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Realitatea se întoarce: O presupoziţie a lui Blaga despre raportul cunoaştere–realitate

Author(s): Mona Mamulea / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 11/2015

: Prompted by the quantum revolution of the last century as well as by other scientific theories like Einstein’s relativity and Driesch’s entelechy, Blaga suggested an unconventional alternative epistemology which he thought to be more suited to explain the paradoxes that had occurred in certain scientific descriptions of reality. The following paper considers one of Blaga’s rather silent hypotheses concerning the reality behind his theory of knowledge.

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Antinomii metodologice în epistemologie

Author(s): Teodor Dima / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 11/2015

The methodological antinomies of axiomatization and formalization, advanced by Petre Botezatu in Valoarea deducţiei (The Value of Deduction, 1971), were first put forward in his doctoral thesis: Cauzalitatea fizică şi panquantismul (Physical Causality and Panquantism, 1945) in various statements: „What is gained through abstraction, through a scholarly technique, is lost in objectivity, through a detachment from the concrete reality”, or „The advance in the profound knowledge of real causation leaves behind the methodical use of probability”, or „What is gained in terms of generality is lost in terms of objectivity”. I have reached the conclusion that Petre Botezatu’s initial concern was with epistemology, especially with the „turn” taken by the philosophy of physics after the revolutionary discoveries from the laboratories where the chemical elements were investigated in their intimate structures. The philosopher who, after his return to the university, in 1957, was mainly concerned with logic and metalogic, described with precision the epistemological procedures which helped clarify the principle of determinism in the philosophy of quantum physics.

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Scepticism & Transcendental Arguments: Some Methodological Reconsiderations

Author(s): Kenneth R. Westphal / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Kant provided two parallel, sound proofs of mental content externalism; both prove this thesis: We human beings could not think of ourselves as persisting through apparent changes in what we (apparently) experience – nor could we think of the apparent spatio-temporal world of objects, events and people – unless in fact we are conscious of some aspects of the actual spatio-temporal world and have at least some rudimentary knowledge of it. Such proofs turn, not on general facts about (or features of) the world, but on appreciating various fundamental regards in which our finite human cognizance depends upon the world we inhabit. The ‘transcendental’ character of these analyses concerns identifying and appreciating various fundamental features of our finite form of human mindedness, and basic constraints upon, and prospects of, cognitive justification within the non-formal domain of human empirical knowledge. Such analyses and proofs have been developed in various ways, using distinctive strategies, not only by Kant, but also by Hegel, C.I. Lewis, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Frederick Will. Here I examine and defend the methodological reflections required to understand, assess and appreciate such transcendental proofs, and why so few analytic epistemologists have found them persuasive or illuminating.

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Prawdopodobieństwo: droga do pewności? Probabilistyka w myśli Johna Henry’ego Newmana

Author(s): Piotr Cebula / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2013

The term „probability” in Newman’s philosophy is ambiguous. This fact, very often causes the chaos of interpretation. The second difficulty is to grasp the relationship between the probability and certainty-certitude in the system of its thought. The aim of this article is to try to solve these two matters. The way of using the word by the cardinal shows that it is an instrument of implicit reasoning and it has an epistemic meaning. The accumulation of probabilities brings us to assent something as the truth. However, they never extort for it. When in the province of implicit reasoning the assent is the fact, and is reflected upon, then the assent is the certitude. So, in Newman’s thought probability is a natural way to certitude.

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Are We Causally Redundant? Eliminativism and the no-Self View

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Are We Causally Redundant? Eliminativism and the no-Self View

Author(s): Jiri Benovsky / Language(s): English Issue: 49/2017

Some friends of eliminativism about ordinary material objects such as tables or statues think that we need to make exceptions. In this article, I am interested in Trenton Merricks’ claim that we need to make an exception for us, conscious beings, and that we are something over and above simples arranged in suitable ways, unlike tables or statues. I resist this need for making an exception, using the resources of four-dimensionalism.

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Baseless Knowledge

Author(s): Guido Melchior / Language(s): English Issue: 50/2017

It is a commonly held view in contemporary epistemology that for having knowledge it is necessary to have an appropriately based belief, although numerous different views exist about when a belief’s base is appropriate. Broadly speaking, they all share the view that one can only have knowledge if the belief’s base is in some sense truth-related or tracking the truth. Baseless knowledge can then be defined as knowledge where the belief is acquired and sustained in a way that does not track the truth. I will argue that rejecting baseless knowledge leads to controversial consequences. The problem increases if we consider contrasting persons who know because of appropriate belief forming processes but who fail to possess further epistemic virtues such as understanding. I will not argue which belief bases constitute a sufficient condition for knowledge. Rather I will stress the point that the common assumption that an appropriate basing relation constitutes a necessary condition for knowledge has controversial consequences.

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Multi-, trans- and inter-disciplinarity, essential conditions for the sustainable development of human habitat

Author(s): Alexandru-Ionuţ Petrişor / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

While the hierarchy of inter-, trans- and multi-disciplinarity is not commonly agreed upon, the vast majority of authors emphasize the utility of integrating to more or lesser extent different disciplines in research. The paper analyzes the particular case of the disciplines dealing with the design of human habitat, in order to prove that a supra-disciplinary approach is an essential condition for a sustainable output. The results indicate that, in addition to the need for crossing disciplinary borders, a multi-scale approach is also required.

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Vybrané koncepcie evolučného prístupu k teórii vedy

Author(s): Miroslav Karaba / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2011

Evolutionary Epistemology is a€naturalistic approach to epistemology, which emphasizes the importance of natural selection in two primary roles. In the first role, selection is the generator and maintainer of the reliability of our senses and cognitive mechanisms, as well as the “fit” between those mechanisms and the world. In the second role, trial and error learning and the evolution of scientific theories are construed as selection processes. EET (Evolutionary Epistemology of Theories) is the label for the program which attempts to analyze the development of human knowledge and epistemological norms by appealing to relevant biological considerations. Some of these attempts consider in this paper involve analyzing the growth of human knowledge in terms of selectionist models and metaphors (Toulmin, Hull).

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Innatism in Kant

Author(s): Adam Drozdek / Language(s): English Issue: 59/2014

Although Kant very seldom mentioned the concept of innateness, it is very important in his epistemological system. The article shows that although the a priori and the innate must be distinguished from one another, they are intertwined concepts. Also, taking into account different levels of generality of Kantian cognitive subjects allows us to show that the same thing can be considered innate and acquired at the same time.

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On the Transcendental Philosophy in the Light of the Kantian Aggregate – System Opposition

Author(s): Przemysław Parszutowicz / Language(s): English Issue: 58/2013

The article represents an attempt to determine the essence of critical philosophy in the light of Kantian distinction between aggregate and system. In order to achieve this, the article harks back to Kant’s work and to accomplishments of Marburg School of neo-Kantianism and particularly to Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy. Discrimination between aggregate and system as two possible types of knowledge representation rests on the precedent discrimination between substance and function and constitutes the main motive that determines the basic core of philosophical transcendental method in its opposition to the “dogmatic” method.

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Group as a Distributed Subject of Knowledge: Between Radicalism and Triviality

Author(s): Barbara Trybulec / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

In the paper, I distinguish the bottom-up strategy and the intentional stance strategy of analyzing group intentional states, and show that the thesis of distributed group subject of knowledge could be accommodated by either of them. Moreover, I argue that when combined with virtue reliabilism the thesis satisfactorily explains the phenomenon of group knowledge. To justify my argument, in the second part of the paper, I distinguish two accounts of justification pointing to conditions of group knowledge. The first, which I call the belief-centered approach to group intentional states, determines the concept of group belief and group justificatory reason. The second, the process-centered approach represented by S. Orestis Palermos, employs the theory of virtue reliabilism and focuses on the group knowledge-conducive process. In the paper, I argue in favor of the latter as the internalism associated with the former appears to lack sufficient explanatory power. The theory of virtue epistemology runs into considerable difficulties when trying to deal with an extended epistemic subject composed of one individual and her cognitive artifact. In the two last parts of the paper, I consider the most important difficulties and argue that these obstacles are overcome once one adopts an approach combining virtue epistemology and the thesis of distributed group epistemic subject.

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Truths, Facts, and Liars

Author(s): Peter Marton / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

A Moderate Anti-realist (MAR) approach to truth and meaning, built around the concept of knowability, will be introduced and argued for in this essay. Our starting point will be the two fundamental anti-realists principles that claim that neither truth nor meaning can outstrip knowability and our focus will be on the challenge of adequately formalizing these principles and incorporating them into a formal theory. Accordingly, I will introduce a MAR truth operator that is built on a distinction between being true and being factual. I will show then that this approach partitions propositions into eight classes, on the basis of their knowability. We will then ask the following question: Given the anti-realist principles, what kind of theory of propositional meaning can properly explain the meaninglessness of fully unknowable propositions? This question will lead us to the claim that the meaning/content of propositions should be identified not with the set of possible worlds in which the propositions are true/factual, but rather in which they are known. This modified approach will then be used to analyze both the Liar Paradox and the Strengthened Liar. To anticipate the conclusion of this essay, it will be shown that a MAR framework can render definite truth and factuality values to the Liar sentence and it will also confirm our intuition that such paradoxical sentences are devoid of proper meaning.

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Inferentialism without Normativity

Author(s): Krzysztof Posłajko,Paweł Grabarczyk / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

In this paper we argue that inferentialist approach to meaning does not, by itself, show that meaning is normative in a prescriptive sense, and that the constitutive rules argument is especially troubling for this position. To show that, we present the proto-inferentialist theory developed by Ajdukiewicz and claim that despite the differences between his theory and contemporary inferentialism rules of language in both theories function more like classificatory devices than prescriptions. Inferentialists can respond by claiming that in their theory meaning is essentially social and hence normative, but we claim that then semantic normativity becomes derivative of social normativity.

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Defective Equilibrium

Author(s): Danny Frederick / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

I argue that the conception of reflective equilibrium that is generally accepted in contemporary philosophy is defective and should be replaced with a conception of fruitful reflective disequilibrium which prohibits ad hoc manoeuvres, encourages new approaches, and eschews all justification in favour of continuous improvement. I suggest how the conception of fruitful disequilibrium can be applied more effectively to moral enquiry, to encourage genuine progress in moral knowledge, if we make moral theory empirically testable by adopting a meta-ethical postulate which is independently plausible.

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Two Weak Points of the Enhanced Indispensability Argument – Domain of the Argument and Definition of Indispensability

Author(s): Vladimir Drekalović / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

The contemporary Platonists in the philosophy of mathematics argue that mathematical objects exist. One of the arguments by which they support this standpoint is the so-called Enhanced Indispensability Argument (EIA). This paper aims at pointing out the difficulties inherent to the EIA. The first is contained in the vague formulation of the Argument, which is the reason why not even an approximate scope of the set objects whose existence is stated by the Argument can be established. The second problem is reflected in the vagueness of the very term indispensability, which is essential to the Argument. The paper will remind of a recent definition of the concept of indispensability of a mathematical object, reveal its deficiency and propose an improvement of this definition. Following this, we will deal with one of the consequences of the arbitrary employment of the concept of indispensability of a mathematical theory. We will propose a definition of this concept as well, in accordance with the common intuition about it. Eventually, on the basis of these two definitions, the paper will describe the relation between these two concepts, in the attempt to clarify the conceptual apparatus of the EIA.

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Prior’s Definition of Creative Definitions (Sobociński-Prior-Lejewski’s Discussion on the Leśniewskian Definitions)

Author(s): Zuzana Rybaříková / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

The article introduces Prior’s paper Definitions, Rules and Axioms which deals with Leśniewski’s creative definitions. It presents the origins of Prior’s paper and the discussion which is linked with its final form. Prior’s aim in this paper was to present the Leśniewskian definitions in comparison with Russell’s concept of definitions, demonstrating their advantages and disadvantages. The main source of Prior’s knowledge about the Leśniewskian definitions were Sobociński’s papers and letters, which are stored in the Bodleian library. Although the paper Definitions, Rules and Axioms is a unique attempt at approximating creative definitions, it contains several mistakes. Lejewski identified them in his letter to Prior and also described how they arose. Lejewski’s critique was not severe, however, and Prior coped with it in the introductory page of his paper.

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Searle on the Intentional Content of Visual Experiences

Author(s): Anar Jafarov / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

There is no unique idea regarding the form of the (Intentional) content part of visual experience in the specification. The philosophers’ approaches diverge as to whether the content of visual experience is equivalent to a sentence expressing proposition or not. Some of them (mainly philosophers from the phenomenological tradition) consider that one must use a proposition for the specification of the content only when the subject, while having a visual experience, exercise a concept or judge. For the other cases, which can be called simple seeing, a noun phrase is preferable. I argue that, holding that the specification of Intentional content of the visual experience should be in the form of a proposition, John Searle gives up the first-person Intentionality and therefore bypasses the first-person important distinction between simple seeing and judgmental seeing. The specification of the content only in the form of the proposition does not allow making such a distinction on the level of description. Then I argue that the feature of the causal self-referentiality of the visual experience belongs to its psychological mode but not, as Searle holds, to the Intentional content of the visual experience.

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The (Un)Holy Grail of Epistemology

Author(s): Paweł Zięba / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

As formulated by Duncan Pritchard and John McDowell, epistemological disjunctivism is the claim that perceptual experience can provide the subject with epistemic justification that is reflectively accessible and externally grounded at the same time. Pritchard calls this thesis ‘the holy grail of epistemology’, since it reconciles two traditionally rival theories of justification, namely epistemic internalism and epistemic externalism. The main objection against epistemological disjunctivism thus understood is that it does not do justice to the well-known internalist intuitions expressed in The New Evil Demon and Brain-in-a-Vat scenarios. I defend epistemological disjunctivism from this objection by indicating that those who apply to such scenarios commit themselves to implausible views in the philosophy of mind. I conclude that epistemological disjunctivism accurately expresses the epistemological attitude of a non-reductive materialist regarding the body-mind problem.

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Inštrumentálny realizmus – odpoveď na kritiky

Author(s): Ladislav Kvasz / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2015

Výklad inštrumentálneho realizmu v matematike v článkoch Kvasz (2009, 2010 a 2011) vyvolal kritickú odozvu u kolegov Jaroslava Peregrina (pozri Peregrin 2010; 2012) Pavla Labudu (pozri Labuda 2013; 2014) a Juraja Bánovského (pozri Bánovský 2014). Ich kritiky presne identifikujú nedostatky predošlých textov. Zrejme nebolo rozumné začať budovanie inštrumentálneho realizmu výkladom matematiky a inštrumentálny realizmus vo fyzike predpokladať ako samozrejmý. On samozrejmý nie je, veď vo filozofii sú časté texty, ktoré poznanie zakladajú primárne na zmyslovej skúsenosti. Rovnako prispelo k nedorozumeniam to, že (mlčky predpokladajúc pozíciu inštrumentálneho realizmu vo fyzike) som v textoch venovaných matematike zdôrazňoval tie aspekty, kde sa matematika odlišuje od fyziky. Moja pozícia potom pôsobila ako kolísanie medzi realizmom a antirealizmom (Peregrin), ako druh interného realizmu (Bánovský), alebo ako antirealizmus (Labuda). V odpovedi na kritické texty kolegov sa preto pokúsim ukázať, že inštrumentálny realizmus nie je výsledkom kolísania a nie je príbuzný ani s interným realizmom, ani s antirealizmom.

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Rational Akrasia

Author(s): John Brunero / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2013

It is commonly thought that one is irrationally akratic when one believes one ought to F but does not intend to F. However, some philosophers, following Robert Audi, have argued that it is sometimes rational to have this combination of attitudes. I here consider the question of whether rational akrasia is possible. I argue that those arguments for the possibility of rational akrasia advanced by Audi and others do not succeed. Specifically, I argue that cases in which an akratic agent acts as he has most reason to act, and cases in which an akratic agent achieves a kind of global coherence he wouldn’t have achieved had he instead formed intentions in line with his best judgment, do not establish the possibility of rational akrasia. However, I do think that rational akrasia is possible, and I present two arguments for this thesis. The first argument involves a case in which one is incapable of revising one’s belief about what one ought to do, where one also acknowledges this belief to be insufficiently supported by the evidence. The second argument involves a case in which one rationally believes that one ought to have an akratic combination of attitudes.

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