Knowledge,adequacy, and approximate truth

Approximation involves representing things in ways that might be close to the truth but are nevertheless false. Given the widespread reliance on approximations in science and everyday life, here we ask whether it is conceptually possible for false approximations to qualify as knowledge. According to the factivity account, it is impossible to know false approximations, because knowledge requires truth. According to the representational adequacy account, it is possible to know false approximations, if they are close enough to the truth for present purposes. In this paper, we adopt an experimental methodology to begin testing these two theories. When an agent provides a false and practically inadequate answer, both theories predict that people will deny knowledge. But the theories disagree about an agent who provides a false but practically adequate answer: the factivity hypothesis again predicts knowledge denial, whereas the representational adequacy hypothesis predicts knowledge attribution. Across two experiments, our principal finding was that people tended to attribute knowledge for false but practically adequate answers, which supports the representational adequacy account. We propose an interpretation of existing findings that preserves a conceptual link between knowledge and truth. According to this proposal, truth is not necessary for knowledge, but it is a feature of prototypical knowledge.     

A Semantics for Means-end Relations

There has been considerable work on practical reasoning in artificial intelligence and also in philosophy. Typically, such reasoning includes premises regarding means–end relations. A clear semantics for such relations is needed in order to evaluate proposed syllogisms. In this paper, we provide a formal semantics for means–end relations, in particular for necessary and sufficient means–end relations. Our semantics includes a non-monotonic conditional operator, so that related practical reasoning is naturally defeasible. This work is primarily an exercise in conceptual analysis, aimed at clarifying and eventually evaluating existing theories of practical reasoning (pending a similar analysis regarding desires, intentions and other relevant concepts). “They were in conversation without speaking. They didn’t need to speak. They just changed reality so that they had spoken.” Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man     

Practical work in physiotherapy students’ professional development

Learning practical work through cooperation between school and working life is part of physiotherapy higher education. Students learn practical work through the integration of theoretical, practical, tacit and situational knowledge in a socialization process. Workplace practices and habits direct students’ learning. This study answers the question: What kind of conceptions of learning practical work do physiotherapy students have? Longitudinal data written by 21 volunteer students (mean age 25 years) was collected over three and a half years. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Learning practical work proceeds in five phases: (1) the basis of practical work, human movement and action and therapeutic tools is learned at school; (2) the meaning of the profession and practical work takes shape in an interaction with clients and observing how professionals work in real workplaces; (3) the wholeness of the practical work takes shape by gradually participating in the work processes; (4) critical reflection of the work processes – thinking, construction, evaluation and reasoning – develops; and (5) the conception of practical work widens. This study brings new information about learning practical work for developing healthcare education and its curricula. The role of workplaces is huge in learning tacit knowledge of the profession.     

Diversity in unity: practical unity and personal boundaries

In the spirit of the discussion in Daniel Kolak’s I Am You: The Metaphysical Foundation for Global Ethics, I consider the way in which divisions that we usually think of as borders between distinct people occur within a single life. Starting with the dispute between constructionist and non-constructionist views of persons, I argue for a view that places the unity of persons in the dynamic generated by simultaneously taking a constructionist and non-constructionist view of oneself. In order to unify ourselves as agents we need to treat past and future selves as others, but to motivate this endeavor we need to think of ourselves as temporally extended agents, and so identify with past and future selves. Understanding this dynamic illuminates the structure of our agency and the unity of the self.     

The Holistic Way: John Wesley’s Practical Piety as a Resource for Integrated Healthcare

In the midst of the multifarious healthcare of the 21st century an Anglican clergyman from the 18th century named John Wesley can serve as a valuable resource for contemporary Christians seeking to faithfully live a life of well-being which incorporates different forms of medicine. In order to explore Wesley’s contributions to integrative care this essay will first situate Wesley in his 18th century context—a time period not completely unlike our own in which medicine was also experiencing dramatic shifts in practice and philosophy. In order to demonstrate his integration of the medical knowledge of his day the essay will look at Wesley’s own medical practices and his relationships to physicians as forging a “middle way” between physic and empiricism. The essay will examine Wesley’s theology as a practical piety which is grounded in a holistic sotieriology that sustains an integrative medicine (caring for body, mind, and spirit). Finally, the essay concludes with possibilities for integrated medicine in our own day as informed by a Wesleyan “way” of holistic practice.

Reasons,rational requirements,and the putative pseudo-question “Why be moral?”

In this paper, I challenge a well-known argument for the view that “Why be moral?” is a pseudo-question. I do so by refuting a component of that argument, a component that is not only crucial to the argument but important in its own right. That component concerns the status of moral reasons in replies to “Why be moral?”; consequently, this paper concerns reasons and rationality no less than it concerns morality. The work I devote to those topics shows not only that the argument I address is unsound, but that the conclusion of that argument is false. “Why be moral?” is no pseudo-question.     

Transcendental Arguments and Practical Reason in Indian Philosophy

This paper examines some Indian philosophical arguments that are understandable as transcendental arguments—i.e., arguments whose conclusions cannot be denied without self-contradiction, insofar as the truth of the claim in question is a condition of the possibility even of any such denial. This raises the question of what kind of self-contradiction is involved—e.g., pragmatic self-contradiction, or the kind that goes with logical necessity. It is suggested that these arguments involve something like practical reason—indeed, that they just are arguments against the primacy of “theoretical reason.” This characterization illuminates a characteristically Indic appeal to ordinary language.

对康德的道德形而上学基础的追问及存在论意义上的超越

康德的道德哲学与其政治哲学是逻辑一致的,康德认为正义的优先性在于人先天的自由,而自由的主体坚持正义和遵从道德,则在于人的实践理性自身具有的善良意志,康德就这样通过自由、实践理性、善良意志等概念为道德奠定了基础。然而它仍然是先验的、空洞的,唯有从道德是人存在的方式这一存在论的根基处入手,才能理解道德并使其获得自身存在的坚实根基。     

Practical reasoning and practical knowledge

The judgement that provides the content of intention and coincides with the conclusion of practical reasoning is a normative judgement about what to do, and not, as Anscombe and McDowell argue, a factual judgement about what one is doing. Treating the conclusion of practical reasoning as expressing a recommendation rather than a verdict undermines McDowell’s argument; the special nature of practical reasoning does not preclude its conclusions being normative. Anscombe’s and McDowell’s claim that practical self-knowledge is productive of action may be accommodated by identifying the content of practical knowledge not with the conclusion but with a premise of practical reasoning – a kind of practical reasoning that occurs within rather than before action.     

实践哲学的传统与创新专题：元实践学与异质性理论——对一套实践哲学研究方案的说明

当今众多以“实践哲学”为名号的研究其实只是家族相似。该文是对笔者的实践哲学方案的说明,目的在于跟其他方案区别开来。该方案的学科名称为“元实践学”,是对实践问题的形上学探讨,学说名称为“异质性理论”,是奠基于“异质性”概念的元实践学。