The Epistemological Promise of Externalism

Author(s):  
Barry Stroud

This chapter discusses the promise of an ‘externalist’ or ‘anti-individualist’ account of the contents of the thoughts and beliefs that one must have even to be faced with the challenging problem associated with ‘externalist’ definitions of the concept of knowledge. It first considers the central problem for philosophy since the time of Socrates: to understand the role of sense-experience in human knowledge, and to see whether or how we can know what we do about the world on the basis of what we perceive to be so. It suggests that threatening reflections about sense perception start from the undeniable fact of perceptual illusions or mistakes. It also examines efforts that have been made to define the concept of knowledge and concludes by explaining how externalism can be helpful in the diagnosis and dissolution of the traditional epistemological problem.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Gonzalez

ABSTRACTThe relationship between man and the environment is dealt with in a fragmented way in the fields of law, education and in the discourses of social organizations – the humans are out of the medium, assuming the role of supervisor, predator or restrainer. This perception would reveal today a “collateral effect” that is being described as an “environmental crisis” or, as we propose here, “a crisis of massive literacy”. To attest this hypothesis, we performed an exploratory analysis based on the Socio-cognitive Linguistics. We argue that the oral processes are organized around the “short distance” between the “cognizant” and the “cognized”, while, in the written process, the language is interposed “between the cognizant and the cognized an object, which is the written text”. This phenomenon would explain the broad reanalysis of a cosmogony in which the Western man perceived himself as “the center of the world”, understanding himself as a being clearly distinguished from nature (Descartes), a being “outside the world”, that reads this same world as a “book of nature”, as Galileo says. To change this perception, as the contemporary environmental education wants, it would be necessary “to acquire a living sentiment of the unity of the human knowledge”, which means to transform the formal education.RESUMOTanto nas leis como nas propostas educacionais ou nos discursos das organizações sociais, a relação do homem com o ambiente é tratada de maneira fragmentada – o homem está fora do meio, cabendo-lhe o papel de fiscalizador, predador ou controlador. Tal percepção revelaria hoje um “efeito colateral” que vem sendo descrito como uma “crise ambiental” ou, como queremos, uma “crise do letramento massivo”. Para atestá-lo, empreendemos uma análise exploratória fundamentada na Linguística Sociocognitiva. Argumentamos que os processos orais se organizam em torno da “pouca distância” que o “conhecedor” tem do “conhecido”, enquanto que, com a escrita, a linguagem interpõe “entre o conhecedor e o conhecido um objeto que é o texto escrito”. O fenômeno explicaria a ampla reanálise de uma cosmogonia em que o homem ocidental se via no “centro do mundo” e passou a compreender-se como um ser que distingue claramente o eu e a natureza (Descartes), um ser “fora do mundo”, que o lê como um “livro da Natureza”, como dirá Galileu. Para mudar tal percepção, como quer a educação ambiental contemporânea, será necessário “adquirir um sentimento vivo da unidade do saber humano”, o que significará transformar a educação formal.


Author(s):  
Sandhya Shankar

The question of „how do we come to know‟ has been the search of mankind since time immemorial. Neither has there been a consensus for that question nor there will be. Many a great minds have looked into this, coming up with various perspectives. Two such varying perspectives in this field are empiricism and rationalism. While the former emphasizes that experience (through senses) is the only source of knowledge the latter upholds that there is something beyond the sense experience, the mind that is the source of knowledge. The shift towards a scientific phase from that of the earlier theological and metaphysical phase gained popularity with positivism, where progress of human knowledge was considered in identifying truths through scientific methods. In this scientific journey towards knowing the world emphasis was on empirically observable things. It was believed that there are no ideas which come into our head without being dependent on our perceptions, thereby on our experience. The basis of classical science was considered getting empirical observations. It had to be a systematic way of studying what is out there. Purpose of science was considered to be limited to things which can be observed, thus being connected to a means of being verified. This paper thus looks into the notion of verifiability as an important parameter of scientific methodology and its importance as asserted by logical positivists. But this criteria of scientific method was challenged by another criteria, that of falsifiability. The next section will look into falsifiability as another parameter of scientific methodology. Since these parameters have been discussed widely among philosophers, this paper shall be focusing on the views of A. J. Ayer and Sir Karl Popper regarding the same. Furthermore, its application and relevance to the field of linguistics will also be discussed.


Author(s):  
Sam Gill

The Proper Study of Religion charts an innovative course of development for the academic study of religion by engaging the legacy of Jonathan Z. Smith (1938–2017), perhaps the field’s most influential and important scholar in the last several decades. Smith was the author’s teacher and mentor for fifty years. Their careers coincided with the explosive expansion of the study of religion in secular universities in the United States beginning in the mid-1960s. Building on Smith’s foundational legacy through creative encounters, the book explores an extensive range of engaging topics, including comparison as essential to academic technique and to human knowledge itself; the important role of experience, richly understood, to both academic studies of religion and to religions as lived; play, philosophically understood, as a core dynamic of Smith’s entire program; the relationship of academic document-based studies to the sensory-rich real world of religions; and self-moving as providing a biological and philosophical foundation on which to develop a proper academic study of religion with expansive potential. The foregrounding of human self-movement, new to the study of religion, is informed by the author’s considerable experience as a dancer and student of dancing in cultures around the world. The Proper Study of Religion honors the remarkable and challenging work of an unforgettable giant of a man while also offering critical assessments and innovative ideas in the effort to advance the remarkable legacy of Jonathan Z. Smith.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Beccia ◽  
Paige Yi

Theory plays a central role in the development of human knowledge. In essence, theory solves puzzles, or questions about observable phenomena that need to be answered, (Kuhn, 1996). Theorizing about solutions to these puzzles requires working at the edge of uncertainty, making bold postulations, and engaging in what renowned philosopher of science Karl Popper terms critical rationalism; it is through the development of theories that are falsifiable and the subsequent empirical testing of those theories that our knowledge about the world (i.e., of natural phenomena) will progress (Popper, 1968).


Author(s):  
Bonnie Kent

Bonaventure (John of Fidanza) developed a synthesis of philosophy and theology in which Neoplatonic doctrines are transformed by a Christian framework. Though often remembered for his denunciations of Aristotle, Bonaventure’s thought includes some Aristotelian elements. His criticisms of Aristotle were motivated chiefly by his concern that various colleagues, more impressed by Aristotle’s work than they had reason to be, were philosophizing with the blindness of pagans instead of the wisdom of Christians. To Bonaventure, the ultimate goal of human life is happiness, and happiness comes from union with God in the afterlife. If one forgets this goal when philosophizing, the higher purpose of the discipline is frustrated. Philosophical studies can indeed help in attaining happiness, but only if pursued with humility and as part of a morally upright life. In the grander scheme of things, the ascent of the heart is more important than the ascent of the mind. Bonaventure’s later works consistently emphasize that all creation emanates from, reflects and returns to its source. Because the meaning of human life can be understood only from this wider perspective, the general aim is to show an integrated whole hierarchically ordered to God. The structure and symbolism favoured by Bonaventure reflect mystical elements as well. The world, no less than a book, reveals its creator: all visible things represent a higher reality. The theologian must use symbols to reveal this deeper meaning. He must teach especially of Christ, through whom God creates everything that exists and who is the sole medium by which we can return to our creator. Bonaventure’s theory of illumination aims to account for the certitude of human knowledge. He argues that there can be no certain knowledge unless the knower is infallible and what is known cannot change. Because the human mind cannot be entirely infallible through its own power, it needs the cooperation of God, even as it needs God as the source of immutable truths. Sense experience does not suffice, for it cannot reveal that what is true could not possibly be otherwise; so, in Bonaventure’s view, the human mind attains certainty about the world only when it understands it in light of the ‘eternal reasons’ or divine ideas. This illumination from God, while necessary for certainty, ordinarily proceeds without a person’s being conscious of it.


Author(s):  
Dmytro Bihunov ◽  
Svitozara Bihunova ◽  
Kateryna Tretiakova

Borrowings enrich the English language during the whole history of its development and the extent of borrowings in the lexico-graphic stock of the language is rather big. In its turn, the English phraseological stock is characterised by the great number of Romance elements due to the certain historical conditions of the development of Great Britain. But despite the fact that phraseological units are highly informative units which keep the knowledge and experience of different nations, the problem of the borrowed phraseological units remains an unstudied sphere within the cognitive linguistics. As the problem of the phraseological borrowing has not been examined properly in the linguistic literature, the article deals with English phraseological units of Latin and French origin with component “wildlife”. The authors have singled out English phraseological units with wildlife components. Then the etymological investigation of the borrowed phraseological units has been conducted. Also an attempt has been made to analyze the inner form of the wildlife component in English phraseological units of Latin and French origin. It has been noticed that they contain the human knowledge of the world and the role of people in it. Besides, the similarity of the images and associations, connected with the investigated wildlife component, is caused by rather identical cognition of the world around – the world of nature.


Author(s):  
Casey O'Callaghan

This book argues that human perception and perceptual consciousness are richly multisensory. Its thesis is that the coordinated use of multiple senses enhances and extends human perceptual capacities and consciousness in three critical ways. First, crossmodal perceptual illusions reveal hidden multisensory interactions that typically make the senses more coherent and reliable sources of evidence about the environment. Second, the joint use of multiple senses discloses more of the world, including novel features and qualities, making possible new forms of perceptual experience. Third, through crossmodal dependence, plasticity, and perceptual learning, each sense is reshaped by the influence of others, at a time and over time. The implication is that no sense—not even vision itself—can be understood entirely in isolation from the others. This undermines the prevailing approach to perception, which proceeds sense by sense, and sets the stage for a revisionist multisensory approach that illuminates the nature, scope, and character of sense perception.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
Carey Walsh

The role of beasts in the Hebrew Bible’s wisdom literature differs from that in the Torah and Prophets. Rather than the often-plural and domesticated animals of the latter, wild animals represented in the singular and with greater diversity characterize the wisdom material. Wild animals in the Torah and Prophets typically signify potential danger outside the inhabited domain or divine wrath and punishment. In wisdom literature, however, they become sources for human guidance (Job 5:22). In Proverbs, they are enlisted to address a lack in human understanding. But in later wisdom texts, the use of animals to illustrate beneficial behaviors gives way to a more radical theme, that of human incomprehension of the world. The otherness of animal presence is deconstructive of wisdom and human knowledge more generally. In biblical wisdom, beastly, silent faces expose the limits of human comprehension.



1998 ◽  
pp. 124-127
Author(s):  
V. Tolkachenko

One of the most important reasons for such a clearly distressed state of society was the decline of religion as a social force, the external manifestation of which is the weakening of religious institutions. "Religion," Baha'u'llah writes, "is the greatest of all means of establishing order in the world to the universal satisfaction of those who live in it." The weakening of the foundations of religion strengthened the ranks of ignoramuses, gave them impudence and arrogance. "I truly say that everything that belittles the supreme role of religion opens way for the revelry of maliciousness, inevitably leading to anarchy. " In another Tablet, He says: "Religion is a radiant light and an impregnable fortress that ensures the safety and well-being of the peoples of the world, for God-fearing induces man to adhere to the good and to reject all evil." Blink the light of religion, and chaos and distemper will set in, the radiance of justice, justice, tranquility and peace. "


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