Epistemology. First published Wed Dec 14, 2005 Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of justification? 1. 1.1 Knowledge as Justified True Belief There are various kinds of knowledge: knowing how to do something (for example, how to ride a bicycle), knowing someone in person, and knowing a place or a city.
According to TK, knowledge that p is, at least approximately, justified true belief (JTB). Initially, we may say that the role of justification is to ensure that S's belief is not true merely because of luck. 1.2 The Gettier Problem The tripartite analysis of knowledge as JTB has been shown to be incomplete. 2. 2.2 Evidence vs. Partially Examined Life Podcast - Pat Churchland (and Hume) Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:44:57 — 96.1MB) We spoke with Patricia Churchland after reading her new book Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality.
We also discussed David Hume’s ethics as foundational to her work, reading his Treatise on Human Nature (1739), Book III, Part I and his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), Section V, Parts I and II. What does the physiology of the brain have to do with ethics? What bearing do facts have on values? Pat spoke with Mark and Dylan Casey here about topics ranging from the war on drugs to the rationale of punishment to Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape. To read along with us, buy Pat’s book.
End song: “Bring You Down” from the 1994 album Happy Songs Will Bring You Down by The MayTricks. by. Epistemology. 1. The Varieties of Cognitive Success There are many different kinds of cognitive success, and they differ from one another along various dimensions. Exactly what these various kinds of success are, and how they differ from each other, and how they are explanatorily related to each other, and how they can be achieved or obstructed, are all matters of controversy. This section provides some background to these various controversies. 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success? Cognitive successes can differ from each other by virtue of qualifying different kinds of things.
Some of the recent controversies concerning the objects of cognitive success concern the metaphysical relations among the cognitive successes of various kinds of objects: Does the cognitive success of a process involve anything over and above the cognitive success of each state in the succession of states that comprise the execution of that process? 1.2 Constraints and Values 1.3 Substantive and Structural 1.4. 2. 3. What Evidence Do You Have? Blog. Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:35:22 — 87.4MB) Discussing David Brin’s novel Existence (2012) with the author. What’s the point of thinking? Brin sees the future as a pressing threat, and Existence speculates that the reason we don’t see evidence of life on other planets is that no species survives its technological adolescence.
The solution? In our present political difficulties, Brin sees the solution as positive-sum games: institutions like science and markets that (are supposed to) result in everybody benefiting overall. The point of thinking for Brin is to “be a good ancestor.” As this is largely a Brin monologue (with a few interjections by Mark, Seth, Dylan, and also Brian Casey), we recorded a follow-up without him that you can listen to after this. End song: “Persevere” by Mark Lint & the Simulacra (recorded mostly in 2000, sung and mixed now). Buffaloing buffalo.