relativism ....................... 821 3. Epistemic and Conceptual Skepticism ................ 821 4. Radical Skepticism ............................... 822 C. Modified Skepticism ............................... 824 II. NEW FOUNDATIONALISM -
Phil. 270/570: Epistemology Fall 2021 Prof. Keith Derose Tu, Th 9:00-10:15Am
Phil. 270/570: Epistemology Fall 2021 Prof. Keith DeRose Tu, Th 9:00-10:15am; room TBA KDR office hour: Th (on which classes meet) 10:30-11:30 CT Hall, room 410 The course web page will be at: http://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/epistemology-f21/ Reading for the First Meeting: If possible, read items 1-2 from the list of readings (on p. 4 of this syllabus). They are both quite short. Please note: The final exam for this class will be at the last exam period on Yale’s schedule (Wed., Dec. 22, 2:00-5:00 pm), and I won’t be able to schedule an alternative early exam, so please verify that that time will fit your travel and other plans before taking this course. Phil. 270 Course Description. This is the basic course in epistemology, so the plan is to discuss at least many of the main topics and issues important to epistemology. However, we won’t be having assigned readings about all of these topics. Rather, we will read papers and portions of books that focus on just a five of them (our “focus topics”), but will use these as jumping off points for discussing other issues. I have not chosen the focus topics described briefly below because they are the five most important topics to epistemology today. Rather, given how they fit together with one another and how they naturally give rise to other important issues, at least as I approach them, they seem to be five topics around which we can build a course in which you encounter interesting philosophical work and also learn about the field of epistemology, encountering, even if not focusing upon, many important topics. -
Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy
Moonshadows This page intentionally left blank Moonshadows Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy T HE C OWHERDS 2011 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cowherds (Authors) Moonshadows : conventional truth in Buddhist philosophy / the Cowherds. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-975142-6; ISBN 978-0-19-975143-3 (pbk.) 1. Truth—Religious aspects—Buddhism. 2. Buddhist philosophy. I. Title. BQ4255.C69 2011 121.088′2943—dc22 2009050158 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface This is an unusual volume. It is neither an anthology nor a monograph. We prefer to think of it as a polygraph— a collectively written volume refl ecting the varying views of a large collection of authors. -
Literature Review
New Insights and Directions for Religious Epistemology http://www.newinsights.ox.ac.uk Literature Review Analytic epistemology experienced a monumental resurgence in the latter part of the twentieth century. A short paper by Edmund Gettier launched a frenzied era of original research into the nature of some of our central epistemic concepts, e.g., knowledge, justification, rationality, belief, defeat, and evidence. The excitement of Gettier’s challenge to the view that knowledge is justified true belief drew interest from a wide range of very talented philosophers. Formidable figures such as Fred Dretske, John Pollack, Robert Nozick, Roderick Chisholm, Alvin Goldman, Marshall Swain, David Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Richard Swinburne, and Gilbert Harman, to name just a few, published widely on the foregoing epistemic concepts. This outpouring of original research meant that new theoretical tools and insights became available for application in philosophy of religion. Religious epistemology, taking advantage of this resurgence in mainstream epistemology, experienced a new era of original research. William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, and Richard Swinburne all played a particularly central role in this resurgence. Alston, in his popular book Perceiving God, argued that religious beliefs held by way of religious experience are just as justified as our regular or quotidian perceptual beliefs. In his masterpiece Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga, inspired by (i) the notion of a basic belief in the epistemic theory of foundationalism, (ii) his proper functioning account of warrant, and (iii) John Calvin’s theology, defended the position that Christian beliefs are warranted if true. The broad outlines of his position came to be labeled “Reformed Epistemology.” Wolterstorff, in his Reason within the Bounds of Religion, provided an elegant and sophisticated account of the role religious belief play in an agent’s overall epistemic “web” of beliefs. -
Contextualist Responses to Skepticism
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Philosophy Theses Department of Philosophy 6-27-2007 Contextualist Responses to Skepticism Luanne Gutherie Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Gutherie, Luanne, "Contextualist Responses to Skepticism." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2007. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/22 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONTEXTUALIST RESPONSES TO SKEPTICISM by LUANNE GUTHERIE Under the Direction of Stephen Jacobson ABSTRACT External world skeptics argue that we have no knowledge of the external world. Contextualist theories of knowledge attempt to address the skeptical problem by maintaining that arguments for skepticism are effective only in certain contexts in which the standards for knowledge are so high that we cannot reach them. In ordinary contexts, however, the standards for knowledge fall back down to reachable levels and we again are able to have knowledge of the external world. In order to address the objection that contextualists confuse the standards for knowledge with the standards for warranted assertion, Keith DeRose appeals to the knowledge account of warranted assertion to argue that if one is warranted in asserting p, one also knows p. A skeptic, however, can maintain a context-invariant view of the knowledge account of assertion, in which case such an account would not provide my help to contextualism. -
Having Hands, Even in the Vat: What the Semantic Argument Really Shows About Skepticism by Samuel R Burns
Having Hands, Even in the Vat: What the Semantic Argument Really Shows about Skepticism by Samuel R Burns A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Department of Philosophy in The University of Michigan 2010 Advisors: Professor Gordon Belot Assistant Professor David Baker ”With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him.” Jorge Luis Borges, “The Circular Ruins” “With your feet in the air and your head on the ground/Try this trick and spin it/ Your head will collapse/But there’s nothing in it/And you’ll ask yourself: ‘Where is my mind?’” The Pixies © Samuel R Burns 2010 To Nami ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................iv 1. The Foundation ............................................................................................1 1.1. The Causal Theory of Reference ........................................................................4 1.2. Semantic Externalism ........................................................................................11 2. The Semantic Argument ...........................................................................16 2.1. Putnam’s Argument ...........................................................................................16 2.2. The Disquotation Principle ..............................................................................19 -
Seminar in Epistemology: Fallibilism (PHIL 468)
Seminar in Epistemology: Fallibilism (PHIL 468) Professor Baron Reed Spring Quarter, 2012 office: 3-225 Kresge Hall 2-345 Kresge Hall email: [email protected] T 4:00-6:50 office hours: T/Th 12:30-1:30 and by appointment Course Description: “We are all fallibilists nowadays,” says Michael Williams. This is almost entirely true. But, despite its near-universal acceptance, fallibilism remains poorly understood. There are significant problems that follow in its wake—e.g,. the Gettier problem and the Lottery Paradox. Moreover, some philosophers claim more for knowledge than fallibilism can deliver, tying knowledge to assertion, practical rationality, and epistemic possibility. Finally, some philosophers think that the very idea of fallibilism is suspect; if the view is correct, it means “the world must do us a favor,” as John McDowell puts it. But the whole point of knowledge, one might have thought, is that it puts one in such a position that favors are not needed. In this seminar, we will investigate whether fallibilism has the resources to meet some or all of these concerns. Required Texts: Readings to be posted on Blackboard. Required Work: Work for the course will include a short paper, a presentation, a commentary on a classmate’s paper, and a final paper: 20% Short paper (4-5 pages) 20% Presentation (4-5 pages) 10% Comments (2 pages) 50% Final Paper (10 pages) Excellent class participation may also factor into the final grade. Course Policies: (1) Regular contributions to discussion will be expected. (2) Extensions must be requested before the due date. -
SCEPTICISM and the CONTEXT of PHILOSOPHY Michael Williams Johns Hopkins University 1. Contextualism: the Basic Diagnosis Whateve
Philosophical Issues, 14, Epistemology, 2004 SCEPTICISM AND THE CONTEXT OF PHILOSOPHY Michael Williams Johns Hopkins University 1. Contextualism: the Basic Diagnosis Whatever their differences (and they are substantial), philosophers who think of themselves as epistemological contextualists share certain funda- mental ideas concerning knowledge and scepticism. I mention three. 1. The standards for correctly attributing knowledge (or justified belief) are in some way sensitive to context, hence variable rather than fixed. 2. While such context-sensitivity is readily seen in ordinary situations of epistemic appraisal, there is an important difference between all ordinary epistemic contexts and the context created by reflecting philosophically about knowledge or ‘‘doing epistemology’’. Whereas everyday epistemic appraisals are always in some way restricted, the philosophical examination of human knowledge is unrestricted. Since no knowledge-claim can survive unrestricted examination, in the extraordinary context of philosophical reflection—but only there— our knowledge of the world seems to evaporate entirely. (Perhaps it does evaporate entirely.) 3. Thus although the sceptic claims to have discovered, while reflecting philosophically, that we lack knowledge of the world, he has discovered (at most) that we lack knowledge of the world while reflecting philo- sophically. These ideas constitute what I shall call the Basic Contextualist Diagnosis of Scepticism, or the Basic Diagnosis for short. There are various ways of fleshing out the Basic Diagnosis, corresponding to different ways of thinking about the nature of knowledge: justificationist, externalist-reliabilist, and so on. However, in my view, the most fundamental Scepticism and the Context of Philosophy 457 division within the contextualist camp cuts across these familiar differences and concerns the question of how we ought to understand the context of philosophy or ‘‘doing epistemology’’. -
Massimi Synthese 2018 Kant PURE
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Synthese. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1876-7 Points of view. Kant on perspectival knowledge Michela Massimi Abstract The aim of this paper is to cast new light on an important and often overlooked notion of perspectival knowledge arising from Kant. In addition to a traditional notion of perspectival knowledge as “knowledge from a vantage point” (perspectival knowledge1), a second novel notion — “knowledge towards a vantage point” (perspectival knowledge2) —is here introduced. The origin and rationale of perspectival knowledge2 are traced back to Kant’s so-called transcendental illusion (and some of its pre-Critical sources). The legacy of the Kantian notion of perspectival knowledge2 for contemporary discussions on disagreement and the role of metaphysics in scientific knowledge is discussed. 1. Introduction. Two kinds of perspectival knowledge in Kant There is a ubiquitous (and surprisingly elusive notion) in philosophy, whose history and epistemological implications Kant redefined: the notion of perspectival knowledge. Kant has often been read as the precursor of a view that has found fertile terrain among contemporary pragmatists and perspectivalists alike: i.e., the view that knowledge is never from a God’s eye view, but it is instead from a human vantage point.1 Intuitive and appealing as it might be, perspectival knowledge has traditionally served as a foil to respond to a host of rival philosophical views, ranging from metaphysical realism to causal realism; from objectivist realism, to a more general Nagelian “view from nowhere”. -
Direct Warrant Realism
This is a prepublication draft of a paper that appears in its final and official form in A. Dole, A. Chignell, ed., God and the Ethics of Belief: New Essays in Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge UP, 2005). Direct Warrant Realism Keith DeRose Yale University 1. Direct Realism and Direct Warrant Realism Direct Realism often emerges as a solution to a certain type of problem. Hume and, especially, Berkeley, wielding some of the most powerful arguments of 18th Century philosophy, forcefully attacked the notion that there could be good inferences from the occurrence of one’s sensations to the existence of external, mind-independent bodies (material objects). Given the success of these attacks, and also given the assumption, made by Berkeley and arguably by Hume as well, that our knowledge of and rational belief in the existence of material objects would depend upon there being such good inferences, a problem arises: We cannot know of or rationally believe in the existence of material objects. Reid’s Direct Realism then emerges as the solution to this problem. Reid admits the success of Berkeley’s and Hume’s attacks against the possibility of successfully grounding our material world beliefs on inferences from our sensations,1 but claims that our belief in the existence of material objects can be perfectly rationally acceptable, and can amount to knowledge, despite the lack of such inferences. Though he did not use the terminology, it seems to be Reid’s position – and it’s this position that I will be referring to as his “Direct Realism” here – that certain perceptual beliefs whose content is such that they imply the existence of material objects are properly basic: they are rationally held, and if true can amount to knowledge, without having to be based on any other beliefs, including, most notably, beliefs about one’s own sensory experiences. -
Redalyc.DESCARTES's MODAL RELIABILISM
Praxis Filosófica ISSN: 0120-4688 [email protected] Universidad del Valle Colombia Gómez Alonso, Modesto M. DESCARTES'S MODAL RELIABILISM Praxis Filosófica, núm. 32, enero-junio, 2011, pp. 11-26 Universidad del Valle Cali, Colombia Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=209022654001 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative DESCARTES’S MODAL RELIABILISM* El confiabilismo modal de Descartes Modesto M. Gómez Alonso Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca ABSTRACT This paper’s objective is to undermine the standard reading on Descartes’s Meditations, a reading which, abstracting from the skeptical challenge of a reduction of reason to absurdity which Descartes is responding to, overstresses the epistemological priority of the Cogito argument, and which, ignoring the anti-skeptical strategy deployed by Descartes, is blind to the fact that, instead of trying to garner better support for nuclear propositions, he attempts to subtract grounds for doubt, working himself into an enlightened position from which those radical scenarios no longer make sense. Descartes’s proposal is a modal or metaphysical version of reliabilism analogous to the contemporary one defended by Ernest Sosa, a position capable of overcoming skepticism without a vicious circle and which demonstrates that a correct use of reason yields a theory on how things are in the world which precludes the unreliability of our cognitive faculties. Key Words: Descartes, Ernest Sosa, Global Scenarios, Reliabilism, Skepticism.