Luther and Justification

In this article, I reflect on Luther's doctrine on justification as it came out in different ways in some of his seminal writings between 1518 and 1538, all represented in volume 2 of The Annotated Luther. Discovering the righteousness of God as something already given to humans opened fundamentally new perspectives to Luther.     

Justification and awareness

In Justification Without Awareness, Michael Bergmann attacks Internalism and Mentalism. His attack on Internalism refutes some versions of an awareness requirement for justification but leaves another standing and well-motivated. His attack on Mentalism, while successful, leaves us with a difficult question—what non-mental features play a role in determining justification?—that his own externalist theory fails to answer correctly.     

正当性与合法性

证成国家即确立国家的正当性,就是要表明至少存在着道德上可接受的国家或者从明智角度而言可取的国家。国家的合法性指国家所持有的一套针对其具体公民的复合道德权利,这种意义上的合法性概念不同于非常成问题的韦伯式合法性概念。评价国家的洛克式进路严格区分了国家的正当性与合法性,并将二者建立在不同的基础之上,认为这两种评价都很重要。相反,康德式进路则用同样的论证来支持国家的正当性与国家的合法性,它根据人们所应该选择的东西而非人们的实际选择来评价制度,是一种非个人性的评价方式。康德主义者对自愿主义的忠诚是半心半意的,他们试图把对国家的一般性评价作为唯一的制度评价范畴。所有现存国家都是不合法的,但国家却有可能是正当的。国家的正当性与合法性不同于国家具体行为的正当性,现存国家不具有合法性也不意味着公民对国家的任何行为都是正当的。     

Interpretation and Justification

Whenever understanding is sought we are obliged to justify our interpretations – to demonstrate that they furnish an adequate understanding of the world and its objects. The problem is to know whether this is possible – that what we take to be conclusive justifications do not covertly appeal to other favoured interpretations or systems of explanation, thus obviating the possibility of a neutral justification. By exploring the nature of interpretation, I argue that neutral justifications of interpretations about works of art are indeed possible and that such interpretations can be shown to be true or false.     

Forgetting memory skepticism

Memory skepticism denies our memory beliefs could have any notable epistemic good. One route to memory skepticism is to challenge memory’s epistemic trustworthiness, that is, its functioning in a way necessary for it to provide epistemic justification. In this paper we develop and respond to this challenge. It could threaten memory in such a way that we altogether lack doxastic attitudes. If it threatens memory in this way, then the challenge is importantly self-defeating. If it does not threaten memory in this way, then the challenge leaves a foundation for an inference to the best explanation response, one we articulate and support.     

Forgetting and recovering the unforgettable

Two experiments demonstrated striking, reversible forgetting effects that occurred even for a list of expletives. The experiments used a procedure based on the classic memory mechanisms of interference and retrieval cuing. Interference reduced recall dramatically, although appropriate cues triggered complete recovery. Distinctive, emotionally charged materials were quite susceptible to the forgetting and recovery effects. Thus, powerful forgetting effects can be obtained when participants have no intentions to forget and the materials involved are distinctive, emotional materials with sexual and violent content. This forgetting is reversible with appropriate cues. The false-memory debate can and must be informed by experimental investigations not only of false memories, but also of blocked and recovered memories.     

Forgetting trauma stimuli

Previous work reported in this journal suggested that the cognitive capacities of high dissociators are impaired under conditions of focused (selective) attention, but not under conditions of divided attention, compared with the cognitive capacities of low dissociators. Using a directed-forgetting paradigm, the current study demonstrated that under divided-attention demands, high dissociators have impaired memory for words associated with trauma (e.g., incest) but not for neutral words, as compared with low dissociators. In addition, high dissociators reported significantly more trauma history and significantly more betrayal trauma (abuse by a caregiver) than low dissociators. These results are consistent with the proposal that dissociation may aid individuals with histories of betrayal traumas to keep threatening information out of awareness.     

Knowledge From Forgetting

This paper provides a novel argument for granting memory the status of a generative source of justification and knowledge. Memory can produce justified output beliefs and knowledge on the basis of unjustified input beliefs alone. The key to understanding how memory can generate justification and knowledge, memory generativism, is to bear in mind that memory frequently omits part of the stored information. The proposed argument depends on a broadly reliabilist approach to justification.     

自我与有意遗忘现象

将自我参照效应的实验范式与字表方式的有意遗忘范式相结合,探讨有意遗忘在自我参照与他人参照条件下的异同。结果表明,在有意遗忘的研究范式下,自我参照加工和他人参照加工的回忆量之间不存在显著差异;但是自我参照条件下出现了有意遗忘现象,而他人参照加工条件下没有表现出有意遗忘现象。这表明,自我参照加工的材料,区辨性很高,因而有意遗忘的指导语激发的抑制作用对它有效,从而出现了遗忘现象。