Prospects for a Causal Theory of Knowledge

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-473
Author(s):  
Philip P. Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
Epistemological Framework

Knowing is something that we do not have much of a theory about. (H. Putman, “The Analytic and the Synthetic,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 3 (1962), p. 365.)Interest has recently been shown in causal theories of perception, memory, inference, reference, truth, justification and belief, as well as in a more general “causal theory of knowledge” which would embrace and connect all of these concepts within a broad epistemological framework. The burden of this paper is that prospects are poor for an interesting and general enough causal theory of knowledge. A threat to generality arises from the causal theory's difficulties with knowledge of general truths. A threat to interest arises when attempts to accommodate general truths lead to a weakening of the notion of “causal connection” appealed to, making dubious the explanatory force of such an appeal.

Knowledge, causal theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Swain
Keyword(s):  
Causal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Causal Processes ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Coming To Know

Epistemologists have always recognized the importance of causal processes in accounting for our knowledge of things. In discussions of perception, memory and reasoning, for example, it is commonly assumed that these ways of coming to know are fundamentally causal. We perceive things and thus come to have knowledge about them via complex causal processes; memory is, at least in part, the retention of previously gained knowledge through some sort of causal process; and reasoning is a causal process that takes beliefs as inputs and generates beliefs as outputs. A causal theory of knowledge is a form of externalism and is based on the fundamental idea that a person knows some proposition, p, only if there is an appropriate causal connection between the state of affairs that makes p true and the person’s belief in p. Although this kind of theory has roots that extend to ancient times, contemporary versions attempt to make more precise the nature of the causal connections required for knowledge. The causal theory is closely related to other forms of externalist theories, such as the conclusive reasons theory, information-theoretic views and the various forms of reliabilism.

Max Scheler’s Pluralistic Conception of Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (9999) ◽  
pp. 83-94
Author(s):  
Stanisław Czerniak ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Types ◽  
The Status ◽  
Philosophy Of Knowledge

This article aims to reconstruct Max Scheler’s conception of three types of knowledge, outlined in his late work Philosophical Perspectives (1928). Scheler distinguished three kinds of knowledge: empirical, used to exercise control over nature, eidetic (essential) and metaphysical. The author reviews the epistemological criteria that underlie this distinction, and its functionalistic assumptions. In the article’s polemic part he accuses Scheler of a) crypto-dualism in his theory of knowledge, which draws insufficient distinctions between metaphysical and eidetic knowledge; b) totally omitting the status of the humanities in his classification of knowledge types; c) consistently developing a philosophy of knowledge without resort to the research tools offered by the philosophy of science, which takes such analyses out of their social and historical context (i.e. how knowledge is created in today’s scientific communities).

scholarly journals Consideraciones sobre una semiología de la ciencia

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (51) ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Javier Echeverría
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Theory Of Science ◽  
Logical Atomism

One of the main deficiencies of the twentieth century philosophy of science, in spite of evident achievements in the logical analysis and reconstruction of scientific theories, is the separation between formal sciences and those sciences with empirical contents. This distinction derives from Carnap and it was generally admitted by the Vienna Circle since the publication of “Formalwissenschaft und Realwissenschaft” in Erkenntnis in 1935. Later philosophy of science, in spite of other criticism of the neopositivist programme, has maintained this separation. It can be claimed that Realwissenschaften, physics in particular, have determined the development of later philosophy of science. Analyses of scientific theories most of the time refer to physical theories, and occasionally to biological ones. There is still a lot to be done in the field of mathematics and logic, in order to analyse and reconstruct their theories. But even if this task is undertaken, and some progress has been done lately, there is still a lot of work to do before a general theory of science can be proposed which transcends such a division between formal and empirical sciences, let alone the human or social sciences. This paper is intended as a contribution to supersede the first dichotomy between formal and physical sciences. One of the main problems in order to make some progress along these lines is that since its origins logical positivism had a deficient theory of knowledge, and the same happened with analytical philosophy developed immediately afterwards. This paper thus criticises examples of such a type of theory of knowledge, as expressed in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and Russell’s Philosophy of Logical Atomism. The core argument is as follows: these theorizations are inadequate for scientific knowledge; this type of knowledge, particularly the notion of ‘sign’ cannot be adapted to the simple scheme proposed in those works. The criticism here undertaken is developed from a rationalist point of view, in a sense which is closer to Leibniz and Saussure, than to recent philosophers fascinated with the word ‘reason’. Some new proposals are put forward, necessarily provisional, which justify the term, which in turn could be perfectly substituted by another, of Semiology of Science.

4. The analysis of knowledge

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nagel
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Classical Analysis ◽  
Alvin Goldman ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

‘The analysis of knowledge’ begins with Edmund Gettier who challenged the ‘classical analysis of knowledge’ that equates knowledge with justified true belief. His no-false-belief proposal had some flaws. Alvin Goldman then proposed the causal theory of knowledge: experience-based knowledge that requires the knower to be appropriately causally connected to a fact. Goldman went on to launch a fresh analysis of knowledge, focused on reliability. Reliabilism is when knowledge is true belief that is produced by a mechanism likely to produce true belief. But can knowing be analysed at all? The relationship between knowing and believing is considered in the knowledge-first and belief-first movements of epistemology.

Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry

1972 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 796-817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene F. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Inquiry ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
Epistemological Relativism

The present controversy between “behavioral” and “postbehavioral” views of political inquiry reflects a larger dispute between two opposing theories of knowledge. Whereas the behavioral movement has its epistemological roots in positivism and, ultimately, in classical British empiricism, the most recent protest against behavioralism draws upon the theory of knowledge that has been the principal foe of empiricism over the past century. This theory of knowledge, which received the name “historicism” shortly after its emergence, had become the dominant epistemological position by the mid-twentieth century. This essay considers the general nature of historicism and its influence on the recent revolt against positivism in the philosophy of science. Finally, it examines the use that political scientists have made of historicist principles in opposing positivistic models of political inquiry. It argues that an epistemological relativism becomes unavoidable once certain premises of historicism are embraced.

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