The Externalist Challenge

The Externalist Challenge PDF Author: Richard Schantz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110915278
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
The debate between internalism and externalism has become a focal point of attention both in epistemology and in the philosophy of mind and language. Externalism challenges basic traditional internalist conceptions of the nature of knowledge, justification, thought and language. What is at stake, is the very form that theories in epistemology and the philosophy of mind ought to take. This volume is a collection of original contributions of leading international authors reflecting on the present state of the art concerning the exciting controversies between internalism and externalism.

The Externalist Challenge

The Externalist Challenge PDF Author: Richard Schantz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110915278
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
The debate between internalism and externalism has become a focal point of attention both in epistemology and in the philosophy of mind and language. Externalism challenges basic traditional internalist conceptions of the nature of knowledge, justification, thought and language. What is at stake, is the very form that theories in epistemology and the philosophy of mind ought to take. This volume is a collection of original contributions of leading international authors reflecting on the present state of the art concerning the exciting controversies between internalism and externalism.

Normative Externalism

Normative Externalism PDF Author: Brian Weatherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192576887
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Normative Externalism argues that it is not important that people live up to their own principles. What matters, in both ethics and epistemology, is that they live up to the correct principles: that they do the right thing, and that they believe rationally. This stance, that what matters are the correct principles, not one's own principles, has implications across ethics and epistemology. In ethics, it undermines the ideas that moral uncertainty should be treated just like factual uncertainty, that moral ignorance frequently excuses moral wrongdoing, and that hypocrisy is a vice. In epistemology, it suggests we need new treatments of higher-order evidence, and of peer disagreement, and of circular reasoning, and the book suggests new approaches to each of these problems. Although the debates in ethics and in epistemology are often conducted separately, putting them in one place helps bring out their common themes. One common theme is that the view that one should live up to one's own principles looks less attractive when people have terrible principles, or when following their own principles would lead to riskier or more aggressive action than the correct principles. Another common theme is that asking people to live up to their principles leads to regresses. It can be hard to know what action or belief complies with one's principles. And now we can ask, in such a case should a person do what they think their principles require, or what their principles actually require? Both answers lead to problems, and the best way to avoid these problems is to simply say people should follow the correct principles.

Moral Motivation

Moral Motivation PDF Author: Iakovos Vasiliou
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190610913
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Moral Motivation presents a history of the concept of moral motivation. The book consists of ten chapters by eminent scholars in the history of philosophy, covering Plato, Aristotle, later Peripatetic philosophy, medieval philosophy, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte and Hegel, and the consequentialist tradition. In addition, four interdisciplinary "Reflections" discuss how the topic of moral motivation arises in epic poetry, Cicero, early opera, and Theodore Dreiser. Most contemporary philosophical discussions of moral motivation focus on whether and how moral beliefs by themselves motivate an agent (at least to some degree) to act. In much of the history of the concept, especially before Hume, the focus is rather on how to motivate people to act morally as well as on what sort of motivation a person must act from (or what end an agents acts for) in order to be a genuinely ethical person or even to have done a genuinely ethical action. The book shows the complexity of the historical treatment of moral motivation and, moreover, how intertwined moral motivation is with central aspects of ethical theory.

Motivational Internalism

Motivational Internalism PDF Author: Gunnar Björnsson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199367957
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In thirteen new essays and an introduction, Motivational Internalism collects a structured overview of current debates about motivational internalism and examines the nature of and evidence for forms of internalism, internalism's relevance for moral psychology and moral semantics, and ways of bridging the gap between internalist and externalist positions.

Content and Justification

Content and Justification PDF Author: Paul A. Boghossian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199292108
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
Content and Justification presents a series of essays by Paul Boghossian on the theory of content and on its relation to the phenomenon of a priori knowledge.Part one comprises essays on the nature of rule-following and its relation to the problem of mental content; on the intelligibility of eliminativist views of the mental; on the prospects for a naturalistic reduction of mental content; and on the currently influential view that meaning is a normative notion.Part two includes three widely discussed papers on the phenomenon of self-knowledge and its compatibility with externalist conceptions of mental content.Part three concerns the classical but ill-understood phenomenon of knowledge that is based upon knowledge of meaning or conceptual competence.Finally, part four turns its attention from general issues about mental content to an account of a specific class of mental contents. It contains two widely discussed papers on the nature of colour concepts, and colour properties.

The Subject's Point of View

The Subject's Point of View PDF Author: Katalin Farkas
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019161551X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Descartes's philosophy has had a considerable influence on the modern conception of the mind, but many think that this influence has been largely negative. The main project of The Subject's Point of View is to argue that discarding certain elements of the Cartesian conception would be much more difficult than critics seem to allow, since it is tied to our understanding of basic notions, including the criteria for what makes someone a person, or one of us. The crucial feature of the Cartesian view defended here is not dualism - which is not adopted - but internalism. Internalism is opposed to the widely accepted externalist thesis, which states that some mental features constitutively depend on certain features of our physical and social environment. In contrast, this book defends the minority internalist view, which holds that the mind is autonomous, and though it is obviously affected by the environment, this influence is merely contingent and does not delimit what is thinkable in principle. Defenders of the externalist view often present their theory as the most thoroughgoing criticism of the Cartesian conception of the mind; Katalin Farkas offers a defence of an uncompromising internalist Cartesian conception.

New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-knowledge

New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-knowledge PDF Author: Susana Nuccetelli
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262140836
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Essays on the consequences of semantic externalism for knowledge of mind and the empirical world and for our understanding of transmission of epistemic warrant by inference.

Knowledge and the Gettier Problem

Knowledge and the Gettier Problem PDF Author: Stephen Cade 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.

New Essays on Singular Thought

New Essays on Singular Thought PDF Author: Robin Jeshion
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199567883
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Leading philosophers present essays on an issue central to philosophy of mind, language, and perception: the nature of our thought about the external world. The essays explore directions for future research, an important resource for anyone working at the interface of semantics and mental representation.

The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism

The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism PDF Author: John Greco
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199909857
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 623

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Book Description
In the history of philosophical thought, few themes loom as large as skepticism. Skepticism has been the most visible and important part of debates about knowledge. Skepticism at its most basic questions our cognitive achievements, challenges our ability to obtain reliable knowledge; casting doubt on our attempts to seek and understand the truth about everything from ethics, to other minds, religious belief, and even the underlying structure of matter and reality. Since Descartes, the defense of knowledge against skepticism has been one of the primary tasks not just of epistemology but philosophy itself. The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism features twenty-six newly commissioned chapters by top figures in the field. Part One contains articles explaining important kinds of skeptical reasoning. Part Two focuses on responses to skeptical arguments. Part Three concentrates on important contemporary issues revolving around skepticism. As the first volume of its kind, the articles make significant contributions to the debate on skepticism.