Cognisance of Consciousness in the Study of Animal Knowledge

1987 ◽  
pp. 105-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia M. Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Animal Knowledge

Uninstantiability

Semiotica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (208) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John Deely
Keyword(s):  
Concept Formation ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Triadic Relation ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Internal Sense ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
Stimulation Of

AbstractJohn Poinsot (1589–1644), aka Joannes a Sancto Thoma, was the first of St Thomas’ followers among the Latins to demonstrate that the origins of animal knowledge in sensation is already – from the first – a matter of the action of signs. This action, “semiosis,” results in the formation of an irreducibly triadic relation apart from which there is no awareness at all on the part of animals. At the level of internal sense, and then again at the level of intellect (the two having in common dependency upon concept-formation in order to interpret the data provided by sensation), Poinsot shows how the concept serves to make objects known only by serving as the foundation for relations which, exactly as those in sensation, exhibit an irreducibly triadic character, with only this difference: that, whereas the triadic relations of sensation are directly founded upon or “provenate from” species impressa (stimulation of sense powers in bodily interaction with the surroundings) determining the external sense powers, the triadic relations of perceptual and intellectual awareness have as their immediate foundations or “sources of provenation” species expressae (“ideas” or concepts) actively formed by the cognitive powers of memory, imagination, estimation, and intellect. Being relations, all of these triadic relations exhibit no direct instantiation as signate matter, and it is this which makes them only indirectly knowable to sense powers. Intellect, by contrast, in being able to know relations precisely in their difference from related objects and things, manifests the species-specific distinctness of human animals in being able to construct and to know and to communicate about objects – beginning with relations – which admit of no direct sensory instantiation. The purpose of this paper is to show how the ability of the human mind to consider objects which admit of no direct instantiation in sense perception is what distinguishes the human being as “semiotic animal” from what the Latins identified as “brute animals,” not because brutes (the “alloanimals,” to use a term from late modern anthropology) are not “rational” in the modern sense of being able creatively to work through problems (indeed they are rational in this sense!), but because human animals are not confined to the consideration of objects as perceptually instantiable.

Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Two Kinds of Knowledge

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Williams
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Cognitive Faculties ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Vicious Circularity ◽  
Direct Answer

AbstractIn his Reflective Knowledge, Ernest Sosa offers a theory of knowledge, broadly virtue-theoretic in character, that is meant to transcend simple ways of contrasting "internalist" with "externalist" or "foundationalist" with "coherentist" approaches to knowledge and justification. Getting beyond such simplifications, Sosa thinks, is the key to finding an exit from "the Pyrrhonian Problematic": the ancient and profound skeptical problem concerning the apparent impossibility of validating the reliability of our basic epistemic faculties and procedures in a way that escapes vicious circularity. Central to Sosa's anti-skeptical strategy is the claim that there are two kinds of knowledge. His thought is that animal knowledge, which can be understood in purely reliabilist terms, can ground justified trust in the reliability of our basic cognitive faculties, thus elevating us (without vicious circularity) to the level of reflective knowledge. I offer a sketch of an alternative approach, linking knowledge and justification with epistemic accountability and responsible belief-management, which casts doubt on the idea that "animal" knowledge is knowledge properly so-called. However, it turns out that this approach is (perhaps surprisingly) close in spirit to Sosa's. I suggest that the differences between us may rest on a disagreement over the possibility of providing a direct answer to the Pyrrhonian challenge.

Poems and Fancies

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-170
Author(s):  
David Cunning
Keyword(s):  
Active Regions ◽  
Empty Space ◽  
Animal Cruelty ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter features a selection of excerpts from Cavendish’s poems and other short pieces. The passages treat a number of topics and issues: atomism; empty space; active regions of the world that we do not notice; the ideas that occur to us and why; animal knowledge; insect knowledge; peace and conflict; gender; imaginary worlds; poetry; animal cruelty; and the treatment of nature. The poems on atomism reflect a view that Cavendish entertained early on and then abandoned in favor of her animist view that bodies are not only divisible, but also active, perceptive, and knowledgeable. A common theme across other poems is the sophistication of nonhuman creatures, for example in “A Dialogue between an Oake, and a Man cutting him downe,” “A Morall Discourse betwixt Man, and Beast,” “Of the Ant,” and “Of Fishes.”

Easy Knowledge, Circularity, and the Puzzle of Reliability Knowledge

Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-473
Author(s):  
Matthias Steup
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Cognitive Structure ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Mutual Dependence ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Temporal Priority ◽  
Vicious Circularity

AbstractAccording to externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism, it's possible to gain knowledge through a perceptual experience without being in a position to know that the experience is reliable. As a result, both of these views face the problem of making knowledge of perceptual reliability too easy, for they permit deducing perceptual reliability from particular perceptual experience without already knowing that these experiences are trustworthy. Ernest Sosa advocates a two-stage solution to the problem. At the first stage, a rich body of perceptual animal knowledge is acquired. At the second stage, perceptual knowledge becomes reflective after deducing perceptual reliability from the initial body of perceptual animal knowledge. I defend the alternative approach of rejecting both externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism. According to the alternative view, perceptual knowledge and knowledge of perceptual reliability require each other. Such a cognitive structure seems viciously circular. I propose that the appearance of vicious circularity dissipates when the relationship in question is viewed, not as one of temporal priority, but instead as synchronic mutual dependence. At a given time, one cannot have perceptual knowledge without knowledge of perceptual reliability, and vice versa. Such mutual dependence, I argue, is benign.

scholarly journals Virtudes epidémicas reflexivas. El conocimiento como una cuestión de confianza

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Manuel Liz
Keyword(s):  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
De Re ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Epistemic Perspective

Resumen De acuerdo a Ernest Sosa, el conocimiento re exivo debería ser capaz de integrar al- gunas circularidades epistémicas como fuentes virtuosas de conocimiento. Argumen- taremos que tal conocimiento re exivo tiene que estar basado en ciertas capacidades para delegar y aplazar de manera adecuada la justi cación de nuestras creencias de primer orden. También argumentaremos que entender esas capacidades comunitarias y temporales como constituyendo virtudes epistémicas re exivas nos conduce fuera de cualquier concepción criterial del conocimiento. Para estas concepciones, conocer siempre requiere saber que se han satisfecho determinados criterios. Si el conoci- miento propiamente humano inevitablemente necesita alguna dosis de re exión, y si nuestro conocimiento re exivo necesariamente depende del ejercicio virtuoso de ciertas capacidades para delegar y aplazar la justi cación, entonces en último término el conocimiento no puede ser criterial. El conocimiento humano es más bien una cuestión de con anza Palabras clave: Conocimiento; criterios; perspectiva epistémica; circularidad epistémica; conocimiento animal; conocimiento re exivo; ascenso epistémico; virtu- des epistémicas re exivas; delegación de la justi cación; aplazamiento de la justicación. AbstractAccording to Ernest Sosa, re ective knowledge would have to be able to integrate some epistemic circularities as virtuous sources of knowledge. We will argue that such re ective knowledge has to be based on some capacities for delegating and relegating in adequate ways the justi cation of our rst-order beliefs. Also, we will argue that to understand those communitarian and temporal capacities as constituting re ective epistemic virtues leads us outside any criterial conception of knowledge. For these conceptions, knowing always requires to know that certain criteria are ful lled. If human knowledge worth of the name unavoidably needs some amount of re ection, and if our re ective knowledge necessarily depends on virtuous delegation and deferring, then at the end of the day knowledge cannot be criterial. Human knowledge is rather a matter of trust.Keywords: Knowledge; criteria; epistemic perspective; epistemic circularity; animal knowledge; re ective knowledge; epistemic ascent; re ective epistemic virtues; delegation of justi cation; deferring of justication.  

Grades of Knowledge

2021 ◽  
pp. 144-156
Author(s):  
Ernest Sosa
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
First Order

Sub-credal animal knowledge requires apt alethic affirmation, but judgment aims not just at success of such affirmation but at apt success. To succeed with this aim, as one affirms, it is required that one be able to tell that one would then get it right aptly (or at least that one would likely enough get it right aptly). The judgmental knower must have a second-order grasp—an affirmative thought or presupposition—that her first-order affirmation would then be apt (or would very likely be apt, or some such thought that would enable enhanced guidance).

scholarly journals UNREFLECTIVE EPISTEMOLOGY

Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kelp
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Is Success ◽  
The Core ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Fake Barn ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

AbstractVirtue epistemological accounts of knowledge claim that knowledge is a species of a broader normative category, to wit of success from ability. Fake Barn cases pose a difficult problem for such accounts. In structurally analogous but non-epistemic cases, the agents attain the relevant success from ability. If knowledge is just another form of success from ability, the pressure is on to treat Fake Barn cases as cases of knowledge. The challenge virtue epistemology faces is to explain the intuitive lack of knowledge in Fake Barn cases, whilst holding on to the core claim that knowledge is success from ability. Ernest Sosa's version of virtue epistemology promises to rise to this challenge. Sosa distinguishes two types of knowledge, animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. He argues that while animal knowledge is present in Fake Barn cases, reflective knowledge is absent and ventures to explain the intuition of ignorance by the absence of reflective knowledge. This paper argues that Sosa's treatment of Fake Barn cases fails as it commits Sosa to a number of highly counterintuitive results elsewhere in epistemology.

scholarly journals Los sueños, la agencia y el juicio

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 315
Author(s):  
Matthew Soteriou
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Virtue Epistemologist

De acuerdo con Sosa, Descartes es un epistemólogo de virtudes, y podemos entender el proyecto epistemológico de Descartes sólo como un proyecto de segundo orden que concuerda con esta manera de entender su epistemología. Mi objetivo en este artículo es el de ahondar en esta comparación con la epistemología de Descartes, principalmente mediante la exploración de una manera en la que uno podría añadir ciertos detalles suplementarios a la postura general de Sosa, con la finalidad de que ésta concuerde de mejor manera con la postura de Descartes, o al menos con la que yo considero que es la postura de DescartesPalabras clave: Ernest Sosa, Descartes, conocimiento animal, conocimiento reflexivo, cognitio, scientia.AbstractAccording to Sosa, Descartes is a virtue epistemologist, and we can make sense of Descartes’ epistemological project only as a second-order project that fits with this view of his epistemology. My aim in this paper is to pursue this comparison with Descartes’ epistemology—principally through exploring a way in which one might add certain supplementary details to Sosa’s general approach, in order to bring it into closer alignment with Descartes’ view, or at least what I take to be Descartes’ view Keywords: Ernest Sosa, Descartes, animal knowledge, reflective knowledge, cognitio, scientia. 

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