Platonic know‐how and successful action

In Plato's Euthydemus, Socrates claims that the possession of epistēmē (usually construed as knowledge or understanding) suffices for practical success. Several recent treatments suggest that we may make sense of this claim and render it plausible by drawing a distinction between so‐called “outcome‐success” and “internal‐success” and supposing that epistēmē only guarantees internal‐success. In this paper, I raise several objections to such treatments and suggest that the relevant cognitive state should be construed along less than purely intellectual lines: as a cognitive state constituted at least in part by ability. I argue that we may better explain Socrates' claims that epistēmē suffices for successful action by attending to the nature of abilities, what it is that we attempt to do when acting, and what successful action amounts to in the relevant contexts. These considerations suggest that, contrary to several recent treatments, the success in question is not always internal‐success.     

Knowledge as ‘True Belief Plus Individuation’ in Plato

In Republic V, Plato distinguishes two different cognitive powers, knowledge and belief, which operate differently on different types of object. I argue that in Republic VI Plato modifies this account, and claims that there is a single cognitive power, which under different circumstances behaves either as knowledge or as belief. I show that the circumstances which turn true belief into knowledge are the provision of an individuation account of the object of belief, which reveals the ontological status and the nature of the object. Plato explores many alternative candidates of individuation accounts of objects of true belief, which he discards. I conclude with a Platonic sketch of a teleological account of individuation which would satisfy his requirements of turning true belief into knowledge.     

Addiction and Self‐Deception: A Method for Self‐Control?

Neil Levy argues that while addicts who believe they are not addicts are self‐deceived, addicts who believe they are addicts are just as self‐deceived. Such persons accept a false belief that their addictive behaviour involves a loss of control. This paper examines two implications of Levy's discussion: that accurate self‐knowledge may be particularly difficult for addicts; and that an addict's self‐deceived belief that they cannot control themselves may aid their attempts at self‐control. I argue that the self‐deceived beliefs of addicts in denial and of self‐described addicts differ in kind. Unlike the self‐deception of an addict in denial, that of the self‐described addict allows them to acknowledge their behaviour. As such, it may aid an addict to develop more self‐control. A paradoxical implication is that this self‐deception may allow an addict more self‐knowledge.     

Belief as emotion

It is commonly held that (i) beliefs are revisable in the face of counter-evidence and (ii) beliefs are connected to actions in reliable and predictable ways. Given such a view, many argue that if a mental state fails to respond to evidence or doesn't result in the kind of behavior typical or expected of belief, it is not a belief after all, but a different state. Yet, one finds seeming counter examples of resilient beliefs that fail to respond to evidence, or that do not connect to action in the way that is expected. I offer a view of belief that does not force us to exclude states as real beliefs that we pre-reflectively think of as beliefs, and that does not require us to “outsource” the work belief seems to do to other mental states. I propose that we view belief as a type of emotion where emotions are understood a irreducibly blended states, containing representational, motivational and phenomenological elements.     

Can We Be Self‐Deceived about What We Believe? Self‐Knowledge,Self‐Deception,and Rational Agency

Abstract: This paper considers the question of whether it is possible to be mistaken about the content of our first‐order intentional states. For proponents of the rational agency model of self‐knowledge, such failures might seem very difficult to explain. On this model, the authority of self‐knowledge is not based on inference from evidence, but rather originates in our capacity, as rational agents, to shape our beliefs and other intentional states. To believe that one believes that p, on this view, constitutes one's belief that p and so self‐knowledge involves a constitutive relation between first‐ and second‐order beliefs. If this is true, it is hard to see how those second‐order beliefs could ever be false. I develop two counter‐examples which show that despite the constitutive relation between first‐ and second‐order beliefs in standard cases of self‐knowledge, it is possible to be mistaken, and even self‐deceived, about the content of one's own beliefs. These counter‐examples do not show that the rational agency model is mistaken—rather, they show that the possibility of estrangement from one's own mental life means that, even within the rational agency model, it is possible to have false second‐order beliefs about the content of one's first‐order beliefs. The authority of self‐knowledge does not entail that to believe that one believes that p suffices to make it the case that one believes that p.     

Methodology of the Privileged: White Anti‐racist Feminism,Systematic Ignorance,and Epistemic Uncertainty

This article addresses the impact of systematic ignorance and epistemic uncertainty upon white Western women's participation in anti‐racist and transnational feminisms. I argue that a “methodology of the privileged” is necessary for effective coalition‐building across racial and geopolitical inequities. Examining both self‐reflexivity and racial sedition as existing methods, I conclude that epistemic uncertainty should be considered an additional strategy rather than a dilemma for the privileged.     

Participant Reflexivity in Community‐Based Participatory Research: Insights from Reflexive Interview,Dialogical Narrative Analysis,and Video Ethnography

Focusing on researchers, the predominant discourse on reflexivity has seldom considered the contribution that participants could make to research through their self‐reflections. To bring to light the significance of participants' self‐reflection in participatory inquiries, I develop the concept of participant reflexivity, referring to the process in which participants use insights gained through self‐reflection for data analysis and group discussion. My discussion is based on a community‐based participatory research project conducted with a group of adult learners on their educational experiences. I examined the accounts shared by one of the participants by using insights from the theories of reflexive interview, dialogical narrative analysis and video ethnography, and found that her accounts played a pivotal role in evoking group reflections and drawing the conclusion of the project. I argue that participant reflexivity is a useful construct that can do justice to what participants can uniquely offer in participatory inquiries. The concept can also contribute to advancing knowledge of reflexivity by complementing the researcher‐focused predominant discourse on reflexivity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

AGNOSTIC MEDITATIONS ON BUDDHIST MEDITATION

I first attempt a taxonomy of meditation in traditional Indian Buddhism. Based on the main psychological or somatic function at which the meditative effort is directed, the following classes can be distinguished: (1) emotion‐centered meditation (coinciding with the traditional samatha approach); (2) consciousness‐centered meditation (with two subclasses: consciousness reduction/elimination and ideation obliteration); (3) reflection‐centered meditation (with two subtypes: morality‐directed reflection and reality‐directed observation, the latter corresponding to the vipassanā method); (4) visualization‐centered meditation; and (5) physiology‐centered meditation. In the second part of the essay I tackle the problem of the epistemic validity and happiness‐engendering value of Buddhist meditation. In my highly conjectural view, the claim that meditation represents an infallible tool for realizing the (Supreme) Truth as well as a universally valid method for attaining the highest forms of happiness is largely based on the crēdō effect, that is, a placebolike process. I do not deny that meditation may have some positive effects on mental and physical health or that its practice may bring changes to the mind. Meditation may be a valuable alternative approach in life and clinical treatment, but it is far from being a must or a panacea.     

Expanding the scope of reflective knowledge: From MINE to OURS

Ernest Sosa has suggested that we distinguish between animal knowledge, on the one hand, and reflective knowledge, on the other. Animal knowledge is direct, immediate, and foundationally structured, while reflective knowledge involves a knower's higher‐order awareness of her own mental states, and is structured by relations of coherence. Although Sosa's distinction is extremely appealing, it also faces serious problems. In particular, the sorts of processes that would be required for reflective knowledge, as Sosa understands it, are not processes that are instantiated in human cognition. I argue that the problems facing Sosa's notion of reflective knowledge stem from treating human cognitive processes individualistically. They stem from what I will term Sosa's perspective of methodologically individualistic noetic explanation—or MINE. I suggest that these problems disappear if we expand the scope of what counts as cognitive processes to include socially distributed cognitive processes, if we adopt a framework of other‐derived united reflective self‐evaluation—or OURS. In other words, I'll suggest that a solution to the problems facing the distinction between animal and reflective knowledge may be found in a shift of perspective from MINE to OURS.     

Luminosity and the Safety of Knowledge

Abstract: In his recent Knowledge and its Limits, Timothy Williamson argues that no non‐trivial mental state is such that being in that state suffices for one to be in a position to know that one is in it. In short, there are no “luminous” mental states. His argument depends on a “safety” requirement on knowledge, that one's confident belief could not easily have been wrong if it is to count as knowledge. We argue that the safety requirement is ambiguous; on one interpretation it is obviously true but useless to his argument, and on the other interpretation it is false.     

Concealing and Concealment in Heidegger

The self‐concealing of being is a primary preoccupation of Heidegger's later thought, but neither Heidegger nor his interpreters have made clear precisely what it is. In this paper, I identify the self‐concealing of being as the concealing of the worlding of the world (note: not of the world), which is essential to and simultaneous with that worlding. In order to establish this, I sketch a taxonomy of the various phenomena of concealing and concealment in Heidegger's work by building on Mark Wrathall's four ‘planks’ of unconcealing and concealment. Importantly, I distinguish the procedurally prior concealment (lēthē) that all unconcealing (alētheia) presupposes from the simultaneous concealing (kruptein, kruptesthai) that Heidegger frequently confuses it with. This distinction not only allows us to get clear on what it means to say that being conceals itself but also reveals various confusions and obscurities in Heidegger's own thought as well as in that of his readers.     

Glover on responsibility

In this note I argue that although Rorty's programme (Inquiry, Vol. 15, No. 4) to bring into focus the role that belief plays in self‐deception is a salutary one, her actual claims obscure that role. It is also contended that Rorty fails to de‐mythologize self‐deception, since her account is either paradox‐ridden or else describes a concept recognizably distinct from the concept of self‐deception.     

Responsibility for Testimonial Belief

According to so-called “credit views of knowledge,” knowledge is an achievement of an epistemic agent, something for which an agent is creditable or responsible. One influential criticism of the credit view of knowledge holds that the credit view has difficulty making sense of knowledge acquired from testimony. As Jennifer Lackey has argued, in many ordinary cases of the acquisition of testimonial knowledge, if anyone deserves credit for the truth of the audience’s belief it is the testimonial speaker rather than the audience, and so it isn’t clear that testimonial knowers are appropriately creditable for the truth of their beliefs. I argue that the credit view of knowledge can be saved from Lackey’s objection by focusing on the way in which testimonial knowledge is the result of an essentially social epistemic ability. While there is indeed a sense in which a testimonial knower is only partially epistemically responsible for her testimonial belief, this is consistent with the truth of her belief being creditable to her in another sense. The truth of her belief is most saliently explained by, and hence is fully creditable to, an essentially social epistemic ability, an ability that is only partially seated in the knowing subject.     

Introspection and perception

Sydney Shoemaker argues that introspection, unlike perception, provides no identification information about the self, and that knowledge of one's mental states should be conceived as arising in a direct and unmediated fashion from one's being in those states. I argue that while one does not identify aself as the subject of one's states, one does frequently identify and misidentify thestates, in ways analogous to the identification of objects in perception, and that in discourse about one's mental states the self plays the role of external reality in discourse about physical objects. Discourse about any sort of entity or property can be viewed as involving a domain or frame of reference which constrains what can be said about the entities; this view is related to Johnson-Laird's theory of mental models. On my approach evidence, including sensory evidence, may be involved in decisions about one's mental states. I conclude that while Shoemaker may well be right about different roles for sense impressions in introspection and perception, the exact differences and their significance remain to be established.     

Belief and Self‐consciousness

Abstract

This paper is about what is distinctive about first‐person beliefs. I discuss several sets of puzzling cases of first‐person belief. The first focus on the relation between belief and action, while the second focus on the relation of belief to subjectivity. I argue that in the absence of an explanation of the dispositional difference, individuating such beliefs more finely than truth conditions merely marks the difference. I argue that the puzzles reveal a difference in the ways that I am disposed to revise my beliefs about myself. This point develops the insight that Anscombe and others had that those of an agent’s beliefs about himself that manifest that special self‐consciousness are not based on observation, testimony or inference. The puzzles show that this kind of self‐consciousness involves, not a special kind of belief or even a special kind of self‐reference, but a special kind of belief revision policy.     

Platonic Personal Immortality

I argue that Plato distinguishes between personal immortality and immortality of the soul. I begin by criticizing the consensus view that Plato identifies the person and the soul. I then turn to the issue of immortality. By considering passages from Symposium and Timaeus, I make the case that Plato thinks that while the soul is immortal by nature, if a person is going to be immortal, they must become so. Finally, I argue that Plato has a psychological continuity approach to personal identity. Thus, for Plato, a person becomes immortal by avoiding reincarnation and securing for themselves psychological continuity forever.     

DO THE SELF‐DECEIVED GET WHAT THEY WANT?

Abstract: Two of the most basic questions regarding self‐deception remain unsettled: What do self‐deceivers want? What do self‐deceivers get? I argue that self‐deceivers are motivated by a desire to believe. However, in significant contrast with Alfred Mele's account of self‐deception, I argue that self‐deceivers do not satisfy this desire. Instead, the end‐state of self‐deception is a false higher‐order belief. This shows all self‐deception to be a failure of self‐knowledge.     

AQUINAS'S ARGUMENT AGAINST SELF-HATRED

Aquinas's argument against the possibility of genuine self‐hatred runs counter to modern intuitions about self‐hatred as an explanatorily central notion in psychology, and as an effect of alienation. Aquinas's argument does not deny that persons experience hatred for themselves. It can be read either as the claim that the self‐hater mistakes what she feels toward herself as hatred, or that, though she hates what she believes is her “self,” she actually hates only traits of herself. I argue that the argument fails on both readings. The first reading entails that all passions are really self‐love, and so is incompatible with Aquinas's own “cognitivist” view of what it is that distinguishes specific passions in experience. The second reading entails that persons have no phenomenal access to “self,” rendering self‐reference—how it is that the self can be an intentional object of conscious mental states—a mystery. Augustine's claim, which Aquinas accepts on authority, that all sin originates in inordinate self‐love seems to entail the impossibility of genuine self‐hatred because both thinkers fail to distinguish between two distinct forms of self‐love: amor concupiscentiae and amor benevolentiae.     

The ‘Two Worlds’ Theory in the Phaedo

At least in some dialogues, Plato has been thought to hold the so-called Two Worlds Theory (TW), according to which there can be belief but not knowledge about sensibles, and knowledge but not belief about forms. The Phaedo is one such dialogue. In this paper, I explore some key passages that might be thought to support TW, and ask whether they in fact do so. I also consider the related issue of whether the Phaedo argues that, if knowledge is possible at all, we can have it only when discarnate.