Epistemology

Teleology is the belief that some things happen, or exist for the sake of other things. It is the belief that, for example, salmon swim upstream in order to spawn, and that bears have claws for the sake of catching fish. This volume takes up the...

Why the tools of philosophy offer a powerful antidote to today's epidemic of irrationalityThere is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. An alarming number of people are embracing crazy, even dangerous ideas. They believe that vaccinations...

The Renaissance, scholars have long argued, was a period beset by the loss of philosophical certainty. In Possible Knowledge, Debapriya Sarkar argues for the pivotal role of literature-what early moderns termed poesie-in the dynamic intellectual culture...

Now in its third edition, Narration and Knowledge is a classic work exploring the nature of historical knowledge and its reliance on narrative. Analytical philosopher Arthur C. Danto introduces the concept of "narrative sentences," in which an event is...

This book gathers together thirteen of Peter van Inwagen's essays on metaphysics, several of which have acquired the status of modern classics in their field. They range widely across such topics as Quine's philosophy of quantification, the ontology of...

This volume provides a framework for approaching and understanding mental normativity. It presents cutting-edge research on the ethics of belief as well as innovative research beyond the normativity of belief-and towards an ethics of mind. By moving...

What is truth? Is there anything that all truths have in common that makes them true rather than false? Is truth independent of human thought, or does it depend in some way on what we believe or what we would be justified in believing? In what sense, if...

Most people use money almost every day, and financial assets have become so important to modern life that they determine our fate both as individuals and as societies. Yet we seldom stop to think about what all of this means, how it works, and how it...

This rigorous examination of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason provides a comprehensive analysis of the major metaphysical and epistemological questions of Kant's most famous work. Author James Van Cleve presents clear and detailed discussions of Kant's...

Epistemic Angst offers a completely new solution to the ancient philosophical problem of radical skepticism-the challenge of explaining how it is possible to have knowledge of a world external to us.Duncan Pritchard argues that the key to resolving this...

What have the great philosophers written about the nature of knowledge? Epistemology: The Key Thinkers tells the story of how our thinking about knowledge has developed, introducing you to some of the problems and forces that have dominated the history...

A. W. Moore argues in this bold and ambitious book that it is possible to think about the world 'from no point of view'. He examines this idea, explains its significance, and considers reasons for thinking that such a thing is not possible. In...

In everyday life we normally express our beliefs in all-or-nothing terms: I believe it is going to rain; I don't believe that my lottery ticket will win. In other cases, if possible, we resort to numerical probabilities: my degree of belief that it is...

Perhaps the most fundamental question of epistemology asks on what grounds our knowledge of the world ultimately rests. The traditional Cartesian answer is that it rests on indubitable facts arrived at through rational insight or introspection...

What kind of knowledge could be obtainable just by thinking? Debating the A Priori presents a series of exchanges between two leading philosophers on how to answer this question. In this extended debate, Boghossian and Williamson contribute alternating...

Recently, philosophers have revived interest in the traditional topic of the nature of a priori knowledge (knowledge that does not depend on sensory experience). This collection brings together ten of the most important recent essays on the subject. The...

Mind, Brain, and Free Will presents a powerful new case for substance dualism (the theory that humans consist of two parts body and soul) and for libertarian free will (that humans have some freedom to choose between alternatives, independently of the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781732353299Author David SkrbinaFormat PaperbackPage Count 362Imprint Creative Fire PressPublisher Creative Fire PressWeight(grams) 531gDimensions(mm) 229mm...

Truth has always been a central preoccupation of philosophy in all its forms and traditions. However, in the late twentieth century truth became suddenly rather unfashionable. The precedence given to assorted political and ideological agendas, along with...

That there are no white ravens is true because there are no white ravens. And so there is a sense in which that truth 'depends on the world'. But this sort of dependence is trivial. After all, it does not imply that there is anything that is that truth's...

Taking the Soviet collapse - the most cataclysmic event of the recent past - as a case study, this text engages students in the exercise of historical analysis, interpretation and explanation. In exploring the question posed by the title, the author...

Forthright and wryly humorous, philosopher Susan Haack deploys her penetrating analytic skills on some of the most highly charged cultural and social debates of recent years. Relativism, multiculturalism, feminism, affirmative action, pragmatisms old and...

What does 'if' mean? It is one of the most commonly used words in the English language, in itself a sign to the importance of conditional thinking to human cognitive life. We make conditional statements, ask conditional questions, and issue...

How does thinking affect doing? There is a widely held view--both in academia and in the popular press--that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, hinders performance. Once you have acquired the ability to putt a golf ball, play an...

Relativist and constructivist conceptions of truth and knowledge have become orthodoxy in vast stretches of the academic world in recent times. In his long-awaited first book, Paul Boghossian critically examines such views and exposes their fundamental...

Debates about gender are everywhere. Is it an inner identity, a biological fact, or an oppressive system? Should we respect it or resist it?What Even Is Gender? shifts the conversation in a fresh direction, arguing that these debates rest on a shared...

Traditional philosophical discussions of knowledge have focused on the epistemic status of full beliefs. Sarah Moss argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. For instance, your 0.4 credence that it is raining outside...

As well as including the classic papers from the history of epistemology, this distinctive, wide-ranging anthology provides essential coverage of key contemporary challenges to that tradition.About the AuthorLinda Martin Alcoff is Associate Professor of...

Are mental states "in the head"? Or do they intrinsically involve aspects of the subject's physical and social context? This volume presents a number of essays dealing with the compass of the mind. The contributors broach a range of issues with a commmon...

What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings...

Published in 1973, "L'Etourdit" was one of the French philosopher Jacques Lacan's most important works. The book posed questions that traversed the entire body of Lacan's psychoanalytical explorations, including his famous idea that "there is no such...

Many people believe that philosophy makes no progress. Members of the general public often find it amazing that philosophers exist in universities at all, at least in research positions. Academics who are not philosophers often think of philosophy either...

A.C. Grayling focuses on a series of central philosophical concerns in this excellent collection of essays, with each one contributing to the contemporary debates on these matters.A.C. Grayling is one of Britain's leading thinkers, highly regarded as a...

No part of philosophy is as disconnected from its history as is epistemology. After Certainty offers a reconstruction of that history, understood as a series of changing expectations about the cognitive ideal that beings such as us might hope to achieve...

Epistemology has traditionally been motivated by a desire to respond to skeptical challenges. The skeptic presents an argument for the view that knowledge is impossible, and the theorist of knowledge is called upon to explain why we should think,...

Historically, philosophical discussions of relations have featured chiefly as afterthoughts, loose ends to be addressed only after coming to terms with more important and pressing metaphysical issues. F. H. Bradley stands out as an exception...

Carolina Sartorio argues that only the actual causes of our behaviour matter to our freedom. Although this simple view of freedom clashes with most theories of responsibility, including the most prominent 'actual sequence' theories currently on offer,...

Rush Rhees, a close friend of Wittgenstein and a major interpreter of his work, shows how Wittgenstein's On Certainty concerns logic, language, and reality - topics that occupied Wittgenstein since early in his career. Authoritative interpretation...

Paul Horwich develops an interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later writings that differs in substantial respects from what can already be found in the literature. He argues that it is Wittgenstein's radically anti-theoretical metaphilosophy--and not...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781970164183Author Laura Trujillo LinanFormat PaperbackPage Count 132Imprint Institute of General SemanticsPublisher Institute of General...