Responsible Belief

Responsible Belief PDF Author: Rik Peels
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190608110
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book develops and defends a theory of responsible belief. The author argues that we lack control over our beliefs, but that we can nonetheless influence them. It is because we have intellectual obligations to influence our beliefs that we are responsible for them.

Responsible Belief

Responsible Belief PDF Author: Rik Peels
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190608110
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book develops and defends a theory of responsible belief. The author argues that we lack control over our beliefs, but that we can nonetheless influence them. It is because we have intellectual obligations to influence our beliefs that we are responsible for them.

Responsible Belief

Responsible Belief PDF Author: Robert M. Frazier
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498225004
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
Responsible Belief tackles the problem of fixing the tenacity of believers in forming, holding, and modifying beliefs. In conversation with the history of philosophy and religion, the author attempts to expose and refute some aspects of the dominant epistemological framework for engaging belief fixation and improvement. In contrast to this framework, Dr. Frazier provides a model of a responsible believing agent rooted in an ethic of the intellectual virtue tradition. In dialogue with Aristotle, he proposes three principal virtues, which he calls the generative, the transmissive, and the metamorphic. The author's alternative framework includes an examination of the role that intellectual passions play in the melioration of belief. Responsible Belief considers whether Doestoevsky's claim that "Beauty will save the world" has a place in discussions of belief formation and revision and offers an account of its vitality in addressing the concerns raised in the book.

Knowledge and Belief

Knowledge and Belief PDF Author: Frederick F. Schmitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134967799
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Knowledge, from Plato onwards, has been considered in relation to justified belief. Current debate has centred around the nature of the justification and whether justified belief can be considered an internal or extenal matter. Epistemological internalists argue that the subject must be able to reflect upon a belief to complete the process of justification. The externalists, on the other hand, claim that it is only necessary to consider whether the belief is reliably formed, and argue that the ability to know by reflection is not required for a justified belief. In the historical section of this book the three most important epistemologists, Plato, Descartes and Hume, as well as the ancient epistemologies of the stoics, Academics and Pyrhonians, are considered. In reconsidering the history of epistemology the author is led to argue against hte view that internalism is historically dominant. His critique of internalism is then developed into a sustained argument against many of its forms, and he goes onto defend an externalist, reliabilist epistemology.

The Ethics of Belief. [By William K. Clifford. A Paper Read Before the Metaphysical Society.]

The Ethics of Belief. [By William K. Clifford. A Paper Read Before the Metaphysical Society.] PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 8

Get Book Here

Book Description


Ad Infinitum

Ad Infinitum PDF Author: John Turri
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019101804X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
Infinitism is an ancient view in epistemology about the structure of knowledge and epistemic justification, according to which there are no foundational reasons for belief. The view has never been popular, and is often associated with skepticism, but after languishing for centuries it has recently begun a resurgence. Ad Infinitum presents new work on the topic by leading epistemologists. They shed new light on infinitism's distinctive strengths and weaknesses, and address questions, new and old, about its account of justification, reasoning, epistemic responsibility, disagreement, and trust, among other important issues. The volume clarifies the relationship between infinitism and other epistemological views, such as skepticism, coherentism, foundationalism and contextualism, and it offers novel perspectives on the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of regresses and reasons.

Against Moral Responsibility

Against Moral Responsibility PDF Author: Bruce N. Waller
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262553813
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 365

Get Book Here

Book Description
A vigorous attack on moral responsibility in all its forms argues that the abolition of moral responsibility will be liberating and beneficial. In Against Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller launches a spirited attack on a system that is profoundly entrenched in our society and its institutions, deeply rooted in our emotions, and vigorously defended by philosophers from ancient times to the present. Waller argues that, despite the creative defenses of it by contemporary thinkers, moral responsibility cannot survive in our naturalistic-scientific system. The scientific understanding of human behavior and the causes that shape human character, he contends, leaves no room for moral responsibility. Waller argues that moral responsibility in all its forms—including criminal justice, distributive justice, and all claims of just deserts—is fundamentally unfair and harmful and that its abolition will be liberating and beneficial. What we really want—natural human free will, moral judgments, meaningful human relationships, creative abilities—would survive and flourish without moral responsibility. In the course of his argument, Waller examines the origins of the basic belief in moral responsibility, proposes a naturalistic understanding of free will, offers a detailed argument against moral responsibility and critiques arguments in favor of it, gives a general account of what a world without moral responsibility would look like, and examines the social and psychological aspects of abolishing moral responsibility. Waller not only mounts a vigorous, and philosophically rigorous, attack on the moral responsibility system, but also celebrates the benefits that would result from its total abolition.

Reason & the Contours of Faith

Reason & the Contours of Faith PDF Author: Richard Rice
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625640846
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book Here

Book Description
Can reason and religion get together? Should believers think? Can thinking people believe? Does religion have to make sense? Does careful thinking help or hinder religious experience? People have wrestled with such questions for hundreds of years, and they are just as perplexing today as ever. Reason & the Contours of Faith explores the wide-ranging issues these questions raise, from biblical interpretation and proofs for God's existence to the nature of religious conversion. Its central purpose is to find an alternative to both fideism, the idea that reason has nothing to do with faith, and rationalism, the conviction that reason has everything to do with it. Part One, "Reason and the Contents of Faith," argues that reason contributes in important but limited ways to our understanding of religion. Part Two, "Reason and the Experience of Faith," shows that reason can support religious commitment, but never produces it.

Responsibility and the Demands of Morality

Responsibility and the Demands of Morality PDF Author: Stephen J. White
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198893949
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book Here

Book Description
Stephen J. White (1983-2021) was developing a comprehensive view of responsibility and its limits when his life was tragically cut short. This volume contains his collected papers. White's view of responsibility spans across ethics, action theory, and interpersonal epistemology. Its core idea is that to be responsible for doing or believing something is to be answerable for why one has done it or why one believes it, and to be responsible for a state of affairs is to be answerable for why things are that way, rather than some other way. White deploys this conception of responsibility to illuminate the notions of autonomy, coercion, shared reasoning, self-prediction, doxastic wronging, and peer disagreement. He also investigates the nature of practical reasoning: he argues against a production-oriented conception of practical reasoning, delineates the scope of transmission principles in means-ends reasoning, and identifies a limited for self-prediction in practical reasoning that is subject to an anti-opportunism constraint. The papers form the outline of a deep ethical outlook that takes seriously our personal and collective responsibilities and yet leaves room for personal autonomy both in thought and in action.

Responsible Belief

Responsible Belief PDF Author: Rik Peels
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190608129
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
What we believe and what we do not believe has a great impact on what we do and fail to do. Hence, if we want to act responsibly, we should believe responsibly. However, do we have the kind of control over our beliefs that such responsibility for our beliefs seems to require? Do we have certain obligations to control or influence our beliefs on particular occasions? And do we sometimes believe responsibly despite violating such obligations, namely because we are excused by, say, indoctrination or ignorance? By answering each of these questions, Rik Peels provides a theory of what it is to believe responsibly. He argues that we lack control over our beliefs, but that we can nonetheless influence our beliefs by performing actions that make a difference to what we believe. We have a wide variety of moral, prudential, and epistemic obligations to perform such belief-influencing actions. We can be held responsible for our beliefs in virtue of such influence on our beliefs. Sometimes, we believe responsibly despite having violated such obligations, namely if we are excused, by force, ignorance, or luck. A careful consideration of these excuses teaches us, respectively, that responsible belief entails that we could have failed to have that belief, that responsible belief is in a specific sense radically subjective, and that responsible belief is compatible with its being a matter of luck that we hold that belief.

Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present

Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present PDF Author: Diego Machuca
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472511492
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 763

Get Book Here

Book Description
Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present is an authoritative and up-to-date survey of the entire history of skepticism. Divided chronologically into ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern, and contemporary periods, and featuring 50 specially-commissioned chapters from leading philosophers, this comprehensive volume is the first of its kind. By exploring each of the distinct traditions and providing expert insights, this extensive reference work: - covers major thinkers such as Sextus Empiricus, Cicero, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein. - acknowledges the influence of ancient skeptical traditions on later philosophy and explains why it is still a fertile topic of inquiry among today's philosophers and historians of philosophy. - analyzes various forms of skepticism including Pyrrhonian, Academic, religious, moral, and neo-Pyrrhonian. - addresses issues in contemporary epistemology and indicates new directions of study. Skepticism, a driving force in the history of philosophy, remains at the center of debates in ethics, philosophy of religion, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present is an essential point of reference for any student, researcher, or practitioner of philosophy, presenting a systematic and historical survey of this core philosophical topic.