scholarly journals Degrees of Certainty and Sensitive Knowledge

Locke Studies ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Samuel Rickless
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
External World ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Doxastic State ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Sensitive Knowledge ◽  
Genuine Knowledge

In recent work, I have argued that what Locke calls ‘sensitive knowledge’ is not really knowledge, according to his own definition. Knowledge, as Locke defines it, is the perception of an agreement or disagreement between two ideas (E, IV.ii.15: 538). However, on Locke’s theory, sensitive knowledge, which is supposed to be knowledge via sensation of the existence of material objects outside the mind, is really better understood as a kind of assurance (i.e.,1 assent or belief based on the highest degree of probability). On this reconstruction, assurance, as Locke describes it, is a kind of doxastic state that is incompatible with reasonable doubt, but compatible with extreme hyperbolic skeptical doubt. But assurance, as Locke avers, falls short of knowledge, for it is a kind of non-factive presumption, rather than a kind of factive perception, of ideational agreement or disagreement. Locke, I claim, calls assurance of the existence of external material objects ‘sensitive knowledge’ because assurance and knowledge are indistinguishable in their practical effects: assurance, no less than knowledge, leads to action without hesitation, given the absence of reasonable doubt that there is an external world to act in. My conception of Lockean sensitive knowledge as a kind of assurance that falls short of genuine knowledge has recently been criticized in the pages of this journal by David Soles (2014). My aim here is to answer Soles’s criticisms.

scholarly journals Archetype, Psyche, World

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Jon Mills
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
External World ◽  
Analytical Psychology ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Internal Parameters ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Ontological Position

Abstract In our dialogues over the nature of archetypes, essence, psyche, and world, I further respond to Erik Goodwyn’s recent foray into establishing an ontological position that not only answers to the mind-body problem, but further locates the source of Psyche on a cosmic plane. His impressive attempt to launch a neo-Jungian metaphysics is based on the principle of cosmic panpsychism that bridges both the internal parameters of archetypal process and their emergence in consciousness and the external world conditioned by a psychic universe. Here I explore the ontology of experience, mind, matter, metaphysical realism, and critique Goodwyn’s turn to Neoplatonism. The result is a potentially compatible theory of mind and reality that grounds archetypal theory in onto-phenomenology, metaphysics, and bioscience, hence facilitating new directions in analytical psychology.

The Non-existence of the Internal World

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-151
Author(s):  
Jan Westerhoff
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Complete Control ◽  
Limited Knowledge ◽  
Natural Place ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Five Senses ◽  
The Mind

A natural place of retreat once the reality of the mind-independent world has been challenged is that of the certainty of our inner world, a world which, we assume, is perfectly transparent to us and over which we have complete control, which provides a sharp contrast with an external world of which we have limited knowledge, and which frequently resists our attempts to influence it. The second chapter considers a set of reasons against the existence of this kind of internal world. I consider arguments critical of introspective certainty and query the existence of a substantial self that acts as a central unifier of our mental life. The chapter concludes that a foundation in the internal world remains elusive: our introspective capacities do not give us any more of a secure grasp of an internal world than our five senses perceiving the external world.

The Non-existence of the External World

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-80
Author(s):  
Jan Westerhoff
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
External World ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Naive Realism ◽  
Naïve Realism ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter begins with an investigation of the reasons for the presumed certainty of the existence of the external, mind-independent world around us, and considers a selection of arguments directed against the existence of such an external world. I begin by arguing that we do not need to postulate an external world in order to justify the illusion–reality distinction, or to explain the coherence, intersubjectivity, and efficacy of our perception. The second main part of the chapter focuses on the discussion of different theories of perception (naïve realism, disjunctivism, representationalism) and the ontologies they involve, arguing that ultimately a kind of brain-based representationalism (referred to as irrealism) works best as a theory of perception but that this, somewhat surprisingly, also undermines the justification of a mind-independent world of material objects.

Metric Entrainment and the Problem(s) of Perception

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-182
Author(s):  
Justin London
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Perception ◽  
Linear Chain ◽  
External World ◽  
Perceptual Process ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Perceptual Systems

Chapter 11 discusses the limits and mechanisms of our perceptual faculties for auditory rhythm. Perhaps more than vision, a consideration of auditory perception, and our auditory perception of rhythm in particular, reminds us that the perceptual process is not a linear chain of information from the external world to the mind, but an active interplay between mind and world. But while considering our senses as perceptual systems—as cross-modal—solves some problems of perception, it creates other, perhaps deeper ones, the author argues. In the case of musical rhythm, our rhythmic percepts are often non-veridical, as we add accents, beats, and grouping structure to otherwise undifferentiated stimuli.

Collier, Arthur (1680–1732)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth P. Winkler
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Parish Priest ◽  
The Mind

Arthur Collier was an English parish priest who arrived, independently, at a version of immaterialism strikingly similar to that of Berkeley. In his 1713 work Clavis Universalis (‘universal key’), Collier contends that matter exists ‘in, or in dependence on’ the mind. Like Berkeley, he defends immaterialism as the only alternative to scepticism. He admits that bodies appear to be external, but their apparent or ‘quasi’ externeity is, he argues, merely the effect of God’s will, and not a sign of ‘real’ externeity or mind-independence. In Part I of the Clavis, Collier argues (as Berkeley had in his New Theory of Vision) that the visible world is not external. In Part II he argues (as Berkeley had in both the Principles and the Three Dialogues) that the external world ‘is a being utterly impossible’.

scholarly journals On the limits of experimental knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 378 (2177) ◽  
pp. 20190235 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. W. Evans ◽  
K. P. Y. Thébault
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Experimental Knowledge ◽  
Analogue Gravity ◽  
Analogue Experiments ◽  
Genuine Knowledge

To demarcate the limits of experimental knowledge, we probe the limits of what might be called an experiment. By appeal to examples of scientific practice from astrophysics and analogue gravity, we demonstrate that the reliability of knowledge regarding certain phenomena gained from an experiment is not circumscribed by the manipulability or accessibility of the target phenomena. Rather, the limits of experimental knowledge are set by the extent to which strategies for what we call ‘inductive triangulation’ are available: that is, the validation of the mode of inductive reasoning involved in the source-target inference via appeal to one or more distinct and independent modes of inductive reasoning. When such strategies are able to partially mitigate reasonable doubt, we can take a theory regarding the phenomena to be well supported by experiment. When such strategies are able to fully mitigate reasonable doubt, we can take a theory regarding the phenomena to be established by experiment. There are good reasons to expect the next generation of analogue experiments to provide genuine knowledge of unmanipulable and inaccessible phenomena such that the relevant theories can be understood as well supported. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The next generation of analogue gravity experiments’.

On What Does Rationality Hinge?

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-257
Author(s):  
Yuval Avnur
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Specific Material ◽  
Main Components

The two main components of Coliva’s view are Moderatism and Extended Rationality. According to Moderatism, a belief about specific material objects is perceptually justified iff, absent defeaters, one has the appropriate course of experience and it is assumed that there is an external world. I grant Moderatism and instead focus on Extended Rationality, according to which it is epistemically rational to believe evidentially warranted propositions and to accept those unwarrantable assumptions that make the acquisition of perceptual warrants possible and are therefore constitutive of ordinary evidential warrants. I suggest that, even though Extended Rationality might be true, it cannot do the work that Coliva wants it to do. Although my objections do not show that it is false, they can serve to clarify what sorts of problem a theory of justification or rationality could possibly address. This provides an alternative to Coliva’s view of the skeptical problem and the question, on what does rationality hinge?

scholarly journals Apprehension and Existence, Appearance and Reality: The Reception of Nafs al-amr Debates after the 13th Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-39
Author(s):  
Murat Kaş
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Real ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Muslim Scholars ◽  
The Way

The structure of human cognition and the means of apprehension is suitable only for partly and gradually conceiving reality. This limitation has led to a certain distance between appearance and reality. This means that there will always be a gap between the judgments of the mind about the external world and its contents, which are entities, cases, facts, and states. This partiality and partiteness of human understanding has produced the truth-maker problem with regard to mind judgments. Muslim scholars who admit the correlation between the structure of reality and the categories of the mind but reject the notion of the construction and the determination of reality by the mind refer to the realm that is independent of the mind’s personal judgments as nafs al-amr. This realm is concerned with the all degrees of reality, namely—from the existent to the non-existent, from the necessity to the contingency and impossibility, from the absolute to the relative, from the material to the non-physical, from the external to the mental, and from the real entities to the abstracted ones—which step into the shot of human cognition or not. Carrying the concept of nafs al-amr from the logical plane to the metaphysical realm that intersects epistemology and ontology has led to debates that pave the way for various treatments. In particular, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 672/1274) nafs al-amr epistle that posited it to the cosmic sphere resulted in criticisms of this conception of nafs al-amr, and these criticisms are the same ones directed to the Avicennian theory of emanation and its epistemological implications. Scholars who use this concept free from any metaphysical presumption and implication argue against his leap from the logical to the cosmic sphere. During the following period, this tension occasioned debates that led to the approaches that refer to the various degrees of reality, i.e., to the cosmic spheres, the spiritual realms, and the divine realms. This work aims to create a map of treatments, arguments and problems with regard to the concept of nafs al-amr.

scholarly journals How Not to Know the Principle of Induction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Howard Sankey
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
External World ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Interpretation Of Probability ◽  
Subjective Interpretation ◽  
Objective Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

Abstract In The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell presents a justification of induction based on a principle he refers to as “the principle of induction.” Owing to the ambiguity of the notion of probability, the principle of induction may be interpreted in two different ways. If interpreted in terms of the subjective interpretation of probability, the principle of induction may be known a priori to be true. But it is unclear how this should give us any confidence in our use of induction, since induction is applied to the external world outside our minds. If the principle is interpreted in light of the objective interpretation of induction, it cannot be known to be true a priori, since it applies to frequencies that occur in the world outside the mind, and these cannot be known without recourse to experience. Russell’s principle of induction therefore fails to provide a satisfactory justification of induction.

Berkeley on the Objects of Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Smalligan Marušić
Keyword(s):  
Special Kind ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Real Existence ◽  
The Mind

In the first of the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Hylas distinguishes two parts or aspects of every perception, namely a sensation, which is an act of mind, and an object immediately perceived. Hylas concedes that sensations can exist only in a mind, but maintains that the objects immediately perceived have a real existence outside the mind; they are qualities of material objects. This distinction and Philonous’s response to it are the topic of this essay. It considers the implications of this response for understanding Berkeley’s theory of perception and concludes that it supports attributing to Berkeley an object-first theory of perception, according to which it is the special kind of object involved in perception that is philosophically significant.

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