DOCSLIB.ORG

The Brain in a Vat (And the Problem of Other Minds)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Brain in a Vat (And the Problem of Other Minds) The Brain in a Vat (and the problem of other minds) 1. The Brain in the Vat: The Cartesian dreaming and evil demon arguments have gotten a contemporary update. Consider the following scenario: You stumble upon a secret laboratory full of scientists. A friend of yours lies unconscious on an operating table. The scientists are removing his brain. They submerge the brain in a vat of fluid nutrients, and then attach various wires to the brain. The scientists see you, and one of them begins to speak: “We have the ability to stimulate this brain to make it think whatever we want it to think,” the scientist says. “Right now, your friend thinks he is walking to work. But, he is not. The things that this brain is experiencing are all merely the result of a computer simulation—but one that is SO real, that he cannot tell it apart from reality. Your friend thinks he is arriving at work now, but—as you can see—he is actually lying on an operating table without his brain.” You are stunned, and don’t know what to do. Before you can even grapple with what you’ve just been told, the scientist says one more thing: “Actually, that is not the whole truth. The truth is that none of THIS is real. Nothing you are experiencing RIGHT NOW is real. For, we abducted you three months ago and removed YOUR brain. Right now, your brain is actually submerged in a vat of nutrients, being stimulated by a computer program to make you think that you are seeing your friend having his brain removed. We figured that programming this experience for you was the easiest way to let you know what we’ve done to you. And now you know the truth.” Question: What would you do if this happened to you? Would you believe them? How could you know for sure if they were lying? If the computer is really capable of making you experience a reality that is JUST AS REAL as the REAL reality—as the scientists claim—then life in the vat would be indistinguishable from life in reality. You would have no way to prove them wrong. External World Skepticism: Furthermore, for all you know, perhaps it is the case that YOU are merely a brain in a vat RIGHT NOW, and nothing you experience is real. How would you be able to know if you weren’t? Ask yourself this: Do you KNOW that you are not dreaming, or a brain in a vat, right now? If so, how? 1 There seems to be NO WAY for you to prove with absolute certainty that the things you are experiencing right now are real. Recall that Locke believed that there MUST be external objects which are causing our sensations because this was the best explanation of our sensations. But, isn’t this exactly what a BIV would ALSO think to itself? For, any evidence of the external world that you think you might have would be EXACTLY the same sort of evidence that a brain in a vat would have! In the end, something like the following argument arises: 1. If you cannot know that you are not merely a brain in a vat, then you do not know that you have hands. 2. You cannot know that you are not merely a brain in a vat. 3. Therefore, you do not know that you have hands (nor, in fact, ANYTHING about the things in the world around you; the objects of your experiences). On Premise 1: Why think that premise 1 is true? It derives from the following principle: The Closure Principle: If you know P, and P entails Q, then you can know Q. But, let P = <I have hands> and Q = <I am not a brain in a vat>. If I KNOW that I have hands, then this ENTAILS that I am not a brain in a vat. So, by the Closure Principle: If you know that you have hands, then you can know that you are not a BIV. Premise 1 is just the contrapositive of this; i.e., <If P, then Q> is logically equivalent to <If not-Q, then not-P>. For example, the following statements are logically equivalent: (i) If you are 21 or older, then you can legally drink alcohol. (ii) If you cannot legally drink alcohol, then you are not 21 or older. Other Skeptical Scenarios: Nagel gives another sort of skeptical scenario, which is originally from Bertrand Russell: There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that “remembered” a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. (Analysis of Mind, 1921) Do you know that you were not merely created 5 minutes ago, with false memories of a past that never happened? In principle, there is no way to verify that this is not the case. 2 2. The Problem of Other Minds: Here’s an interesting problem that arises even if you reject external world skepticism. Imagine that you believe that there ARE external objects outside of your head, and even that they are very similar to the way that we experience them—and that we are even justified in believing so. Nevertheless, this question remains: How do you know that anyone else is conscious? Take a step back: At the very least, how can you be sure that everyone else experiences secondary qualities in the same way that you do? For instance, how do I know whether, when you look at a ripe tomato, to you it looks like THIS: All I have access to is your external behavior. Sure, when I ask you what color the tomato is, you’ll CALL it ‘red’ – but you would do so even if it looked like the tomato above, because you would have been brought up in a society which pointed at things like ripe tomatoes, rubies, red delicious apples, and red roses and taught you to apply the label ‘red’ to things that looked like that. (This video nicely illustrates this point; from start to 2:15) And sure, when we cut people open and examine their internal organs, their eyes and brains seem to function in pretty much the same way. But, can you really KNOW that other people experience the world in the same way that you do? Actually, we’re quite sure that some people do NOT experience secondary qualities in quite the same way. For instance, some people are color blind. Others are supertasters (and it’s certainly common for some to easily detect or identify certain smells or flavors in dishes, which others cannot). Younger people can hear higher frequencies. We all have different aesthetic tastes (e.g., something tastes delicious to you, but terrible to someone else). So, we’re fairly sure that experience of the world differs at least A LITTLE from person to person. But, how can we be sure that it doesn’t differ A LOT? 3 Solipsism: Or worse still, how can you be sure that other people are even CONSCIOUS? Perhaps everyone around you is merely what is called a “philosophical zombie”—that is, a being which is completely indistinguishable from a conscious human being, but which actually has no conscious experiences whatsoever. If you were living in a P-Zombie world, you would have EXACTLY the same evidence of other people being conscious as you would have in a world full of conscious people! This is a path toward solipsism, or the view that one is the only conscious individual in existence. (An extreme form of this being that you are the ONLY THING that exists; e.g., everything else is just a product of your mind.) [Fun side note: Do you think philosophical zombies are metaphysically possible? If so, then you might be committed to mind-body dualism! This is the whole reason that P- Zombies were discussed in the first place. The argument goes, that, if you are a Physicalist who thinks that consciousness is nothing more than matter arranged in a certain way, then it should follow that, whenever matter is arranged in exactly that same way, consciousness arises. But, since it is metaphysically possible for this to NOT be the case, then consciousness is not reducible to mere matter. Mind is more than matter. The argument goes: 1. If Physicalism is true, then any possible world which is physically identical to our own world is one where there are conscious beings. 2. But, there is a metaphysically possible world that is physically indistinguishable from ours, but where there are no conscious beings (i.e., a P-Zombie world is metaphysically possible). 3. Therefore, Physicalism is false (i.e., consciousness is not purely physical). In short, by entertaining the Problem of Other Minds, you may have inadvertently committed yourself to some form of Dualism!] 4 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • PENSARE IL BIOS B@Belonline/Print
    PENSARE IL BIOS B@belonline/print Rivista semestrale di Filosofia N. 5 – Anno 2008 B@belonline/print è la versione a stampa della rivista elettronica www.babelonline.net Due modalità di esprimere la filosofia oggi che dialogano nell’identità e nella differenza dei modi e dei contenuti Questo numero della rivista è stato realizzato con il contributo del Dipartimento di Filosofia dell’Università degli Studi Roma Tre. B@belonline/print Direzione e Redazione Dipartimento di Filosofia Università degli Studi Roma Tre Via Ostiense 234 00146 Roma Sito Internet:http://host.uniroma3.it/dipartimenti/filosofia Tel. + 39.06.57338338/57338425 – fax + 39.06.57338340 Direttore: Francesca Brezzi Comitato direttivo: Patrizia Cipolletta ([email protected]) e Chiara Di Marco ([email protected] ) Comitato scientifico: Giuseppe Cantillo, Riccardo Chiaradonna, Claudia Dovolich, Daniella Iannotta, Giacomo Marramao, Elio Matassi, Paolo Nepi, Maria Teresa Pansera, Stefano Poggi, Beatrice Tortolici, Carmelo Vigna Comitato di redazione: Mattia Artibani, Francesca Gambetti, Carla Guetti, Davide Maggiore, Sabine Meine, Paolo Mulè Abbonamento annuale: 25 € (Italia), 30 € (Estero), 20 € (Studenti), 35 € (Sostenitori) da versare sul c.c. n. 38372207, intestato a: Associazione Culturale Mimesis. Spedire fotocopia della ricevuta alla Redazione di B@belonline via fax, o via e-mail, o via posta. Numeri arretrati: versare 20 € sul c.c. indicato e inviare la ricevuta alla Redazione. Libri per recensioni, riviste e manoscritti possono essere inviati alla Segreteria di
    [Show full text]
  • 'Putnam on Bivs and Radical Scepticism'
    For Putnam on Brains in Vats, (ed.) S. Goldberg, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ‘PUTNAM ON BIVS AND RADICAL SCEPTICISM’ DUNCAN PRITCHARD & CHRIS RANALLI University of Edinburgh & National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) ABSTRACT. The aim of this paper is to explore Putnam’s influential ‘BIV’ argument against radical scepticism, both as he presents this argument and as it has subsequently been reconstructed. §1 explores the BIV argument as Putnam presents it and the anti-sceptical morals that he extracts from this argument. §2 examines a core critique of the argument, so conceived, from Anthony Brueckner. §3 then critically evaluates an influential reconstruction of Putnam’s argument, due to Crispin Wright. §4-5 explores the idea that Putnam’s argument is best thought of as a transcendental response to radical scepticism, and accordingly applies Stroud’s challenge to transcendental arguments to this proposal. Finally, §6 examines an influential criticism of Putnam’s argument which is due to Nagel. 1. PUTNAM’S BIV ARGUMENT A familiar way of arguing for radical scepticism is by appeal to radical sceptical hypotheses, such as the hypothesis that one might be a brain-in-vat (BIV) which is being radically, and undetectably, deceived about its environment. Roughly, the sceptical argument goes that since such sceptical hypotheses are by their nature indistinguishable from normal experience, so one cannot know that they are false. Furthermore, if one cannot know that they are false, then it follows that one can’t know much of what one believes, most of which is inconsistent with radical sceptical hypotheses. This last step will almost certainly require some sort of closure-style principle, whereby knowledge is closed under known entailments.
    [Show full text]
  • 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
    [Show full text]
  • HISTORIA SCEPTYCYZMU Monografie Fundacji Na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej
    HISTORIA SCEPTYCYZMU monografie fundacji na rzecz nauki polskiej rada wydawnicza prof. Tomasz Kizwalter, prof. Janusz Sławiński, prof. Antoni Ziemba, prof. Marek Ziółkowski, prof. Szymon Wróbel fundacja na rzecz nauki polskiej Renata Ziemińska HISTORIA SCEPTYCYZMU W POSZUKIWANIU SPÓJNOŚCI toruń 2013 Wydanie książki subwencjonowane przez Fundację na rzecz Nauki Polskiej w ramach programu Monografie FNP Redaktor tomu Anna Mądry Korekty Ewelina Gajewska Projekt okładki i obwoluty Barbara Kaczmarek Printed in Poland © Copyright by Renata Ziemińska and Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika Toruń 2013 ISBN 978-83-231-2949-3 WYDAWNICTWO NAUKOWE UNIWERSYTETU MIKOŁAJA KOPERNIKA Redakcja: ul. Gagarina 5, 87-100 Toruń tel. +48 56 611 42 95, fax +48 56 611 47 05 e-mail: [email protected] Dystrybucja: ul. Reja 25, 87-100 Toruń tel./fax: +48 56 611 42 38, e-mail: [email protected] www.wydawnictwoumk.pl Wydanie pierwsze Druk i oprawa: Abedik Sp. z o.o. ul. Glinki 84, 85-861 Bydgoszcz Spis treści wstęp ......................................................................................................... 9 część i. pojęcie i rodzaje sceptycyzmu rozdział 1. genealogia terminu „sceptycyzm” ........................... 15 rozdział 2. ewolucja pojęcia sceptycyzmu .................................. 21 Starożytny sceptycyzm jako zawieszenie sądów pretendujących do prawdy .......................................................................................... 21 Średniowieczny sceptycyzm jako uznanie słabości ludzkich sądów wobec Bożej wszechmocy
    [Show full text]
  • Sceptical Paths Studies and Texts in Scepticism
    Sceptical Paths Studies and Texts in Scepticism Edited on behalf of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies by Giuseppe Veltri Managing Editor: Yoav Meyrav Editorial Board Heidrun Eichner, Talya Fishman, Racheli Haliva, Henrik Lagerlund, Reimund Leicht, Stephan Schmid, Carsten Wilke, Irene Zwiep Volume 6 Sceptical Paths Enquiry and Doubt from Antiquity to the Present Edited by Giuseppe Veltri, Racheli Haliva, Stephan Schmid, and Emidio Spinelli The series Studies and Texts in Scepticism is published on behalf of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies ISBN 978-3-11-058960-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-059104-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-059111-8 ISSN 2568-9614 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 Licence. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2019947115 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Giuseppe Veltri, Racheli Haliva, Stephan Schmid, Emidio Spinelli, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Ms Cod. Levy 115, fol. 158r: Maimonides, More Nevukhim, Beginn von Teil III. Printing & binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Contents Introduction 1 Carlos Lévy Philo of Alexandria vs. Descartes: An Ignored Jewish
    [Show full text]
  • Brain in a Vat Or Body in a World? Brainbound Versus Enactive Views of Experience
    Topics 39.1 first pages:Layout 1 3/25/13 4:58 PM Page 163 PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS VOL. 39, NO. 1, SPRING 2011 Brain in a Vat or Body in a World? Brainbound versus Enactive Views of Experience Evan Thompson University of Toronto Diego Cosmelli Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ABSTRACT. We argue that the minimal biological requirements for con- sciousness include a living body, not just neuronal processes in the skull. Our argument proceeds by reconsidering the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. Careful examination of this thought experiment indicates that the null hypothesis is that any adequately functional “vat” would be a sur- rogate body, that is, that the so-called vat would be no vat at all, but rather an embodied agent in the world. Thus, what the thought experiment actu- ally shows is that the brain and body are so deeply entangled, structurally and dynamically, that they are explanatorily inseparable. Such entangle- ment implies that we cannot understand consciousness by considering only the activity of neurons apart from the body, and hence we have good explanatory grounds for supposing that the minimal realizing system for consciousness includes the body and not just the brain. In this way, we put the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment to a new use, one that supports the “enactive” view that consciousness is a life-regulation process of the whole organism interacting with its environment. 163 Topics 39.1 first pages:Layout 1 3/25/13 4:58 PM Page 164 Is consciousness all in the head, or more precisely all in the brain? Or
    [Show full text]
  • Chalmers Against Skepticism
    Chalmers Against Skepticism Philosopher David Chalmers has a solution to the problem of external world skepticism. The short version: You can know that you have hands even if you ARE a brain in a vat! 1. The Matrix as Metaphysics: Imagine that you are living 1,000 years ago. You look at some water and form the belief, <This is water>. Do you KNOW this? Plausibly, yes. Now, centuries later, scientists will discover that this substance is composed of H2O. You didn’t know that you were looking at some H2O, but does it matter? No. It just doesn’t seem like ignorance about the underlying, fundamental structure or nature of something undermines this sort of knowledge. In fact, you might have even held MISTAKEN beliefs about the underlying structure—for instance, you might have said that water is composed of tiny corpuscles that are perfectly round (that’s what makes it so fluid!). But, being mistaken about this fact doesn’t undermine your knowledge that <This is water>. Right? Well, Chalmers says something similar about the simulation scenarios. Imagine that you ARE a brain in a vat. You look at your digitally-rendered “hands” and form the belief, <I have hands>. It is very tempting to think that you lack knowledge in this case. Your belief is simply mistaken. You do not have hands. But, Chalmers argues that, even if you are a brain in a vat, you DO have hands. If you look down, and see and feel hands, then you have them! They might be composed of earth/air/fire/water, or atoms, or superstrings, or zeroes and ones.
    [Show full text]
  • The Archimedean Urge
    Philosophical Perspectives, 29, Epistemology, 2015 THE ARCHIMEDEAN URGE Amia Srinivasan University College London 1. Genealogical Scepticism In Aristophanes’ The Clouds, Socrates orders his hapless student Strepsiades to lie down on a couch to make him more receptive to philosophical inspiration. Instead he catches Strepsiades masturbating under the bedclothes. Aristophanes’ suggestion is that it amounts to much the same thing. Like philosophy, scepticism about philosophy has its modes and fashions. Sometimes the accusation, as with Aristophanes, is that a seemingly lofty activity is in fact chicanery, nonsense in the service of all too human desire. According to the sort of diagnostic scepticism associated with the later Wittgenstein, philosophy is a symptom of pathology or confusion. Scientistic scepticism impugns philosophy for falling short of some putative standard met by all respectable — that is, empirical — modes of enquiry. What we might call ‘genealogical’ scepticism complains that the building blocks of philosophy — the judgments and concepts on which it all hangs — are contingent features of whoever it is who is doing the philosophising: her or his particular history, culture, language, education, gender, character. Coming to terms with the genealogical contingency of thought has been a preoccupation of the European intellectual tradition since the mid-18th cen- tury. German historicists like Herder and Humboldt taught Europeans to think historically about thought itself, to see historical enquiry as a historically cir- cumscribed endeavour rather than an unencumbered encounter with the hard facts of the past. Hegel applied this historicist lesson to philosophy: as “each child is in any case a child of his time . thus, philosophy, too, is its own time comprehended in thoughts” (1820/1991, 21).
    [Show full text]
  • Wittgenstein's Beetle and Other Classic Thought
    WITTGENSTEIN’S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS I do not want to give the impression that the use of large machines or of elaborate techniques is always justified; sometimes it contributes merely to the sense of self-importance of the investigator, and it is always salutary to remember Rutherford’s ‘We haven’t got the the money, so we’ve got to think!’ R. V. Jones in the Bulletin of the Institute of Physics (1962) recalling the dictum of Ernest Rutherford MARTIN COHEN Wittgenstein’s Beetle and Other Classic Thought Experiments Contents List of Figures vii Forward! viii Introduction: Deep Thought – a brief history of thought experiments 1 The A–Z A is for Alice and Astronomers Arguing about Acceleration 15 B is for Bernard’s Body-Exchange Machine 18 C is for the Catholic Cannibal 20 D is for Maxwell’s Demon 25 E is for Evolution (and an Embarrassing Problem with it) 28 F is for the Forms Lost Forever to the Prisoners of the Cave 30 G is for Galileo’s Gravitational Balls 33 H is for Hume’s Shades 37 I is for the Identity of Indiscernibles 41 J is for Henri Poincaré and Alternative Geometries 45 K is for the Kritik and Kant’s Kind of Thought Experiments 48 L is for Lucretius’ Spear 52 M is for Mach’s Motionless Chain 55 N is for Newton’s Bucket 58 O is for Olbers’ Paradox 62 P is for Parfit’s Person 65 Q is for the Questions Raised by Thought Experiments Quotidiennes 67 R is for the Rule-Ruled Room 70 S is for Salvatius’ Ship, Sailing along its own Space-Time Line 74 T is for the Time-Travelling Twins 78 U is for the Universe, and
    [Show full text]
  • SKEPTICISM, CONTEXTUALISM, and DISCRIMINATION Jonathan Schaffer
    SKEPTICISM, CONTEXTUALISM, AND DISCRIMINATION Jonathan Schaffer The skeptic (following Peter Unger 1975) says that “knowledge” is an absolute term, requiring the elimination of all logical possibilities of falsehood. The contextualist (following David Lewis 1979, Fred Dretske 1981, inter alia) says that “knowledge” is a relationally absolute term, requiring the elimination of only the contextually relevant possibilities of falsehood. Which is the better hypothesis about “knowledge”? And what implications do these hypotheses about “knowledge” have for knowledge? I argue that (i) it is the skeptic who has the better hypothesis about “knowledge”; but (ii) both the skeptical and contextualist hypotheses presuppose our capacity for epistemically salient discrimination, where (iii) such discrimination reveals why skeptical scenarios fail to undermine our epistemic standing. There is a deeply anti-skeptical morale buried in the skepticism- contextualism dispute. 1. Skepticism, Unger Style The skeptic says that we know nothing, or at least far less than is usually supposed. The skeptic may target various domains and employ various arguments. I am interested in the sort of skeptic who targets knowledge about the external world, with the following argument: 1) One cannot know that one is not a brain-in-a-vat (or dreaming, or under the spell of Descartes’s demon, or in some other skeptical scenario in which appearances deceive); 2) If one cannot know that one is not a brain-in-a-vat, then one cannot know that one has hands (or any other mundane proposition about the external world); 3) Therefore one cannot know that one has hands (or any other mundane proposition about the external world).
    [Show full text]
  • Brains in a Vat: Different Perspectives Author(S): Yuval Steinitz Reviewed Work(S): Source: the Philosophical Quarterly, Vol
    Brains in a Vat: Different Perspectives Author(s): Yuval Steinitz Reviewed work(s): Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 175 (Apr., 1994), pp. 213-222 Published by: Wiley-Blackwell for The Philosophical Quarterly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2219742 . Accessed: 19/08/2012 03:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Wiley-Blackwell and The Philosophical Quarterly are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org ON MCDOWELL ON THE CONTENT OF PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE 213 in givingan expositionof one of thehorns of thedilemma. One hornof thedilemma is thatif we take consciousnessto be inseparablefrom the norm-governednotion of self-consciousnessand fromreflective and self-criticalattitudes towards oneself, then it does seem hard to accept thatDennett's framework, in whichconscious contents are a selectionof thecontents that go to and frobetween subsystems, will capture all of thephenomena; but by the same tokena frog'svisual experience will not countas contentfuland conscious,as McDowell claimsit does. But,on the otherhorn, if we shrinkthe phenomenonof consciousnessto exclude self-consciousnessand thereby includethe experienceof unself-consciouscreatures such as frogsas conscious,then it seemsto me thedual strategyI adopted - of(l) generalizingDennett's idea ofaccess relations,and (2) defusingMcDowell's epistemologicalalarms which motivatehis criticismof Dennett - providesa quiteadequate defence of Dennett against McDowell.
    [Show full text]
  • Read Book Epistemologies of the South 1St Edition
    EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE SOUTH 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Boaventura de Sousa Santos | 9781317260349 | | | | | Epistemologies of the South 1st edition PDF Book The book examines its subject through the analysis of three main case studies, namely those of Colombia, India, and South Africa. It began to emerge as a distinct subfield in the 20th century. Rationalist views can range from modest views in mathematics and logic such as that of Gottlob Frege to ambitious metaphysical systems such as that of Baruch Spinoza. Eva Marques rated it really liked it Jun 28, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Epistemologists study the nature of knowledge, epistemic justification , the rationality of belief , and various related issues. An alternative resolution to the regress problem is known as " infinitism ". Views that emphasize the importance of a posteriori knowledge are generally classified as empiricist. Sep 14, Kelly Dombroski rated it really liked it. In that case, we can't The word "epistemology" was properly introduced into Anglophone philosophical literature by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in , who used it in his Institutes of Metaphysics :. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Gettier then goes on to offer a second similar case, providing the means by which the specifics of his examples can be generalized into a broader problem for defining knowledge in terms of justified true belief. Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of potential justification [the nebula theory].
    [Show full text]