The Future of Social Epistemology: A Collective Vision sets an agenda for exploring the future of what we - human beings reimagining our selves and our society - want, need and ought to know. The book examines, concretely, practically and speculatively, key ideas such as the public conduct of philosophy, models for extending and distributing knowledge, the interplay among individuals and groups, risk taking and the welfare state, and envisioning people and societies remade through the breakneck pace of scientific and technological change. An international team of contributors offers a 'collective vision', one that speaks to what they see unfolding and how to plan and conduct the dialogue and work leading to a knowable and desirable world. The book describes and advances an intellectual agenda for the future of social epistemology.

Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics contributes to the growing literature that takes seriously the significance of Plato for Gadamer's hermeneutics. What distinguishes this book is the way in which Lauren Swayne Barthold argues for a dialectic central to Gadamer's hermeneutics, one that recalls the Platonic chorismos, or separation, between the transcendent and sensory realms. Barthold demonstrates that Gadamer, too, insisted on the "in-between" nature of human understanding as characterized by Hermes: we are finite beings always striving for infinity that which lies beyond being. Such a dialectical reading brings clarity to several themes crucial to, and contested within, Gadamer's hermeneutics. First, we are helped to see that Gadamer affirms the roles of both theory and practice for hermeneutics. Second, we are able to appreciate the nature of truth as the event of understanding that into which we enter as opposed to that which stands apart from us as a criterion. Third, we gain insight into the significance of dialogue for understanding, including the necessary role of the other. And finally, we are able to substantiate the meaning of the good beyond being, as a key component to understanding. Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics presents a reading of Gadamer that avoids the labels of realism or essentialism, and shows his primary motivation is to uncover the ethical, indeed dialectically ethical, and practical nature of philosophy."

Although recent works on Galileo's trial have reached new heights of erudition, documentation, and sophistication, they often exhibit inflated complexities, neglect 400 years of historiography, or make little effort to learn from Galileo. This book strives to avoid such lacunae by judiciously comparing and contrasting the two Galileo affairs, that is, the original controversy over the earth's motion ending with his condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633, and the subsequent controversy over the rightness of that condemnation continuing to our day. The book argues that the Copernican Revolution required that the hypothesis of the earth's motion be not only constructively supported with new reasons and evidence, but also critically defended from numerous old and new objections. This defense in turn required not only the destructive refutation, but also the appreciative understanding of those objections in all their strength. A major Galilean accomplishment was to elaborate such a reasoned, critical, and fair-minded defense of Copernicanism. Galileo's trial can be interpreted as a series of ecclesiastic attempts to stop him from so defending Copernicus. And an essential thread of the subsequent controversy has been the emergence of many arguments claiming that his condemnation was right, as well as defenses of Galileo from such criticisms. The book's particular yet overarching thesis is that today the proper defense of Galileo can and should have the reasoned, critical, and fair-minded character which his own defense of Copernicus had.

This textbook introduces the concepts and theories central for understanding the nature of knowledge. It is aimed at students who have already done an introductory course. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is concerned about how we know what we do, what justifies us in believing what we do, and what standards of evidence we should use in seeking truths about the world of human experience. The author's approach draws the reader into the subfields and theories of the subject, guided by key concrete examples. Major topics covered include perception and reflection as grounds of knowledge, the nature, structure, and varieties of knowledge, and the character and scope of knowledge in the crucial realms of ethics, science and religion.

This book examines the dependence of transhumanist arguments on the credibility of the narratives of meaning in which they are embedded. By taking the key ideas from transhumanist philosophy - the desirability of human self-design and immortality, the elimination of all suffering and the expansion of human autonomy - Michael Hauskeller explores these narratives and the understanding of human nature that informs them. Particular attention is paid to the theory of transhumanism as a form of utopia, stories of human nature, the increasing integration of the radical human enhancement project into the cultural mainstream, and the drive to upgrade from flesh to machine.

The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick explores the deep affinity between two seemingly quite different thinkers, in their attempts to address the need for salvation in (and from) an era of accelerated mechanization, in which humans' capacity for destroying or subjugating the living has attained a planetary scale. The philosopher and the science fiction writer come together to meet the contradictory imperatives of a realist outlook-a task which, arguably, philosophy and science fiction could only ever adequately undertake in collaboration. Their respective approaches meet in a focus on the ambiguous status of fictionalizing, or fabulation, as simultaneously one of mechanization's most devastating tools, and the possibility of its undoing. When they are read together, the complexities and paradoxes thrown up by this ambiguity, with which both Bergson and Dick struggle on their own, open up new ways to navigate ideas of mechanism and mysticism, immanence and transcendence, and the possibility and meaning of salvation. The result is at once an original reading of both thinkers, a new critical theory of the socio-cultural, political and ethical function of fictionalizing, and a case study in the strange affinity, at times the uncanny similarity, between philosophy and science fiction.

"Epistemic Reasoning and the Mental" integrates the epistemology of reasoning and philosophy of mind. The book contains introductions to basic concepts in the epistemology of inference and to important aspects of the philosophy of mind. By examining the fundamental competencies involved in reasoning, Gerken argues that reasoning's epistemic force depends on the external environment in ways that are both surprising and epistemologically important.
For example, Gerken argues that purportedly deductive reasoning that exhibits the fallacy of equivocation may nevertheless transmit epistemic warrant from its premise-beliefs to its conclusion-belief. This view is contrary to orthodoxy according to which such reasoning must be valid. But Gerken shows how this novel and unorthodox view is integrated in a psychologically plausible account of our reasoning competencies and a general epistemological framework.
What emerges is an approach to the philosophy of reasoning that is informed and constrained by both epistemology and philosophy of mind.

Why people are not as gullible as we think Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe-and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion-whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers-fail miserably. Drawing on recent findings from political science and other fields ranging from history to anthropology, Mercier shows that the narrative of widespread gullibility, in which a credulous public is easily misled by demagogues and charlatans, is simply wrong. Why is mass persuasion so difficult? Mercier uses the latest findings from experimental psychology to show how each of us is endowed with sophisticated cognitive mechanisms of open vigilance. Computing a variety of cues, these mechanisms enable us to be on guard against harmful beliefs, while being open enough to change our minds when presented with the right evidence. Even failures-when we accept false confessions, spread wild rumors, or fall for quack medicine-are better explained as bugs in otherwise well-functioning cognitive mechanisms than as symptoms of general gullibility. Not Born Yesterday shows how we filter the flow of information that surrounds us, argues that we do it well, and explains how we can do it better still.

In Defense of Dialogue: Reading Habermas and Postwar American Literature offers a timely investigation of the value of dialogue in contemporary American culture. Using Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action to read the work of Frank O'Hara, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, and Andy Warhol, In Defense of Dialogue assembles postwar writers who have never been studied alongside one another, showing how they overcame the pervading skepticism of their contemporaries to imagine sincere and rational speakers who seek to cultivate intersubjective discourse.

Social scientists and scholars in the humanities all rely on first-person descriptions of experience to understand how subjects construct their worlds. The problem they always face is how to integrate first-person accounts with an impersonal stance. Over the course of the twentieth century, this problem was compounded as the concept of experience itself came under scrutiny. First hailed as a wellspring of knowledge and the weapon that would vanquish metaphysics and Cartesianism by pragmatists like Dewey and James, by the century's end experience had become a mere vestige of both, a holdover from seventeenth-century empiricist metaphysics. This devaluation of experience has left us bereft, unable to account for first-person perspectives and for any kind of agency or intentionality.
This book takes on the critique of empiricism and the skepticism with regard to experience that has issued from two seemingly disparate intellectual strains of thought: anti-foundationalist and holistic philosophy of science and epistemology (Kuhn and Rorty, in particular) and feminist critiques of identity politics. Both strains end up marginalizing experience as a viable corrective for theory, and both share notions of human beings and cognition that cause the problem of the relation between experience and our theories to present itself in a particular way. Indeed, they render experience an intractable problem by opening up a gap between a naturalistic understanding of human beings and an understanding of humans as cultural entities, as non-natural makers of meaning. Marianne Janack aims to close this gap, to allow us to be naturalistic and hermeneutic at once. Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, the pragmatist tradition, and ecological psychology, her book rescues experience as natural contact with the world.

Social scientists and scholars in the humanities all rely on first-person descriptions of experience to understand how subjects construct their worlds. The problem they always face is how to integrate first-person accounts with an impersonal stance. Over the course of the twentieth century, this problem was compounded as the concept of experience itself came under scrutiny. First hailed as a wellspring of knowledge and the weapon that would vanquish metaphysics and Cartesianism by pragmatists like Dewey and James, by the century's end experience had become a mere vestige of both, a holdover from seventeenth-century empiricist metaphysics. This devaluation of experience has left us bereft, unable to account for first-person perspectives and for any kind of agency or intentionality.
This book takes on the critique of empiricism and the skepticism with regard to experience that has issued from two seemingly disparate intellectual strains of thought: anti-foundationalist and holistic philosophy of science and epistemology (Kuhn and Rorty, in particular) and feminist critiques of identity politics. Both strains end up marginalizing experience as a viable corrective for theory, and both share notions of human beings and cognition that cause the problem of the relation between experience and our theories to present itself in a particular way. Indeed, they render experience an intractable problem by opening up a gap between a naturalistic understanding of human beings and an understanding of humans as cultural entities, as non-natural makers of meaning. Marianne Janack aims to close this gap, to allow us to be naturalistic and hermeneutic at once. Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, the pragmatist tradition, and ecological psychology, her book rescues experience as natural contact with the world.

The aims of this Introduction are to characterize the philosophy of science and technology, henceforth PS & T, to locate it on the map ofiearning, and to propose criteria for evaluating work in this field. 1. THE CHASM BETWEEN S & T AND THE HUMANITIES It has become commonplace to note that contemporary culture is split into two unrelated fields: science and the rest, to deplore this split - and to do is some truth in the two cultures thesis, and even nothing about it. There greater truth in the statement that there are literally thousands of fields of knowledge, each of them cultivated by specialists who are in most cases indifferent to what happens in the other fields. But it is equally true that all fields of knowledge are united, though in some cases by weak links, forming the system of human knowledge. Because of these links, what advances, remains stagnant, or declines, is the entire system of S & T. Throughout this book we shall distinguish the main fields of scientific and technological knowledge while at the same time noting the links that unite them.

The book contains analyses and interpretations of multidimensional perspectives in philosophical, economical and psychological research on imagination. The authors analyse Russian (N. Bierdiajew) and French philosophy and anthropology (G. Bachelard, G. Durand), German conceptions (I. Kant's, F. Baader's, F. Schiller 's or Heideggerian interpretations) of the role of imagination in art, science and sociopolitical domains. Image and imagination play the main role in the contemporary social world. It is investigated by psychology, sociology and political sciences, and many subdisciplines of philosophy have their own traditions in approaches to image and imagination problem. The authors try to integrate the results of these research efforts.

One goal of epistemology is to refute the skeptic. Another, with an equally dist- guished if briefer pedigree, is to make sense of science as a knowledge-acquiring enterprise. The goals are incompatible, in that the latter presupposes that the skeptic is wrong. The incompatibility is not strict. One could have both goals, conditi- ing the latter upon success at the former. In fact, however, epistemologies aimed at the skeptic tend not to get anywhere near science. They've got all they can handle guring out how we can know we have hands. I come to epistemology from the philosophy of science, my original interest in which was epistemological. Philosophers of science are concerned with epistemic justi cation, but their question about it is how far it extends. They take justi cation to be unproblematic at the level of ordinary experience; their worries begin with the interpretation of experience as evidence for theory. They are interested in the scope of scienti c knowledge. Having taken a position on this question (1997), - guing that justi cation extends to theoretical hypotheses, I came to wonder about the nature of justi cation generally. This is not a belated discovery of the skeptical problem or a reconsideration of what I took to be unproblematic. It is simply an interest in the possibility of locating epistemic advance in science within a broader understanding of the nature of epistemic justi cation. Now that I know that just- cation extends to theory, I am taking a step back and asking what justi cation is.

This volume contains a set of state-of-the-art essays by younger philosophers on various topics in the philosophy of action. Some of the essays are about the metaphysics of action and agency; some consider the nature of autonomy and free agency; some explore conceptual and normative issues, some draw on data from psychology and psychopathology. But what all of them have in common is that they address some problem related to our existence as human agents. The range of topics covered is this collection is broad. This is intentional. Rather than focus on one narrow topic in the philosophy of action, this volume brings together papers that, taken together, introduce readers to some key debates in contemporary philosophy of action. Readers new to the field should come away from the volume with a good sense of the state-of-the-art with respect to current thinking about human action and agency. For their part, established researchers in the field will find the essays to be original contributions that substantially advance many debates about action and agency.

Philosophers increasingly engage in practical work with other disciplines and the world at large. This volume draws together the lessons learned from this work-including philosophers' contributions to scientific research projects, consultations on matters of policy, and expertise provided to government agencies and non-profits-on how to effectively practice philosophy. Its 22 case studies are organized into five sections: I Collaboration and Communication II Policymaking and the Public Sphere III Fieldwork in the Academy IV Fieldwork in the Professions V Changing Philosophical Practice Together, these essays provide a practical, how-to guide for doing philosophy in the field-how to find problems that can benefit from philosophical contributions, effectively collaborate with other professionals and community members, make fieldwork a positive part of a philosophical career, and anticipate and negotiate the sorts of unanticipated problems that crop up in direct public engagement. Key features: Gives specific advice on how to integrate philosophy with outside groups. Offers examples from working with the public and private sectors, community organizations, and academic groups. Provides lessons learned, often summarized at the end of chapters, for how to practice philosophy in the field.

First published in 1977, Georg Lukacs gives an outline of Lukacs' views and explains how they are related to the relevant cultural traditions of his epoch. The author covers the whole range of Lukacs' thought, from his earliest literary criticism to the posthumous Ontology of Social Existence. Lukacs' early writings in particular are frequently obscure in style and impregnated with the language and thought of Hegel. Professor Parkinson has elucidated Lukacs' principal writings in systematic fashion, and the book includes a detailed exposition of Lukacs' influential but difficult book History and Class Consciousness. This should be an indispensable book for all those who seek a clear, comprehensible introduction to the writings of one of the most influential Marxist thinkers of our time.

Goethe's poem, The Mysteries, and the twelve world views. Kant and world views. The development of Rudolf Steiner's research into Goethe's science, The Philosophy of Freedom, and his lectures on Human and Cosmic Thought,(1914) on the twelve world views. Phenomenalism: Look at and Listen to the World; Sensualism -Human Carnality; Materialism- 'Earth goes on standing firm.'; Mathematism - Measure, Number and weight; Rationalism: 'And behold, it was very good.' Idealism: the Logos that was at the beginning. Psychism: I am an I. Pneumatism : I am the Universe. Spiritualism - The Jacob's Ladder. Monadism - Universal relations. Dynamism - 'I am dynamite'. Realism - The World Scales. Humanus: the new human being in the third millennium. Study and Discussion

The contributions in this volume make an important effort to resurrect a rather old fashioned form of foundationalism. They defend the position that there are some beliefs that are justified, and are not themselves justified by any further beliefs. This Epistemic foundationalism has been the subject of rigorous attack by a wide range of theorists in recent years, leading to the impression that foundationalism is a thing of the past. DePaul argues that it is precisely the volume and virulence of the assaults which points directly to the strength and coherence of the position.

Ancients and moderns alike have constructed arguments and assessed theories on the basis of common sense and intuitive judgments. Yet, despite the important role intuitions play in philosophy, there has been little reflection on fundamental questions concerning the sort of data intuitions provide, how they are supposed to lead us to the truth, and why we should treat them as important. In addition, recent psychological research seems to pose serious challenges to traditional intuition-driven philosophical inquiry. Rethinking Intuition brings together a distinguished group of philosophers and psychologists to discuss these important issues. Students and scholars in both fields will find this book to be of great value.

What are beliefs and what roles do they play in our behavioral and cognitive economies? Those questions are central issues not only for epistemology, but also for philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and philosophy of religion, to mention only a few fields. The authors in this volume of specially commissioned essays address them from a variety of perspectives, drawing on important classical and contemporary work on mental content, the nature of intentionality, the psychology of delusions, the role of character traits, the moral status of doxastic attitudes, and a range of other topics.

This volume builds on two recent developments in philosophy on the relationship between art and science: the notion of representation and the role of values in theory choice and the development of scientific theories. Its aim is to address questions regarding scientific creativity and imagination, the status of scientific performances-such as thought experiments and visual aids-and the role of aesthetic considerations in the context of discovery and justification of scientific theories. Several contributions focus on the concept of beauty as employed by practising scientists, the aesthetic factors at play in science and their role in decision making. Other essays address the question of scientific creativity and how aesthetic judgment resolves the problem of theory choice by employing aesthetic criteria and incorporating insights from both objectivism and subjectivism. The volume also features original perspectives on the role of the sublime in science and sheds light on the empirical work studying the experience of the sublime in science and its relation to the experience of understanding. The Aesthetics of Science tackles these topics from a variety of novel and thought-provoking angles. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of science and aesthetics, as well as other subdisciplines such as epistemology and philosophy of mathematics.

These two volumescontaina selection of the papersdeliveredat the rst conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA) which took place in Madrid, at ComplutenseUniversity, from14to 17November2007. The rst volume is entitled Epistemology and Methodology, and includes papers mainly concerned with general philosophy of science, rationality, and method. The second volume, devoted to Philosophical Issues in the Sciences, includes papers concerned with philosophy of the sciences, particularly physics, economics, chemistry and bi- ogy. Overall the selection has been very severe and took place in two stages. The 30-strong conference programme committee chaired by Mauro Dorato and Miklos R edei rst selected 160 papers forpresentationout of 410 abstracts submitted. After the conference the three of us went on to further select 60 papers among those - livered. The selection was made on the recommendation of the members of the programme committee and the chairs of the conference sessions, who were invited to nominate their favourite papers and provide reasons for their choices. Every - per included in these volumes has been independently nominated by at least two referees. There are thus good groundsto the claim that these essays constitute some of most signi cant and importantresearch presently carried out in the philosophyof science throughoutEurope. The two volumes also represent the rst tangible outcome of the newly born EPSA. Together with the conference they in effect constitute the launching of the Association."

Originally published in 1967. Locke's views in the field of education had great influence in the UK and abroad; and the aim of this book is to present them in the context of his general philosophical thinking, since it was mainly as a philosopher that Locke won his place in history. Because Locke was at the same time very much a man of affairs, and an interesting character on his own merits, the book gives a fairly full account of his life and times. Some attention is paid to his relations with the brilliant political adventurer, Lord Shaftesbury, without whom Locke's own career would have been very different, and might not have offered the opportunities which led to his writings on education. The book seeks to emphasize the importance of Locke's empirical approach to truth - the method of modern science, without which the modern study of education, and the science of psychology in particular, would never have developed.

The main and original contribution of this volume is to offer a discussion of teleology through the prism of religion, philosophy and history. The goal is to incorporate teleology within discussions across these three disciplines rather than restrict it to one as is customarily the case. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from individual teleologies to collective ones; ideas put forward by the French aristocrat Arthur de Gobineau and the Scottish philosopher David Hume, by the Anglican theologian and founder of Methodism, John Wesley, and the English naturalist Charles Darwin.