Formal Epistemology and Cartesian Skepticism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoji Shogenji
Keyword(s):  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism

Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 6

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Ethics Of Belief ◽  
Naturalized Epistemology ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The Status ◽  
Important Field ◽  
Belief Justification

Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publication offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading epistemologists in North America, Europe and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: (a) traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of skepticism, the nature of the a priori, etc.; (b) new developments in epistemology, including movements such as naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, social epistemology, and virtue epistemology, and approaches such as contextualism; (c) foundational questions in decision-theory; (d) confirmation theory and other branches of philosophy of science that bear on traditional issues in epistemology; (e) topics in the philosophy of perception relevant to epistemology; (f) topics in cognitive science, computer science, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology that bear directly on traditional epistemological questions; and (g) work that examines connections between epistemology and other branches of philosophy, including work on testimony, the ethics of belief, etc. Topics addressed in volume 6 include the nature of perceptual justification, intentionality, modal knowledge, credences, epistemic supererogation, epistemic and rational norms, expressivism, skepticism, and pragmatic encroachment. The various writers make use of a variety of different tools and insights, including those of formal epistemology and decision theory, as well as traditional philosophical analysis and argumentation.

Whose Dream Is It Anyway?

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 263-287
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
External World ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
First Line ◽  
Standard Type ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism

I start with two basic lines of response to Cartesian skepticism about the ‘external world’: in the first, which is characteristic of Analytic philosophers to this day, the focus is on the meaning of ‘know’—what it ‘refers’ to, its ‘semantics’ and its ‘pragmatics’; in the second, which characterizes Continental responses to Descartes, the focus is on the philosophizing or meditating subject, and its relation to its body and world. I argue that the first approach is hopeless: if the Cartesian worry that I could be dreaming right now so much as makes sense, the proposal that—under some theory of knowledge (or of ‘knowledge’)—my belief that I am sitting in front of the computer right now may still be (or truly count as) a piece of knowledge, would rightfully seem to the skeptic to be playing with words and missing the point. I then argue that the practice of Ordinary Language Philosophy, which has mostly been linked to the first line of response to Cartesian skepticism, may be seen as actually belonging with the second line of response; and I show how a form of what may be called “Existentialist Ordinary Language Philosophy” can be used to reveal the nonsensicality of the Cartesian skeptical worry. My argument takes its cue from Thompson Clarke’s insight—an insight that Clarke himself has not pursued far or accurately enough—that our concept of Dream is not a concept of the “standard type.”

Vagueness, Kant and Topology: a Study of Formal Epistemology

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Boniolo ◽  
Silvio Valentini
Keyword(s):  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
And Topology

Troubles for Bayesian Formal Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Horgan
Keyword(s):  
Formal Epistemology

Computational Knowledge Representation in Cognitive Science

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 138-152
Author(s):  
Igor F. Mikhailov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Mathematical Theory ◽  
Computational Approach ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Parallel Network ◽  
Substrate Independent ◽  
Computational Systems

Cognitive research can contribute to the formal epistemological study of knowledge representation inasmuch as, firstly, it may be regarded as a descriptive science of the very same subject as that, of which formal epistemology is a normative one. And, secondly, the notion of representation plays a constitutive role in both disciplines, though differing therein in shades of its meaning. Representation, in my view, makes sense only being paired with computation. A process may be viewed as computational if it adheres to some algorithm and is substrate-independent. Traditionally, psychology is not directly determined by neuroscience, sticking to functional or dynamical analyses in the what-level and skipping mechanistic explanations in the how-level. Therefore, any version of computational approach in psychology is a very promising move in connecting the two scientific realms. On the other hand, the digital and linear computational approach of the classical cognitive science is of little help in this way, as it is not biologically realistic. Thus, what is needed there on the methodological level, is a shift from classical Turing-style computationalism to a generic computational theory that would comprehend the complicated architecture of neuronal computations. To this end, the cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience is in need of а satisfactory mathematical theory applicable to natural, particularly neuronal, computations. Computational systems may be construed as natural or artificial devices that use some physical processes on their lower levels as atomic operations for algorithmic processes on their higher levels. A cognitive system is a multi-level mechanism, in which linguistic, visual and other processors are built on numerous levels of more elementary operations, which ultimately boil down to atomic neural spikes. The hypothesis defended in this paper is that knowledge derives not only from an individual computational device, such as a brain, but also from the social communication system that, in its turn, may be presented as a kind of supercomputer of the parallel network architecture. Therefore, a plausible account of knowledge production and exchange must base on some mathematical theory of social computations, along with that of natural, particularly neuronal, ones.

Descartes and Ancient Skepticism: Reheated Cabbage?

2021 ◽  
pp. 325-355
Author(s):  
Gail Fine
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism

Chapter 13 considers a variety of ways in which Pyrrhonian skepticism has been thought to differ from Cartesian skepticism: that is, from the sort of skepticism Descartes describes in (among other places) Meditation 1. For example, it has been argued that Pyrrhonian skepticism disavows belief, whereas Cartesian skepticism disavows only knowledge. It has also been argued that Pyrrhonian skepticism is less extensive than Cartesian skepticism is, and that Pyrrhonian but not Cartesian skepticism is a way of life. This chapter argues, however, that Pyrrhonian skepticism is closer to Cartesian skepticism than it is often taken to be, siding with Descartes in his statement that what is new is not the skepticism he describes, but his refutation of it.

Formal Epistemology

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Helzner ◽  
Vincent F. Hendricks
Keyword(s):  
Formal Epistemology
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