...• What is the motivation that drives internalism? We have an epistemic obligation to form belifs responsibly and this obligation can only be filled if we can jusify our beliefs. Not only should we have good reasons to hold a particular belief, but we should know what those reasons are. We should know not only that we know, but we should know why we know. • What is the motivation behind externalism? This accors with our basic intuitions concerning most our beliefs. Most people do not always know why they believe as they do but they still believe they are rational in believing as they do. Many beliefs we hold are not capable of being justified from an internalist perspective. The reliability of our memories. Our senses are providing an accurate representation of the world. • How does externalism answer the question of quality control? • How does this presentation suggests bringing internalism and externalism together? There are some beliefs that we are warranted in holding which we do not seem to be able to justify: memories and senses are reliable. We have an epistemic duty to withhold affirming some beliefs without sufficient evidence: discovery for cancer, life on other planets. Both internalism and externalism are necessary. Externalism can incorporate internalism (but not vice versa) Read and take notes of chapter 7 of How Do You Know?...
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...• What is the motivation that drives internalism? We have an epistemic obligation to form belifs responsibly and this obligation can only be filled if we can jusify our beliefs. Not only should we have good reasons to hold a particular belief, but we should know what those reasons are. We should know not only that we know, but we should know why we know. • What is the motivation behind externalism? This accors with our basic intuitions concerning most our beliefs. Most people do not always know why they believe as they do but they still believe they are rational in believing as they do. Many beliefs we hold are not capable of being justified from an internalist perspective. The reliability of our memories. Our senses are providing an accurate representation of the world. • How does externalism answer the question of quality control? • How does this presentation suggests bringing internalism and externalism together? There are some beliefs that we are warranted in holding which we do not seem to be able to justify: memories and senses are reliable. We have an epistemic duty to withhold affirming some beliefs without sufficient evidence: discovery for cancer, life on other planets. Both internalism and externalism are necessary. Externalism can incorporate internalism (but not vice versa) Read and take notes of chapter 7 of How Do You Know? A Short...
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...what gold is – we may have different beliefs about how well it conducts electricity, or how precious it is, and so on, but it is still gold we are thinking about because of our causal connections to it. Externalism maintain that in order for an agent to be justified in holding a particular belief, the agent need not have any sort of introspective or cognitive awareness of the grounds that evidentially support her belief. In other word, externalism argues that a belief is justified provided that that belief is the product of a reliable belief-forming process and this process is simply something that takes in certain inputs, and produces beliefs as outputs. In this paper, I will argue that Externalism is a relatively correct theory comparing to internalism. Internalist argues that in order for an agent S to be justified in believing that p...
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...assigns to ethics allows for moral realism.3 Instead I want mainly to present the view here and to recommend it for further attention, first in more or less the form in which it emerged, as a way of explaining the special motivational force of moral judgments (Section II), and then recast in somewhat artificial terms, for comparison with another (at least arguably) realist approach to metaethics known as "response-dependency" (Section III).4 My own view can be seen as a social or two-level version of response-dependency, but with a less rigid account of motivational force introduced by the move to the social level. I shall go on to acknowledge some difficulties but also to cite further advantages of my suggested approach on issues of justification (Section IV) and on the question of the relevance of emotion to moral judgment (Section V). In a nutshell: A response-dependent account explains a concept in terms of a disposition to respond in some way under standard conditions. The paradigm case outside ethics is the definition of color concepts--of red, say, as applying to things that would look red to normal observers under normal conditions of color perception. As currently understood, a...
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...Essay Topics for CPHL 550 – Knowledge, Truth and Belief “Plan your work, work your plan”. – Vince Lombardi General Instructions Make sure to consult the Basic Style Guidelines Document and the Tips for Writing an Effective CPHL550 Essay Document in order to confirm the details for each assignment (both the minor and the major essay) especially with respect to the minimal length requirement. The Course Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct is also required reading “before” starting any assignment in this course. Since there is no final exam in this course, your essay assignments need to be treated with the same (if not more) attention and effort that you would give to an in-class midterm or final exam. It takes research,planning, contemplation and above all an adequate amount of time in order to make sure that you have the opportunity to fully engage in these activities before the writing process itself begins. Please bear in mind that your essay marks combined represent almost half of your total course mark, my advice (in advance) is for all students to proportion their effort accordingly in this regard. Make sure that you begin by consulting (or reviewing if we already covered the material previously) the relevant module (both the lecture and readings) before writing on a particular topic. You may consult other readings on the issue (preferably academic journal articles, or scholarly works) but keep your noncourse sources to a minimum (see the basic...
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...Metaethics Metaethics is a branch of analytic philosophy that explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral values, properties, and words. Whereas the fields of applied ethics and normative theoryfocus on what is moral, metaethics focuses on what morality itself is. Just as two people may disagree about the ethics of, for example, physician-assisted suicide, while nonetheless agreeing at the more abstract level of a general normative theory such as Utilitarianism, so too may people who disagree at the level of a general normative theory nonetheless agree about the fundamental existence and status of morality itself, or vice versa. In this way, metaethics may be thought of as a highly abstract way of thinking philosophically about morality. For this reason, metaethics is also occasionally referred to as “second-order” moral theorizing, to distinguish it from the “first-order” level of normative theory. Metaethical positions may be divided according to how they respond to questions such as the following: * Ÿ What exactly are people doing when they use moral words such as “good” and “right”? * Ÿ What precisely is a moral value in the first place, and are such values similar to other familiar sorts of entities, such as objects and properties? * Ÿ Where do moral values come from—what is their source and foundation? * Ÿ Are some things morally right or wrong for all people at all times, or does morality instead vary from person to person, context to context...
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...THE ABSURDITY OF LIFE Steven Luper, Trinity University In "The Absurd"[i] Nagel claims that self-conscious human beings are necessarily absurd, so that to escape absurdity while remaining human we would have to cease being self-conscious. Fifteen years later, in The View From Nowhere,[ii] he defends the same thesis, supplementing some of his old arguments with a battery of new ones. I want to suggest that Nagel has misdiagnosed, and exaggerated the inescapability of, our absurdity. He does so partly because the grounds on which he bases his conclusion are spurious, and partly because he does not acknowledge the extent to which we can eliminate absurdity by suitably redesigning our plans and modes of justification. Nonetheless, I do not mean to imply that we can easily eliminate absurdity from our lives. Life is not necessarily absurd, but unfortunately, in a world like ours, there are limits to what we can and should do to reduce the absurd elements of our affairs. The View of the Nowhere Man "In ordinary life a situation is absurd," Nagel says, "when it includes a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality: someone gives a complicated speech in support of a motion that has already been passed. . . ; as you are being knighted, your pants fall down."[iii] In this passage from "The Absurd" Nagel claims that absurdity is a particularly striking sort of incongruity, and the conception of absurdity he discusses in his book is the same. What...
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...VOLUME EDITOR S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins, wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow. SERIES EDITOR FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). P H I L O S O P H Y F O R E V E RYO N E Series editor: Fritz Allhoff Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking.Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too.This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious. Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind Edited by Michael W. Austin Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking Edited by Fritz Allhoff Food & Philosophy: Eat,Think and Be Merry Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking Edited by Steven D. Hales Whiskey & Philosophy:...
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