X—A Defence of Categorical Reasons

In this paper I offer two arguments designed to defend the existence of categorical reasons, which I define as those justifying considerations that obtain independently of their relation to an agent's commitments. The first argument is based on certain paradigm cases meant to reveal difficulties for practical instrumentalism—the view, as I define it here, that categorical reasons do not exist, because all reasons must serve the commitments of the agents to whom they apply. The second argument relies on considerations of responsibility and blame to establish the existence of categorical reasons.     

Moral Knowledge Without Knowledge of Moral Knowledge

The Journal of Ethics - Most people believe some moral propositions are true. Most people would say that they know that rape is wrong, torturing people is wrong, and so on. But despite decades of...     

Physical Action Without Interaction

In “Action without interaction” (2005) I showed that one might act on a physical system (there, a particle), without interacting with it, by the procedure of making it disappear. This paper presents further extensions and a critique of that result. These extensions show why physical actions without interaction are possible, while underscoring the philosophical fertility of a characteristic approach to the actual infinite inaugurated by Benardete.

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Testimonial Knowledge Without Knowledge of what is Said

This article discusses the following question: what epistemic relation must audiences bear to the content of assertions in order to gain testimonial knowledge? There is a brief discussion of why this issue is of importance, followed by two counterexamples to the most intuitive answer: that in order for an audience to gain testimonial knowledge that p they must know that the speaker has asserted p . It is then suggested that the argument generalises and can be made to work on different sets of assumptions about the conditions for knowledge, and the conditions under which a proposition is asserted.     

Knowledge with and Without Belief

This article argues for the thesis that the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification should be extended to knowledge. A consequence of this thesis is that there is a type of knowledge that requires belief and a type that does not. A familiar example strikingly similar to the sort of example used to introduce the propositional/doxastic justification makes a prima facie case. Additional theoretical advantages are revealed when the distinction is applied within the context of some recent epistemological debates. These include debates over the knowledge account of assertion, testimonial knowledge, self‐deception, and the question of whether knowledge can be essentially based on falsehood. It is contended that the sort of distinction offered here provides a way to settle these debates and, at the same time, acknowledge what is correct in the opposing positions.     

Knowledge in Action

This paper argues that the role of knowledge in the explanation and production of intentional action is as indispensable as the roles of belief and desire. If we are interested in explaining intentional actions rather than intentions or attempts, we need to make reference to more than the agent's beliefs and desires. It is easy to see how the truth of your beliefs, or perhaps, facts about a setting will be involved in the explanation of an action. If you believe you can stop your car by pressing a pedal, then, if your belief is true, you will stop. If it is false, you will not. By considering cases of unintentional actions, actions involving luck and cases of deviant causal chains, I show why knowledge is required. By looking at the notion of causal relevance, I argue that the connection between knowledge and action is causal and not merely conceptual.
"What knowledge adds to belief is not psychologically relevant." ¹ —Stephen Stich     

信念、知识与行为

哲学家休谟曾经发出过这样的感叹:信念“似乎从来是哲学中最大的神秘之一”。[1]休谟的哲学思考,以眼光敏锐,善于发现问题为其特征。在他26岁即已出版的天才著作《人性论》中,因果关系的必然性问题(归纳问题)的提出,事实与价值问题的发现,引发了后来包括康德、罗素等哲学宗师的思考,它们构成了哲学史上影响深远的问题。笔者相信,对这一休谟感到困惑的信念问题进行探讨,当也是一件很有学术价值与意义的事情。由于信念论在国内的知识论研究中,尚未得到应有的关注,因此本文拟首先进行一番理论上的梳理,尤其着重于对休谟与罗素的相关学说的开掘,…     

在知识系统与行动系统之间——哈贝马斯对法律与道德的分析

建立在交往理性基础之上的法律体系与公共领域交往产生的普遍主义道德具有同源性,即都产生于交往实践这一过程.同时法律体系的合法性核心依旧采自交往理性中的道德维度,其余维度在事实经验中都要经受道德维度的检验.如果说普遍主义的道德世界涵盖了所有自然人而超越时空,具有永恒性特征的话,法律体系则是具有独立性的权利主体为实现实践自决、自我组织而创建的行动规范.     

A Note on Motor Learning Without Post-Response Knowledge of Results

The authors studied the adjustment of the 2 distinct known expressions of gait velocity, the velocity of the center of gravity (CG) and the velocity of the center of foot pressure (CP) at the end of the 1st step in 2 experimental situations: natural gait initiation (the control situation, CS) and heel-off gait initiation (the test situation, TS). Gait was initiated by 7 healthy participants, from an erect spontaneous posture in the CS and from a posture with heels raised in the TS, on a force platform at 3 self-selected speed conditions. Biomechanical data from the force platform were collected in both experimental situations, and the authors used a particular gait analysis based on the differential method of Y. Brenière (2003) in order to approach velocity modulation by means of step length and frequency. Results showed that CG and CP velocities were adjusted differently during heel-off gait initiation than during natural gait initiation. CP velocity, as compared with CG velocity, was overestimated in TS. Results also established the relevance of the expression of step velocity by means of step length and frequency: The central nervous system, taking into account the specific postural constraints of each experimental situation, uses a reference value and a regulating parameter to modulate step velocity. Moreover, the contributions of 1st step length and frequency to the expression of step velocity in TS and CS were different. Thus, a specific locomotor behavior corresponds to a given experimental situation that is characterized by its own initial biomechanical constraints.     

The Knowledge Rule and the Action Rule

In this paper I compare Timothy Williamson's knowledge rule of assertion with Ishani Maitra and Brian Weatherson's action rule. The paper is in two parts. In the first part I present and respond to Maitra and Weatherson's master argument against the knowledge rule. I argue that while its second premise, to the effect that an action X can be the thing to do though one is in no position to know that it is, is true, its first premise is not: the data do not support the claim that whenever X is the thing for one to do, one is in a position to assert that it is. In the second part I consider Maitra and Weatherson's alternative hypotheses, arguing that they do not provide a better explanation of the linguistic data. I conclude, in particular, that the knowledge rule is preferable to the action rule.     

Action and Knowledge in Alternating-Time Temporal Logic

Alternating-time temporal logic (ATL) is a branching time temporal logic in which statements about what coalitions of agents can achieve by strategic cooperation can be expressed. Alternating-time temporal epistemic logic (ATEL) extends ATL by adding knowledge modalities, with the usual possible worlds interpretation. This paper investigates how properties of agents’ actions can be expressed in ATL in general, and how properties of the interaction between action and knowledge can be expressed in ATEL in particular. One commonly discussed property is that an agent should know about all available actions, i.e., that the same actions should be available in indiscernible states. Van der Hoek and Wooldridge suggest a syntactic expression of this semantic property. This paper shows that this correspondence in fact does not hold. Furthermore, it is shown that the semantic property is not expressible in ATEL at all. In order to be able to express common and interesting properties of action in general and of the interaction between action and knowledge in particular, a generalization of the coalition modalities of ATL is proposed. The resulting logics, ATL-A and ATEL-A, have increased expressiveness without loosing ATL’s and ATEL’s tractability of model checking.     

Motor Learning Without Knowledge of Results Through the Development of a Response Recognition Mechanism

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the ability of a response recognition mechanism, developed by presenting the sensory consequences associated with the criterion movement in the absence of actual movement recall, to produce motor learning in the absence of knowledge of results (KR). In Experiments 1 and 2, a rapid linear timing task was used (10.16 cm in 100 msec), and reduction of movement error resulted over no-KR practice trials. Experiments 3 and 4 employed a slow movement-time task (750 and 1250 msec) and a linear positioning task, respectively, and no reduction of movement error occurred over the no-KR practice trials in either experiment. The ability of the response recognition mechanism to produce motor learning in the absence of KR depended upon the extent to which feedback could be used during response production.     

On the Meaning of Words and Dinosaur Bones: Lexical Knowledge Without a Lexicon

Although for many years a sharp distinction has been made in language research between rules and words—with primary interest on rules—this distinction is now blurred in many theories. If anything, the focus of attention has shifted in recent years in favor of words. Results from many different areas of language research suggest that the lexicon is representationally rich, that it is the source of much productive behavior, and that lexically specific information plays a critical and early role in the interpretation of grammatical structure. But how much information can or should be placed in the lexicon? This is the question I address here. I review a set of studies whose results indicate that event knowledge plays a significant role in early stages of sentence processing and structural analysis. This poses a conundrum for traditional views of the lexicon. Either the lexicon must be expanded to include factors that do not plausibly seem to belong there; or else virtually all information about word meaning is removed, leaving the lexicon impoverished. I suggest a third alternative, which provides a way to account for lexical knowledge without a mental lexicon.