FIRST-PERSON BELIEF AND EMPIRICAL CERTAINTY

This is a critical exposition and limited defence of a theory of first-person belief transiently held by Roderick Chisholm after giving up the early haecceity theory of Person and Object (1976) and before adopting the late self-attribution theory of The First Person (1981). I reconstruct that 'middle' theory as involving what I call a 'hard-core' approach to de re belief and I rebut objections concerning epistemic supervenience and abnormal consciousness. In my rebuttals, I sketch a variant of the middle theory according to which first-person belief essentially involves the believer's introspective acquaintance with herself.     

HUME ON KNOWLEDGE,CERTAINTY AND PROBABILITY: ANTICIPATING THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE ANALYTIC/SYNTHETIC DIVIDE?

Abstract:  This paper contends that the first argument of Hume's "Of scepticism with regard to reason" entails that humans have no knowledge as Hume understands knowledge. In defending this claim, we also see how Hume's argument anticipates an important aspect of an extremely influential 20th century development: the collapse of the analytic/synthetic distinction.     

宗教与知识

认为2 0 0 1年9月发生的那次袭击标志着当代历史的一个重大转折点,这也许是夸大其词的。但这个事件无疑已令我们感到必须对诸多问题重新加以思考。其中的一个问题尤其与这组探讨知识社会的论文有着高度的相关性。它提出了下述问题:在这样一个社会中,宗教可能扮演着什么角色?人们首先会认为这种角色几乎为零,这在很大程度上是因为囿于私人生活领域的宗教已被改造成无害的古语。其次,就其本质而言,宗教同任何形式的理性知识皆不相容。这次袭击颠覆了上述两种假设。起初,它令某种人们怀疑已久的事情在转瞬间成为关注的焦点。自从原教旨主义现象…     

CONTEXTUALISM, SUBJECT-SENSITIVE INVARIANTISM AND KNOWLEDGE OF KNOWLEDGE

§I schematizes the evidence for an understanding of 'know' and of other terms of epistemic appraisal that embodies contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism, and distinguishes between those two approaches. §II argues that although the cases for contextualism and sensitive invariantism rely on a principle of charity in the interpretation of epistemic claims, neither approach satisfies charity fully, since both attribute meta-linguistic errors to speakers. §III provides an equally charitable anti-sceptical insensitive invariantist explanation of much of the same evidence as the result of psychological bias caused by salience effects. §IV suggests that the explanation appears to have implausible consequences about practical reasoning, but also that applications of contextualism or sensitive invariantism to the problem of scepticism have such consequences. §V argues that the inevitable difference between appropriateness and knowledge of appropriateness in practical reasoning, closely related to the difference between knowledge and knowledge of knowledge, explains the apparent implausibility.     

CONCEIVABILITY AND MODAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract: This article is a discussion of Hume's maxim Nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. First I explain this maxim and distinguish it from the principle Whatever cannot be imagined (conceived), is impossible. Next I argue that Thomas Reid's criticism of the maxim fails and that the arguments by Tamar Szábo Gendler and John Hawthorne for the claim that “it is uncontroversial that there are cases where we are misled” by the maxim are unconvincing. Finally I state the limited but real value of the maxim: it does help us, in certain cases, reliably to make up our minds. Along the way I show that Reid, his criticism of the maxim notwithstanding, actually employs it, and I furthermore argue that the principle What is inconceivable, is impossible is spurious.     

VIOLATIONS OF MONOTONICITY AND CONTEXTUAL EFFECTS IN CHOICE-BASED CERTAINTY EQUIVALENTS

Abstract —This article investigates choices between gambles and amounts of money to explore two issues in decision making First, in recent studies, judgments of the values of gambles violated monotonicity (dominance), yet choices between the same gambles satisfied monotonicity, producing reversals of preference This experiment tested whether certainty equivalents based on choices between gambles and money would violate monotonicity Results indicated that these choices violated monotonicity in the same way as had judgments Second, this experiment investigated whether the certainty equivalent of a gamble would depend on the distribution of amounts offered for comparison It was found that certainty equivalents based on choices depended on the context m the same fashion as psychophysical comparisons Apparently, paradoxes of behavioral decision making are not eliminated by using choices instead of judgments to investigate human preferences     

LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND GETTIER CASES

Knowledge of the basic rules of logic is often thought to be distinctive, for it seems to be a case of non-inferential a priori knowledge. Many philosophers take its source to be different from those of other types of knowledge, such as knowledge of empirical facts. The most prominent account of knowledge of the basic rules of logic takes this source to be the understanding of logical expressions or concepts. On this account, what explains why such knowledge is distinctive is that it is grounded in semantic or conceptual understanding. However, I show that this cannot be the correct account of knowledge of the basic rules of logic, because it is open to Gettier-style counter-examples.     

KNOWLEDGE, SPEAKER AND SUBJECT

I contrast two solutions to the lottery paradox concerning knowledge: contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism. I defend contextualism against an objection that it cannot explain how 'knows' and its cognates function inside propositional attitude reports. I then argue that subject-sensitive invariantism fails to provide a satisfactory resolution of the paradox.     

KNOWLEDGE AND IMAGINATION IN FICTION AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Abstract: Autobiographies are particularly interesting in the context of moral philosophy because they offer us rare and extended examples of how other people think, feel and reflect, which is of crucial importance in the development of phronesis (practical wisdom). In this article, Martha Nussbaum's use of fictional literature is shown to be of limited interest, and her arguments in Poetic Justice against the use of personal narratives in moral philosophy are shown to be unfounded. An analysis of Aristotle's concept of mimesis shows that Nussbaum's claims for fictional literature also apply to personal narratives. A case is then made for the importance of personal narratives in developing practical wisdom, and three sub‐genres of autobiography are discussed: (1) the confession, (2) the apology and (3) the testimonial. These sub‐genres exemplify some of the unique features of personal narratives.     

ALTERNATIVE QUESTIONS AND KNOWLEDGE ATTRIBUTIONS

We discuss the 'problem of convergent knowledge', an argument presented by J. Schaffer in favour of contextualism about knowledge attributions, and against the idea that knowledge- wh can be simply reduced to knowledge of the proposition answering the question. Schaffer's argument centrally involves alternative questions of the form 'whether A or B'. We propose an analysis of these on which the problem of convergent knowledge does not arise. While alternative questions can contextually restrict the possibilities relevant for knowledge attributions, what Schaffer's puzzle reveals is a pragmatic ambiguity in what 'knowing the answer' means: in his problematic cases, the subject knows only a partial answer to the question. This partial knowledge can be counted as adequate only on externalist grounds.     

知识创新与心理学的发展

在知识经济时代,创新能力决定国家的前途命运,建设国家创新体系是提高国家创新能力的重要举措。知识创新是国家创新体系的一个重要组成部分,是提高我国整体创新能力的关键所在。心理学是一门横跨自然科学和社会科学的交叉科学,其成果在人类生活的许多方面有重要影响。根据当前国家需求和心理学的发展前沿,我们认为,在知识创新活动中,应当将心理健康与创新能力、认知与复杂信息环境、社会经济与心理行为作为重要研究方向。