The Challenge of Epistemology

The Challenge of Epistemology PDF Author: Christina Toren
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857455168
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Epistemology poses particular problems for anthropologists whose task it is to understand manifold ways of being human. Through their work, anthropologists often encounter people whose ideas concerning the nature and foundations of knowledge are at odds with their own. Going right to the heart of anthropological theory and method, this volume discusses issues that have vexed practicing anthropologists for a long time. The authors are by no means in agreement with one another as to where the answers might lie. Some are primarily concerned with the clarity and theoretical utility of analytical categories across disciplines; others are more inclined to push ethnographic analysis to its limits in an effort to demonstrate what kind of sense it can make. All are aware of the much-wanted differences that good ethnography can make in explaining the human sciences and philosophy. The contributors show a continued commitment to ethnography as a profoundly radical intellectual endeavor that goes to the very roots of inquiry into what it is to be human, and, to anthropology as a comparative project that should be central to any attempt to understand who we are.

The Challenge of Epistemology

The Challenge of Epistemology PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Cognition and Fact

Cognition and Fact PDF Author: Robert S. Cohen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400944985
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Within the last ten years, the interest of historians and philosophers of science in the epistemological writings of the Polish medical microbiologist Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), who had up to then been almost completely unknown, has advanced with great strides. His main writings on epistemological questions were published in the mid-1930's, but they remained almost unnoticed. Today, however, one may rightly call Fleck a 'classical' figure both of episte mology and of the historical sociology of science, one whose works are comparable with Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery or Merton's pioneer ing study of the relations among economics, Puritanism, and natural science, both also originally published in the mid-1930's. The story of this book of 'materials on Ludwik Fleck' is also the story of the reception of Ludwik Fleck. In this volume, some essential materials which have been produced by that reception have been gathered together. We will sketch both the reception and the materials.

Epistemology for the Rest of the World

Epistemology for the Rest of the World PDF Author: Stephen Stich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190865091
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Since the heyday of ordinary language philosophy, Anglophone epistemologists have devoted a great deal of attention to the English word 'know' and to English sentences used to attribute knowledge. Even today, many epistemologists, including contextualists and subject-sensitive invariantists are concerned with the truth conditions of "S knows that p," or the proposition it expresses. In all of this literature, the method of cases is used, where a situation is described in English, and then philosophers judge whether it is true that S knows that p, or whether saying "S knows that p" is false, deviant, etc. in that situation. However, English is just one of over 6000 languages spoken around the world, and is the native language of less than 6% of the world's population. When Western epistemology first emerged, in ancient Greece, English did not even exist. So why should we think that facts about the English word "know," the concept it expresses, or subtle semantic properties of "S knows that p" have important implications for epistemology? Are the properties of the English word "know" and the English sentence 'S knows that p' shared by their translations in most or all languages? If that turned out to be true, it would be a remarkable fact that cries out for an explanation. But if it turned out to be false, what are the implications for epistemology? Should epistemologists study knowledge attributions in languages other than English with the same diligence they have shown for the study of English knowledge attributions? If not, why not? In what ways do the concepts expressed by 'know' and its counterparts in different languages differ? And what should epistemologists make of all this? The papers collected here discuss these questions and related issues, and aim to contribute to this important topic and epistemology in general.

Problems of Knowledge

Problems of Knowledge PDF Author: Michael Williams
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192892560
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
In this introduction to epistemology, Michael Williams explains and criticises traditional philosophical theories of the nature, limits, methods, possibility, and value of knowing.

Epistemology and the Regress Problem

Epistemology and the Regress Problem PDF Author: Scott Aikin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136841903
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
In the last decade, the familiar problem of the regress of reasons has returned to prominent consideration in epistemology. And with the return of the problem, evaluation of the options available for its solution is begun anew. Reason’s regress problem, roughly put, is that if one has good reasons to believe something, one must have good reason to hold those reasons are good. And for those reasons, one must have further reasons to hold they are good, and so a regress of reasons looms. In this new study, Aikin presents a full case for infinitism as a response to the problem of the regress of reasons. Infinitism is the view that one must have a non-terminating chain of reasons in order to be justified. The most defensible form of infinitism, he argues, is that of a mixed theory – that is, epistemic infinitism must be consistent with and integrate other solutions to the regress problem.

Applied Data Science in Tourism

Applied Data Science in Tourism PDF Author: Roman Egger
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030883892
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 647

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Book Description
Access to large data sets has led to a paradigm shift in the tourism research landscape. Big data is enabling a new form of knowledge gain, while at the same time shaking the epistemological foundations and requiring new methods and analysis approaches. It allows for interdisciplinary cooperation between computer sciences and social and economic sciences, and complements the traditional research approaches. This book provides a broad basis for the practical application of data science approaches such as machine learning, text mining, social network analysis, and many more, which are essential for interdisciplinary tourism research. Each method is presented in principle, viewed analytically, and its advantages and disadvantages are weighed up and typical fields of application are presented. The correct methodical application is presented with a "how-to" approach, together with code examples, allowing a wider reader base including researchers, practitioners, and students entering the field. The book is a very well-structured introduction to data science – not only in tourism – and its methodological foundations, accompanied by well-chosen practical cases. It underlines an important insight: data are only representations of reality, you need methodological skills and domain background to derive knowledge from them - Hannes Werthner, Vienna University of Technology Roman Egger has accomplished a difficult but necessary task: make clear how data science can practically support and foster travel and tourism research and applications. The book offers a well-taught collection of chapters giving a comprehensive and deep account of AI and data science for tourism - Francesco Ricci, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano This well-structured and easy-to-read book provides a comprehensive overview of data science in tourism. It contributes largely to the methodological repository beyond traditional methods. - Rob Law, University of Macau

Debating Christian Religious Epistemology

Debating Christian Religious Epistemology PDF Author: John M. DePoe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350062766
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
What does it mean to believe in God? What passes as evidence for belief in God? What issues arise when considering the rationality of belief in God? Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another. Each chapter introduces an epistemic viewpoint, providing an overview of its main arguments and explaining why it justifies belief. The validity of that viewpoint is then explored and tested in a critical response from an expert in an opposing tradition. Featuring a wide range of different philosophical positions, traditions and methods, this introduction: - Covers classical evidentialism, phenomenal conservatism, proper functionalism, covenantal epistemology and traditions-based perspectivalism - Draws on MacIntyre's account of rationality and ideas from the Analytic and Conservatism traditions - Addresses issues in social epistemology - Considers the role of religious experience and religious texts Packed with lively debates, this is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in understanding the major positions in contemporary religious epistemology and how religious concepts and practices relate to belief and knowledge.

Formal Epistemology and Cartesian Skepticism

Formal Epistemology and Cartesian Skepticism PDF Author: Tomoji Shogenji
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135133655X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This book develops new techniques in formal epistemology and applies them to the challenge of Cartesian skepticism. It introduces two formats of epistemic evaluation that should be of interest to epistemologists and philosophers of science: the dual-component format, which evaluates a statement on the basis of its safety and informativeness, and the relative-divergence format, which evaluates a probabilistic model on the basis of its complexity and goodness of fit with data. Tomoji Shogenji shows that the former lends support to Cartesian skepticism, but the latter allows us to defeat Cartesian skepticism. Along the way, Shogenji addresses a number of related issues in epistemology and philosophy of science, including epistemic circularity, epistemic closure, and inductive skepticism.

The Epistemology of Belief

The Epistemology of Belief PDF Author: H. Vahid
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230584470
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
This book offers a challenge to certain epistemic features of belief, resulting in a unified and coherent picture of the epistemology of belief. The author examines current ideas in a number of areas, beginning with the truth-directed nature of belief in the context of the so-called 'Moore's paradoxes'. He then investigates the sensitivity of beliefs to evidence by exploring how sensory experiences can confer justifications on the beliefs they give rise to, and provides an account of the basing relation problem. The consequences of these arguments are carefully considered, particularly the issues involving the problem of easy knowledge and warrant transmission. Finally, he focuses on the purported fallibility of beliefs and our knowledge of their contents, arguing that the fallible/infallible distinction is best understood in terms of externalist/internalist conceptions of knowledge, and that the thesis of content externalism does not threaten the privileged character of self-knowledge.