Category: Knowledge
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Is it Rational to be Politically Ignorant?
There are those who love to expose and mock the astonishing political ignorance of Americans. According to a 2006 survey, only 42% of Americans could name the three branches of government. But here is an interesting question worth exploring: Is it not entirely rational to ignore events over which one has no control and withdraw…
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Fallibilism and Objectivism
It is important not to confuse the question of the fallibility of our cognitive faculties, including reason in us, with the question whether there is truth. A fallibilist is not a truth-denier. One can be — it is logically consistent to be — both a fallibilist and an upholder of (objective) truth. What's more, one…
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Dolezal, Knowledge, and Belief
R. C. writes, I hadn't heard of the Dolezal case until reading your blog post. It occurred to me that this case might serve as a counterexample to the standard epistemological position that belief is necessary for knowledge. I don't know Dolezal's psychological/epistemic state. But suppose she knows that she isn't African-American by race, but…
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Divine Simplicity and God’s Contingent Knowledge: An Aporetic Tetrad
The following entry draws heavily upon W. Matthews Grant, "Divine Simplicity, Contingent Truths, and Extrinsic Models of Divine Knowing," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 29, no. 3, July 2012, pp. 254-274. It also bears upon my discussion with Professor Dale Tuggy. He holds that God is a being among beings. I deny that God is a…
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If the Senses Could Speak
If the senses could speak, they would claim that they alone provide access to truth. Why then should we take seriously intellect's claim that there is nothing beyond it? Related articles Go For Broke and Die With Your Boots On!
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Cognitive Dissonance or Doxastic Dissonance?
From what appears to be a reputable source: Cognitive Dissonance Theory, developed by Leon Festinger (1957), is concerned with the relationships among cognitions. A cognition, for the purpose of this theory, may be thought of as a ³piece of knowledge.² The knowledge may be about an attitude, an emotion, a behavior, a value, and so…
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A Meditation on Certainty on Husserl’s Birthday
Edmund Husserl was born on this date in 1859. In his magisterial Augustine of Hippo, Peter Brown writes of Augustine, "He wanted complete certainty on ultimate questions." (1st ed., p. 88) If you don't thrill to that line, you are no philosopher. Compare Edmund Husserl: "Ohne Gewissheit kann ich eben nicht leben." "I just can't…
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Knowledge, Belief, Action: Three Maxims
1. Don't claim to know what you merely believe even on good evidence. 2. Don't claim to believe what you are not prepared to act upon. 3. Don't let insufficient evidence prevent you from believing what you are better off believing in the long run than not believing in the long run. Related articles Knowledge and…
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A Design Argument From Cognitive Reliability
A theist friend requests a design argument. Here is one. You are out hiking and the trail becomes faint and hard to follow. You peer into the distance and see three stacked rocks. Looking a bit farther, you see another such stack. Now you are confident which way the trail goes. Your confidence is based…
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A Being-Knowledge Antilogism
An antilogism is an inconsistent triad: a set of three propositions that cannot all be true. The most interesting antilogisms are those in which the constitutent propositions are each of them plausible. If they are not merely plausible but self-evident or undeniable, then we are in the presence of an aporia in the strict sense. (From…
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Seeing versus Imagining a Ghost: Another Round with Hennessey
It is plain that 'sees' has many senses in English. Of these many senses, some are philosophically salient. Of the philosophical salient senses, two are paramount. Call the one 'existence-entailing.' (EE) Call the other 'existence-neutral.' (EN) On the one, 'sees' is a so-called verb of success. On the other, it isn't, which not to say…
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Incompleteness, Completeness, and the External World
David Brightly comments: I appreciate that in discussing these epistemological issues we must use the non-question-begging, existence-neutral sense of 'see'. My point is that for the distinction between 'complete' and 'incomplete' to make any sense, the epistemological question as to whether seeing is existence-entailing has to have already been settled favourably, though with the caveat…
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Seeing: Internalist and Externalist Perspectives
This is a second entry in response to Hennessey. The first is here. Consider again this aporetic tetrad: 1. If S sees x, then x exists 2. Seeing is an intentional state 3. Every intentional state is such that its intentional object is incomplete 4. Nothing that exists is incomplete. The limbs of the tetrad…
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The Epistemologically Primary Sense of ‘See’
Richard Hennessey questions the distinction between existentially loaded and existentially neutral senses of 'sees' and cognates. He quotes me as saying: 'Sees’ is often taken to be a so-called verb of success: if S sees x, then it follows that x exists. On this understanding of ‘sees’ one cannot see what doesn’t exist. Call this the…
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In the Absence of Knowledge, May One Believe? Remarks on Magee
According to Bryan Magee ("What I Believe," Philosophy 77 (2002), 407- 419), nobody knows the answers to such questions as whether we survive our bodily deaths or whether God exists. Citing Xenophanes and Kant, Magee further suggests that the answers to these questions are not only unknown but impossible for us to know. Assuming that…