Carroll’s Regress and the Epistemology of Logic

On an internalist account of logical inference, we are warranted in drawing conclusions from accepted premises on the basis of our knowledge of logical laws. Lewis Carroll’s regress challenges internalism by purporting to show that this kind of warrant cannot ground the move from premises to conclusion. Carroll’s regress vindicates a repudiation of internalism and leads to the espousal of a standpoint that regards our inferential practice as not being grounded on our knowledge of logical laws. Such a standpoint can take two forms. One can adopt either a broadly externalist model of inference or a sceptical stance. I will attempt, in what follows, to defend a version of internalism which is not affected by the regress. The main strategy will be to show that externalism and scepticism are not satisfying standpoints to adopt with regard to our inferential practice, and then to suggest an internalist alternative.     

No Luck With Knowledge? On a Dogma of Epistemology

Current epistemological orthodoxy has it that knowledge is incompatible with luck. More precisely: Knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck (of a certain, interesting kind). This is often treated as a truism which is not even in need of argumentative support. In this paper, I argue that there is lucky knowledge. In the first part, I use an intuitive and not very developed notion of luck to show that there are cases of knowledge which are “lucky” in that sense. In the second part, I look at philosophical conceptions of luck (modal and probabilistic ones) and come to the conclusion that knowledge can be lucky in those senses, too. I also turns out that a probabilistic notion of luck can help us see in what ways a particular piece of knowledge or belief can be lucky or not lucky.     

The Logics of Discovery in Popper’s Evolutionary Epistemology

Popper is well known for rejecting a logic of discovery, but he is only justified in rejecting the same type of logic of discovery that is denied by consequentialism. His own account of hypothesis generation, based on a natural selection analogy, involves an error-eliminative logic of discovery and the differences he admits between biological and conceptual evolution suggest an error-corrective logic of discovery. These types of logics of discovery are based on principles of plausibility that are used in the generation as opposed to the preliminary evaluation of hypotheses. The normative relevance of these principles is grounded in the distinction between strategic and definitory rules.

Is Historical Epistemology Part of the ‘Modernist Settlement’?

Bruno Latour, as part of his advocacy of science studies urges us to move beyond what he calls ‘the Modernist Settlement’ that, among other things, separated science from politics and subject from object. As part of this project he has frequently called for the abolition of epistemology, including quite specifically the historical epistemology/epistemological history of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem. Pierre Bourdieu, on the other hand, deploys the resources of historical epistemology, to dismiss Latour’s science studies. After examining the charges against historical epistemology and their rebuttal, I rule in favor of the defense. However, I also suggest that Latour raises genuine concerns about how to equip ourselves to tackle problems such as those associated with climate change; these are problems that require engagement with the politics of nature, with the politics of the sciences of nature and with the epistemological challenges associated with the need to deploy multiple disciplines in the service of complex, practical, policy-relevant problem solving.     

‘Foolishness to Greeks’: Plantinga and the Epistemology of Christian Belief

A central theme in the Christian contemplative tradition is that knowing God is much more like ‘unknowing’ than it is like possessing rationally acceptable beliefs. Knowledge of God is expressed, in this tradition, in metaphors of woundedness, darkness, silence, suffering, and desire. Philosophers of religion, on the other hand, tend to explore the possibilities of knowing God in terms of rational acceptability, epistemic rights, cognitive responsibility, and propositional belief. These languages seem to point to very different accounts of how it is that we come to know God, and a very different range of critical concepts by which the truth of such knowledge can be assessed. In this paper, I begin to explore what might be at stake in these different languages of knowing God, drawing particularly on Alvin Plantinga’s epistemology of Christian belief. I will argue that his is a distorted account of the epistemology of Christian belief, and that this has implications for his project of demonstrating the rational acceptability of Christian faith for the 21st century.

Popper’S Evolutionary Epistemology Revamped

In a paper entitled “Revolution in Permanence”, published in the collection “Karl Popper: Philosophy and Problems”, John Worrall (1995) severely criticised several aspects of Karl Popper’s work before commenting that “I have no doubt that, given suffi-cient motivation, a case could be constructed on the basis of such remarks that Popper had a more sophisticated version of theory production......” (p. 102). Part of Worrall’s criticism is directed at a “strawpopper”: in his “Darwinian Model” emphasising the similarities and differences between genetic mutation, variation in animal behaviour and the gestation of scientific theories, Popper (1975, 1981, 1994) never stated that tentative scientific conjec-tures “while more or less random, are not completely blind.” He was referring to variation in animal species behaviour, and about tentative scientific conjectures he said nothing, although common sense would indicate that presumably he regarded them as being less blind and less random. In Popper (1977, 1983), giving a summary of his “Darwinian Model”, he repaired this omission about tentative scientific conjectures by inserting the sentence “On a level of World 3 theory formation they are of the character of planned gropings into the unknown.” Recent developments in the field of genetics (see for example Raff (1996), Lewis (1999), Korn (2002)) indicate that Popper’s intuitions were along the modern lines while Worrall’s intuitions are old fashioned. Therefore Popper’s “Darwinian Model” remains both viable and fruitful.     

From Classical Studies towards Epistemology: The Work of József Balogh

In this paper, I introduce a prominent classical scholar, József Balogh, whose work can be read as a significant contribution to the historiography of ancient, and in some sense modern, philosophy. Following a summary biography, I sketch the relevance of Balogh's interpretation of Augustine. I draw some analogies between his and Eric Havelock's treatment of the problems in ancient philosophy, and argue that the obvious similarities between them have a common origin, namely the perspective of the orality/literacy chasm which both treated, in connection with their research into Augustine and Plato, as crucial. Subsequently, I show how the problem of reading aloud, which Balogh was the first to treat systematically, has acquired significance in some current debates in philosophy.     

Is There a Cultural Barrier Between Historical Epistemology and Analytic Philosophy of Science?

One of the difficulties facing the philosopher of science today is the divide between historical epistemology and analytic philosophy of science. For over half a century these two traditions have followed independent and divergent paths. Historical epistemology, which originated in France in the early twentieth century, has recently been reformulated by a number of scholars such as Lorraine Daston, Ian Hacking, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Elaborating novel historical methods, they seek to provide answers to major questions in the field. In the light of this situation, my article examines the cultural barrier that explains the uneasy relationship between the two traditions. This barrier hinges on a number of factors—institutional, political and social—that are bound up with the philosophical issues in question. By resorting both to historical study and logical analysis, the new historical epistemology incites us to move beyond a rather sterile antagonism.     

Woundedness and the Learning Child‐Spirit—Ontology and Epistemology of a Therapeutic Education

Spiritual education, at its best, fosters growth and helps the individual to search for meaning. These processes are by no means painless for the learner: either by ignoring the search, or by engaging in it, s/he may experience frustration, loss, confusion, sadness, anger. The argument will be that we can summarize these painful experiences and name them as woundedness. From a reading ofjungian analysis, religious classics and our own experience, we can see woundedness as a fundamental characteristic of all learners, by virtue of their humanity, but especially children. The child, as a learning spirit, can be understood to be wounded; the process of spiritual education can be understood therapeuti‐cally, knowledge can be understood as self‐recovery. In this understanding, spiritual education is not therapy in itself, but can be metaphorically understood as such, and can have some therapeutic effects. Some complexities and weaknesses of this metaphor are considered towards the end, and its considerable implications for spiritual education are sketched in outline.     

What Can Feminist Epistemology Do for Surgery?

Surgery is an important part of contemporary health care, but currently much of surgery lacks a strong evidence base. Uptake of evidence‐based medicine (EBM) methods within surgical research and among practitioners has been slow compared with other areas of medicine. Although this is often viewed as arising from practical and cultural barriers, it also reflects a lack of epistemic fit between EBM research methods and surgical practice. In this paper we discuss some epistemic challenges in surgery relating to this lack of fit, and investigate how resources from feminist epistemology can help to characterize them. We point to ways in which these epistemic challenges may be addressed by gathering and disseminating evidence about what works in surgery using methods that are contextual, pluralistic, and sensitive to hierarchies.     

Papier Mâché Problems in Epistemology: A Defense of Strong Internalism*

I attempt to persuade the reader that externalism admits of no plausible interpretation. I argue that reliability is a concept with very different contours from epistemic justification, and that attempts to explicate justification in terms of reliability must fail. I address several other forms of externalism, and also mixed forms of justification. I then argue that externalist theories of justification cannot close the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I suggest that a fourth condition on knowledge is required, regardless of whether justification is internalist or externalist. I argue that with such a fourth condition a strong internalist theory of justification is adequate to the task that remains in making true belief knowledge. Additionally, strong internalism is more satisfying to our intuitions than externalism and mixed forms of justification. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Does Low Dose Ionizing Radiation Cause Cancer? The Interplay of Epistemology and Ethics in Radiation Protection

In order to investigate the relationship between scientific evidence and social commitments this article addresses three questions: (1) does low dose ionizing radiation cause cancer? (2) Is the answer to this question different in a social setting than in a scientific context? (3) What are the consequences of the answers of 1 and 2 for the relationship between epistemology and ethics as played out in radiation protection? Conceptual analysis with basis in the philosophy of science, in particular traditional theories of causality. Whether low dose ionizing radiation causes cancer deeply depends on what we mean by causality. According to traditional scientific conceptions of causality it is not warranted to say that low dose ionizing radiation causes cancer. Standard approaches in radiation protection, however, imply that there is a causal connection, which is due to the strong social commitment in the field. There is a close relationship between social and scientific conceptions of causality, posing a series of challenges: one being that scientists covertly become moral experts, another one that the general public can be misinformed. There is a difference between causality in science and in policy making. Mixing these conceptions, as sometimes is done in radiation protection, can be misleading. Whether low dose ionizing radiation causes cancer is a social and not only a scientific issue. As such those who are warranted to have a say.     

Anti-Luck Epistemology and Safety’s (Recent) Discontents

Anti-luck epistemology is an approach to analyzing knowledge that takes as a starting point the widely-held assumption that knowledge must exclude luck. Call this the anti-luck platitude. As Duncan Pritchard (2005) has suggested, there are three stages constituent of anti-luck epistemology, each which specifies a different philosophical requirement: these stages call for us to first give an account of luck; second, specify the sense in which knowledge is incompatible with luck; and finally, show what conditions must be satisfied in order to block the kind of luck with which knowledge was argued to be incompatible. What I’ll show here is that the modal account of luck offers a plausible story at the first stage and leads naturally to equally plausible lines to take at the second and third stages, at which a safety condition on knowledge is squarely motivated. There are, however, recent challenges—advanced by Jonathan Kvanvig (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77: 272–281, 2008); Kelly Becker (2007); and Jennifer Lackey (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86(2):255–267, 2008), among others—to the plausibility of the safety-based anti-luck project I’ve sketched here at each of its three stages of development. Once I’ve made precise the challenges, I’ll show why none implies that we abandon the commitments of the safety-based anti-luck project at any of its stages. What we should conclude, then, is that a safety-condition on knowledge is motivated by independently defensible accounts of (1) what luck is; and (2) just how knowledge should be thought incompatible with it.     

On the Coherence of Dignāga’s Epistemology: Evaluating the Critiques of Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi

I discuss two critiques of Dignāga’s epistemology, one from Candrakīrti and another from Jayarā?i. I argue that they are two versions of what I call the core problem: if the content of Dignāga’s epistemology were correct, two fundamental beliefs within this epistemological theory could not be established or known to be true, as Dignāga claims they are. In response to objections found within the classical Indian tradition as well as several plausible contemporary objections, I then argue that the core problem remains a serious issue with which those sympathetic to Dignāga ought to contend.     

‘Transcendental knowledge’ in Tibetan Mādhyamika Epistemology

At least in as much as it is accessible to ‘transcendental wisdom’, Tsong khapa and Go rampa both maintain that ultimate truth is an object of knowledge. So granting that ultimate truth is an object of knowledge and that transcendental wisdom its knowing subject, this paper attempts to address one key epistemological problem: how does transcendental wisdom know or realise ultimate truth? The responses from the Tibetan Mådhyamikas entail that transcendental wisdom knows ultimate truth in at least two different ways: firstly, ‘by way of not seeing it’ (ma gzigs pa'i tshul gyis gzigs); and, secondly, ‘by way of transcending the conceptual elaborations’ (spros bral gyis sgo nas gzigs tshul), therefore by way of the non-dual engagement (gnyis snang dral ba'i sgo nas gzigs tshul). Although the emphasis is slightly different in each of the two modes of engagement, they are nevertheless alike in that both represent epistemic pathways geared towards the same non-conceptual realisation of ultimate truth. So what does each of these epistemic modes really mean in relation to ultimate truth? This paper addresses this question at issue by means of undertaking a comparative analysis of Tsong khapa's and Go rampa's epistemological traditions regarding the matters at question.     

How Does One Know What Shame Is? Epistemology,Emotions, and Forms of Life in Juxtaposition

Do women conceptualize—understand, know about, and react to—shame differently from the way men do? Does the experience and knowledge of shame have a gender-specificity, and along what lines could it be analyzed? By introducing a distinction between life or enduring experiences, “Erfahrung,” and episodic or occurrent experiences, “Erlebnis,” andby juxtaposing this distinction with the Rylean notion that knowledge is dispositional this paper argues for the plausibility of a gender-specificivy.