The Appearance of Ignorance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
The Way

This volume presents, develops, and champions contextualist solutions to two of the stickiest problems in epistemology: The puzzles of skeptical hypotheses and of lotteries. It is argued that, at least by ordinary standards for knowledge, we do know that skeptical hypotheses are false, and that we’ve lost the lottery (unless one is in fact the winner of the lottery, in which case one does not know that one has lost, but is reasonable in thinking that one knows it). Accounting for how it is that we know that skeptical hypotheses are false and why it seems that we don’t know that they’re false tells us a lot, both about what knowledge is and how knowledge attributions work. Along the way, the following are all carefully explained and defended: Moorean methodological approaches to skepticism, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, the skeptic; contextualist responses to skepticism; contextualist substantive Mooreanism; the basic safety approach to knowledge and the double-safety picture of what knowledge is; insensitivity accounts of various appearances of ignorance; the closure principle for knowledge; and the claim that our knowledge that we are not brains in vats is a priori, despite its being knowledge of a deeply contingent fact.

Précis of The Appearance of Ignorance: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol. 2

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
The Way

The Appearance of Ignorance develops and champions contextualist solutions to the puzzles of skeptical hypotheses and of lotteries. It is argued that, at least by ordinary standards for knowledge, we do know that skeptical hypotheses are false, and that we’ve lost the lottery. Accounting for how it is that we know that skeptical hypotheses are false and why it seems that we don’t know that they’re false tells us a lot, both about what knowledge is and how knowledge attributions work. Along the way, the following are all explained and defended: Moorean methodological approaches to skepticism, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, the skeptic; contextualist responses to skepticism; contextualist substantive Mooreanism; the basic safety approach to knowledge and the double-safety picture of what knowledge is; insensitivity accounts of various appearances of ignorance; the closure principle for knowledge; and the claim that our knowledge that we are not brains in vats is a priori, despite its being knowledge of a deeply contingent fact.

How Do We Know that We’re Not Brains in Vats?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Conservative Approach ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
Priori Knowledge

In this chapter the contextualist Moorean account of how we know by ordinary standards that we are not brains in vats (BIVs) utilized in Chapter 1 is developed and defended, and the picture of knowledge and justification that emerges is explained. The account (a) is based on a double-safety picture of knowledge; (b) has it that our knowledge that we’re not BIVs is in an important way a priori; and (c) is knowledge that is easily obtained, without any need for fancy philosophical arguments to the effect that we’re not BIVs; and the account is one that (d) utilizes a conservative approach to epistemic justification. Special attention is devoted to defending the claim that we have a priori knowledge of the deeply contingent fact that we’re not BIVs, and to distinguishing this a prioritist account of this knowledge from the kind of “dogmatist” account prominently championed by James Pryor.

Knowledge, belief, and moral psychology

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Mikhail
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Strong Case ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
The Law

Abstract Phillips et al. make a strong case that knowledge representations should play a larger role in cognitive science. Their arguments are reinforced by comparable efforts to place moral knowledge, rather than moral beliefs, at the heart of a naturalistic moral psychology. Conscience, Kant's synthetic a priori, and knowledge attributions in the law all point in a similar direction.

Phenomenal Explanationism’s Global Ambitions

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-136
Author(s):  
Kevin McCain ◽  
Luca Moretti
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Perceptual Justification ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
Multiple Domains ◽  
The Way

This chapter further elucidates PE by explaining how it applies to multiple domains. Though the preceding chapter already touches upon some of these, here it is cashed out how PE can account for perceptual justification, memorial justification, testimonial justification, introspective justification, and a priori justification. Exploring the contours of PE in this way reveals just how powerful and unified the theory is. Along the way, it is argued that Declan Smithies’ forceful objections to PC fail to impugn PE. Additionally, it is shown that PE has the resources to respond to each of the challenges that Smithies claims are faced by any internalist theory with “global ambitions”––any theory that purports to be a comprehensive account of epistemic justification. (These challenges for instance include the problem of forgotten evidence and the problem of stored beliefs.) The discussion in this chapter makes it clear that PE is a comprehensive account of epistemic justification that achieves its global ambitions.

Boghossian on Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori Once Again1

2020 ◽  
pp. 227-239
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian ◽  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
Learning Mathematics ◽  
The Way

This chapter replies to Boghossian’s Chapter 15 and amplifies the arguments of the author’s Chapter 14. In particular, it illustrates the loss of underived dispositions with an example from learning mathematics, when the novice gradually ceases to be tempted by a certain kind of mistake. It is also explains why the argument of Chapter 14 does not assume that introspection and postulation are mutually incompatible; rather, it notes the author’s inability to introspect the non-doxastic intellectual seemings Boghossian postulates and suggests that it is not idiosyncratic. Finally, a challenge is raised for Boghossian’s view of a priori justification as coherence with intellectual seemings. What prevents bigoted beliefs being justified a priori in the way he describes by the bigoted intellectual seemings of a consistent Nazi, for example? If nothing does, what prevents the Nazi’s so-justified beliefs as to what one ought to do from justifying the corresponding actions?

Moral epistemology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Factual Proposition ◽  
The Way

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. So moral epistemology is the study of what would be involved in knowing, or being justified in believing, moral propositions. Some discussions of moral epistemology interpret the category of ‘moral propositions’ broadly, to encompass all propositions that can be expressed with terms like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘ought’. Other discussions have focused on a narrower category of moral propositions – such as propositions about what rights people have, or about what we owe to each other. According to so-called noncognitivists, one cannot strictly speaking know (or be justified in believing) a moral proposition in the same sense in which one can know (or be justified in believing) an ordinary factual proposition. Other philosophers defend a cognitivist position, according to which it is possible to know or be justified in believing moral propositions in the very same sense as factual propositions. If one does know any moral propositions, they must presumably be true; and the way in which one knows those moral truths must provide access to them. This has led to a debate about whether one could ever know moral truths if a realist conception of these truths – according to which moral truths are not in any interesting sense of our making – were correct. Many philosophers agree that one way of obtaining justified moral beliefs involves seeking ‘reflective equilibrium’ – that is, roughly, considering theories, and adjusting one’s judgments to make them as systematic and coherent as possible. According to some philosophers, however, seeking reflective equilibrium is not enough: justified moral beliefs need to be supported by moral ‘intuitions’. Some hold that such moral intuitions are a priori, akin to our intuitions of the self-evident truths of mathematics. Others hold that these intuitions are closely related to emotions or sentiments; some theorists claim that empirical studies of moral psychology strongly support this ‘sentimentalist’ interpretation. Finally, moral thinking seems different from other areas of thought in two respects. First, there is particularly widespread disagreement about moral questions; and one rarely responds to such moral disagreement by retreating to a state of uncertainty as one does on other questions. Secondly, one rarely defers to other people’s moral judgments in the way in which one defers to experts about ordinary factual questions. These two puzzling features of moral thinking seem to demand explanation – which is a further problem that moral epistemology has to solve.

Numerically Varied S-R Mapping Disorder

1967 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Weber ◽  
William Love ◽  
Mymon Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Learning ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Learning Rate ◽  
Task Structure ◽  
Mapping Problem ◽  
Quadratic Component ◽  
Subjective Awareness ◽  
Numerical Variation ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
The Way

Qualitative support for the effects on learning of various degrees of S-R mapping disorder was cited to show that the way stimulus and response classes are connected or mapped together may have a strong effect on learning rate. Then to study quantitatively the S-R mapping problem a paradigm based on discrimination learning procedures was constructed. It made possible the numerical variation of S-R mapping on an order-disorder basis. The order-disorder dimension was related a priori to a linear variable for number of different correct choices and to a quadratic variable for conditional mapping uncertainty, U.(R). Mean errors were significantly related to only the quadratic component. Other results include: a closer relation between U.(R) and SDs than between U.(R) and means; unique patterns of errors within groups related to mapping structure; and a correspondence between post-experimental subjective awareness and both task structure and difficulty. Finally, among post hoc explanations of mapping effects one phrased in terms of mapping uncertainty and hypothesis storage, sampling, and generation gave the best account of obtained results.

scholarly journals Hume's Correlationism: On Meillassoux, Necessity and Belief

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-160
Author(s):  
Paul O'Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Sufficient Criterion ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
The Way ◽  
Priori Knowledge

The article argues that Meillassoux's 'After Finitude' underestimates the nature and profundity of Hume's sceptical challenge; it neglects the fact that Hume's scepticism concerns final causes (and agrees fundamentally with Bacon and Descartes in this respect), and that in Hume even the operations of reason do not furnish entirely a priori knowledge. We contend that Hume himself institutes a form of correlationism (which in part showed Kant the way to counter the sceptical challenge via transcendental idealism), and sought not merely to abolish the 'principle of sufficient reason' but to salvage it in a weak form, in turning his attention to the grounds for our beliefs in necessity. We argue further that the 'mathematizability' of properties is not a sufficient criterion to yield realist, non-correlational knowledge, or to demonstrate the 'irremediable realism' of the 'ancestral' statement. Finally, we contend that Meillassoux himself relies on a certain 'Kantian moment' which exempts the reasoning subject from otherwise 'omnipotent' chaos, and that ultimately the 'speculative materialist' position remains exposed to the original Humean sceptical challenge. 

scholarly journals The Origins and Development of the Definite Article in Egyptian-Coptic

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 223-237
Author(s):  
Maxim Kupreyev
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
Definite Articles ◽  
Further Development ◽  
The Way ◽  
Good Deeds

The first appearance of the emphatic demonstratives pA/tA/nA in northern Egyptian letters of the 6th Dynasty and their absence from southern Egyptian sources indicates the growing difference between the language variants spoken in these broadly defined regions. Originating from the Old Egyptian pronominal stems p-/t-/n-, the use of these new demonstratives expands rapidly during the Middle Kingdom. In their weak form as definite articles, they indicate that a noun is knownin discourse and thus signal a hitherto hidden grammatical category – definiteness. Once the definite article is grammaticalised and starts to be used with a priori definite nouns such as pA nTr wa ‘the sole god’ or pA HqA ‘the ruler’ (18th Dynasty), the indefinite article appears. The further development in Demotic and Coptic shows that the article was on the way to becoming a noun marker. When attached to a relative phrase, it created a new noun, which could be further determined (xenpetnanouf ‘some good deeds’, ppetouaab ‘the saint’). The following article traces the regional origins of the definite article as well as the main principles governing their development.

scholarly journals Resilience of the territory: concept, measurement, governance

2020 ◽  
pp. 4-15
Author(s):  
B.S. Zhikharevich ◽  
V.V. Klimanov ◽  
V.G. Maracha
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Industry Structure ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Risk Manager ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Shock Resistance ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Urban And Regional Development

The paper considers the problems of adequate interpretation of the term «resilience» in relation to the term «sustainable development» and offers a consistent holistic system of concepts based on the term «shock-resistance» (shoko-ustoychivost’), which allows discussing the problems of sustainable development and resilience in Russian (without mixing these terms) and provides an adequate translation of the relevant English terms. Based on the study of theoretical and methodological approaches and existing attempts to measure the resilience of cities and regions, the directions for creating a methodology for measuring resilience are proposed. The article describes the available Russian examples of measuring the resilience of regions a posteriori (based on the analysis of the behavior of indicators of socio-economic development during and after economic and budgetary crises) and a priori (based on the characteristics of the industry structure or risk resistance of the economic, social and governance subsystems of the region). A paradox is noted: in Russia, the facts of subsidization of the region and the backward structure of the economy are factors that increase the resilience. The ways of embedding mechanisms for increasing resilience in the system of strategic management of urban and regional development are shown. It is proposed to introduce resilience audit into management practice and create a regional (municipal) risk-management system and the position of a risk manager.

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