Fallibilism

Fallibilism PDF Author: Jessica Anne Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198801777
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Fallibilists claim that one can know a proposition on the basis of evidence that supports it even if the evidence doesn't guarantee its truth. Jessica Brown offers a compelling defence of this view against infallibilists, who claim that it is contradictory to claim to know and yet to admit the possibility of error.

Fallibilism

Fallibilism PDF Author: Jessica Anne Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198801777
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Fallibilists claim that one can know a proposition on the basis of evidence that supports it even if the evidence doesn't guarantee its truth. Jessica Brown offers a compelling defence of this view against infallibilists, who claim that it is contradictory to claim to know and yet to admit the possibility of error.

Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge

Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge PDF Author: Jessica Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192521918
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
What strength of evidence is required for knowledge? Ordinarily, we often claim to know something on the basis of evidence which doesn't guarantee its truth. For instance, one might claim to know that one sees a crow on the basis of visual experience even though having that experience does not guarantee that there is a crow (it might be a rook, or one might be dreaming). As a result, those wanting to avoid philosophical scepticism have standardly embraced "fallibilism": one can know a proposition on the basis of evidence that supports it even if the evidence doesn't guarantee its truth. Despite this, there's been a persistent temptation to endorse "infallibilism", according to which knowledge requires evidence that guarantees truth. For doesn't it sound contradictory to simultaneously claim to know and admit the possibility of error? Infallibilism is undergoing a contemporary renaissance. Furthermore, recent infallibilists make the surprising claim that they can avoid scepticism. Jessica Brown presents a fresh examination of the debate between these two positions. She argues that infallibilists can avoid scepticism only at the cost of problematic commitments concerning evidence and evidential support. Further, she argues that alleged objections to fallibilism are not compelling. She concludes that we should be fallibilists. In doing so, she discusses the nature of evidence, evidential support, justification, blamelessness, closure for knowledge, defeat, epistemic akrasia, practical reasoning, concessive knowledge attributions, and the threshold problem.

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence PDF Author: Maria Lasonen-Aarnio
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317373901
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
What one can know depends on one’s evidence. Good scientific theories are supported by evidence. Our experiences provide us with evidence. Any sort of inquiry involves the seeking of evidence. It is irrational to believe contrary to your evidence. For these reasons and more, evidence is one of the most fundamental notions in the field of epistemology and is emerging as a crucial topic across academic disciplines. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first major volume of its kind. Comprising forty chapters by an international team of contributors the handbook is divided into six clear parts: The Nature of Evidence Evidence and Probability The Social Epistemology of Evidence Sources of Evidence Evidence and Justification Evidence in the Disciplines The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science and epistemology, and will also be of interest to those in related disciplines across the humanities and social sciences, such as law, religion, and history.

Knowledge and the Gettier Problem

Knowledge and the Gettier Problem PDF Author: Stephen Hetherington
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107149568
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book enriches our understanding of knowledge and Gettier's challenge, stimulating debate on a central epistemological issue.

Resistance to Evidence

Resistance to Evidence PDF Author: Mona Simion
Publisher:
ISBN: 1009298569
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
We have increasingly sophisticated ways of acquiring and communicating knowledge, but efforts to spread this knowledge often encounter resistance to evidence. The phenomenon of resistance to evidence, while subject to thorough investigation in social psychology, is acutely under-theorised in the philosophical literature. Mona Simion's book is concerned with positive epistemology: it argues that we have epistemic obligations to update and form beliefs on available and undefeated evidence. In turn, our resistance to easily available evidence is unpacked as an instance of epistemic malfunctioning. Simion develops a full positive, integrated epistemological picture in conjunction with novel accounts of evidence, defeat, norms of inquiry, permissible suspension, and disinformation. Her book is relevant for anyone with an interest in the nature of evidence and justified belief and in the best ways to avoid the high-stakes practical consequences of evidence resistance in policy and practice. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Groups as Epistemic and Moral Agents

Groups as Epistemic and Moral Agents PDF Author: Jessica Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198898096
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Organised groups such as governments, corporations, charities and courts are an integral part of our lives. They provide services, sell goods, employ people, raise taxes, wage wars, and issue legal judgements. In our interactions with them, we routinely ascribe them mental states, speaking of what they know, want and intend. And we use these ascriptions in predicting what groups will do and assessing their responsibility for outcomes. For instance, in morally assessing the government's performance in the coronavirus pandemic, we might ask what the government knew about the virus at key decision points. And in attempting to predict Russia's response to the current war in Ukraine, we might ask what Russia believes about the West's resolve to defend Ukraine. This book takes these ordinary ways of thinking and talking seriously, assuming that at least some groups are agents with mental states on which they act. In particular, the book examines groups both as epistemic and moral agents providing non-summative accounts of group evidence, group belief, group justified belief, group knowledge, what it is for a group to act or believe for one reason rather than another, and when a group has an excuse for wrongdoing from blameless ignorance. These phenomena are crucial to the evaluation of the beliefs and actions of groups. Whether a group's belief is justified depends on its evidence and the reason for which it believes; whether it's praiseworthy or blameworthy for its actions depends on the reason for which it acted, as well as whether it is blamelessly ignorant of any wrongdoing. By providing a clearer view of central group phenomena, the book will help us assess the beliefs and actions of the powerful groups at work in our lives, whether governments, corporations, public sector bodies or third sector actors.

Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity

Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity PDF Author: Markus Gabriel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674260287
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Philosophers have spent millennia accumulating knowledge about knowledge. But negative epistemological phenomena, such as ignorance, falsity, and delusion, are persistently overlooked. Markus Gabriel argues that being wrong is part and parcel of subjectivity itself, adding a novel perspective on epistemic failures to the work of New Realism.

Knowledge in an Uncertain World

Knowledge in an Uncertain World PDF Author: Jeremy Fantl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019955062X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This study explores the relation between knowledge, reasons and justification. It argues that you can rely on what you know, since what you know can be a reason you have and you can rely on your reasons. But the assumption that knowledge allows for a chance of error makes this a controversial position in epistemology.

The Appearance of Ignorance

The Appearance of Ignorance PDF Author: Keith DeRose
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199564477
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Keith DeRose presents, develops, and defends original solutions to two of the stickiest problems in epistemology: skeptical hypotheses and the lottery problem. He deploys a powerful version of contextualism, the view that the epistemic standards for the attribution of knowledge vary with context.

Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered

Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered PDF Author: Christos Kyriacou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000405176
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This collection of original essays explores the topic of skeptical invariantism in theory of knowledge. It eschews historical perspectives and focuses on this traditionally underexplored, semantic characterization of skepticism. The book provides a carefully structured, state-of-the-art overview of skeptical invariantism and offers up new questions and avenues for future research. It treats this semantic form of skepticism as a serious position rather than assuming that skepticism is false and attempting to diagnose where arguments for skepticism go wrong. The essays take up a wide range of different philosophical perspectives on three key questions in the debate about skeptical invariantism: (1) whether the standards for knowledge vary, (2) how demanding the standards for knowledge are, and (3) whether the kind of evidence, reasons, methods, processes, etc. that we can bring to bear are sufficient to meet those standards. Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in epistemology and the philosophy of language.