Doxa Is of What Seems

2021 ◽  
pp. 140-154
Author(s):  
Jessica Moss

What kind of thing is Plato’s doxa? This is a question nowadays rarely asked. It is widely assumed that Plato had in mind something perfectly familiar to us from commonsense contemporary epistemology: belief. I will argue that Plato’s doxa is instead essentially to be understood as the cognition of a special kind of object, what seems. Plato chooses ‘doxa’ rather than some more general or neutral term to name the inferior cognitive condition because of the etymological link with seeming (to dokein), which we find actively exploited in the Presocratics. Plato inflates this link into a substantive theory: what seems is something ontologically distinct from what Is, and when we attend to what seems we have doxa rather than epistêmê. This is particularly evident in Plato’s discussions of rhetoric. Thus the defining object of doxa is what seems.

Author(s):  
Andrew Stephenson

Abstract This paper draws out and connects two neglected issues in Kant’s conception of a priori knowledge. Both concern topics that have been central to contemporary epistemology and to formal epistemology in particular: knowability and luminosity. Does Kant commit to some form of knowability principle according to which certain necessary truths are in principle knowable to beings like us? Does Kant commit to some form of luminosity principle according to which, if a subject knows a priori, then they can know that they know a priori? I defend affirmative answers to both of these questions, and by considering the special kind of modality involved in Kant’s conceptions of possible experience and the essential completability of metaphysics, I argue that his combination of knowability and luminosity principles leads Kant into difficulty.


2010 ◽  
pp. 439-450
Author(s):  
Marta Janczewska

Research team of physicians and lab technicians under Izrael Milejkowski’s direction undertook the effort to carry out a series of clinical and biochemical experiments on patients dying of starvation in the Warsaw ghetto so as to receive the fullest possible picture of hunger disease. The research was carried out according to all the rigors of strict scientific discipline, and the authors during their work on academic articles, published it after the war entitled: „Starvation disease: hunger research carried out in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942,” according to their own words, they “supplemented the gap in accordance with the progress of knowledge.” The article is devoted to the reflections over ethical dilemmas of the research team, who were forced in their work to perform numerous medical treatments of experimental nature on extremely exhausted patients. The ill, according to Dr Fajgenblat’s words,“demonstrated negativism toward the research and treatment, which extremely hindered the work, and sometimes even frustrated it.” The article attempts to look at the monumental research work of the Warsaw ghetto doctors as a special kind of response of the medical profession to the feeling of helplessness to the dying patients. The article analyzes the situation of Warsaw ghetto doctors, who undertook the research without support of any outer authority, which could settle their possible ethical dilemmas (Polish deontological codes, European discussions on the conditions of the admissibility of medical research on patients, etc.).


2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Sophie de Mijolla-Mellor

This paper deals with the evolution of the psychoanalytic practice with psychotic patients beginning with Freud's scepticism about the transference capacities of those patients to a new definition of a special kind of psychotic transference. The main hypothesis is that the actual case of psychotics within a psychoanalytic cure has modified the psychoanalytic method itself, even in the field of neuroses. Within the framework and, more specifically, in the case of schizophrenics, this paper develops some reflections on the evolution of the three following concepts: transference/countertransference, communication and interpretation, and reality.


Author(s):  
Richard Foley

A woman glances at a broken clock and comes to believe it is a quarter past seven. Yet, despite the broken clock, it really does happen to be a quarter past seven. Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief. This book finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs—something important that she doesn't quite “get.” This may seem a modest point but, as the book shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information. Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge.


Fachsprache ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Wenke Mückel

Metaphorical elements are a highly productive language means in live reports about sport events on TV. They occur in different relations to what is simultaneously seen on screen and depend on the reporter as well as on the special kind of sport. But nevertheless, general structures and functions of metaphors in those medium-bound oral texts can be indicated; as one of the markers they contribute to what is often called language of sport or maybe rather communicative template of sport. Examples taken from TV reports of the European Football Championship and the Olympic Games (both took place in 2016) are used to illustrate this character of metaphorical expressions in sport reports on TV.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Miroslava Andjelkovic

This paper deals with a criticism of Ryle's claim that the so called Intellectualist legend leads to an infinite regress. Critics have attempted to show that Ryle's argument cannot even get off the ground since its two basic premises cannot be true at the same time. In the paper I argue that this objection is based on a misinterpretation of Ryle's argumentation, which is complex and consists of two arguments, not of a single one as it is claimed. One of Ryle's argument attacks the thesis that an intelligent act is an indirect result of propositional knowledge, while the other, which I call the Asymmetry argument, claims that not every manifestation of knowledge that is accompanied with the manifestation of knowing how. In the paper I argue that both Ryle's arguments are valid and resistant to recent critique so it can be said that Ryle's distinction between knowledge that and knowing how is still an important distinction within contemporary epistemology.


Author(s):  
J.D. Trout

In early epistemology, philosophers set standards on how to reason and on what counts as knowledge. These normative standards still form a core of work in contemporary epistemology, but much objectively excellent reasoning still doesn’t meet these epistemological standards, and sometimes these standards lead reasoning astray. Improving decisions about health and happiness may require developing even better reasoning strategies than are now available through contemporary epistemology. One naturalistic theory of good reasoning—Strategic Reliabilism—holds that excellent reasoning efficiently allocates cognitive resources to robustly reliable reasoning strategies, all applied to significant problems. This contrasts with the traditional normative theories in epistemology that drew their inspiration from intuitions.


This is an edited collection of twenty-three new papers on the Gettier Problem and the issues connected with it. The set of authors includes many of the major figures in contemporary epistemology who have developed some of the well-known responses to the problem, and it also contains some younger epistemologists who bring new perspectives to the issues raised in the literature. Together, they cover the state of the art on virtually every epistemological and methodological aspect of the Gettier Problem. The volume also includes some skeptical voices according to which the Gettier Problem is not deeply problematic or some of the problems it raises are not genuine philosophical problems.


Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard

Opponents of Kant suppose he thinks that autonomy gives rational beings a special kind of intrinsic value. Since knowledge of intrinsic values would have to be a kind of metaphysical knowledge, this interpretation is contrary to Kant’s strictures on the limits of knowledge. Rather, Kant thinks that only rational beings can engage in reciprocal lawmaking, which is the source of moral laws. Animals cannot obligate us in the sense of participating in making laws for us. This, however, ignores a second sense in which we can have duties to animals: the laws we make for the treatment of people might also cover the treatment of animals. The chapter ends by explaining why it is hard to get this kind of conclusion using the universalization test.


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