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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Epistemology, theory of knowledge
Indian thought is well known for diverse philosophical and contemplative excursions into the nature of selfhood. Led by Buddhists and the yoga traditions of Hinduism and Jainism, Indian thinkers have engaged in a rigorous analysis and reconceptualization of our common notion of self. Less understood is the way in which such theories of self intersect with issues involving agency and free will; yet such intersections are profoundly important, as all major schools of Indian thought recognize that moral goodness and religious fulfillment depend on the proper understanding of personal agency. Moreover, their individual conceptions of agency and freedom are typically nodes by which an entire school's epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical perspectives come together as a systematic whole. Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy explores the contours of this issue, from the perspectives of the major schools of Indian thought. With new essays by leading specialists in each field, this volume provides rigorous analysis of the network of issues surrounding agency and freedom as developed within Indian thought.
Is truth objective or relative? What exists independently of our minds? This book is about these two questions. The essays in its pages variously defend and critique answers to each, grapple over the proper methodology for addressing them, and wonder whether either question is worth pursuing. In so doing, they carry on a long and esteemed tradition - for our two questions are among the oldest of philosophical issues, and have vexed almost every major philosopher, from Plato, to Kant to Wittgenstein. Fifteen eminent contributors bring fresh perspectives, renewed energy and original answers to debates which have been the focus of a tremendous amount of interest in the last three decades both within philosophy and the culture at large.
Susanne Bobzien presents the definitive study of one of the most important intellectual legacies of the ancient Greeks: the Stoic theory of causal determinism. She reconstructs the theory and discusses how the Stoics (third century BC to second century AD) justified it, and how it relates to their views on possibility, action, freedom, moral responsibility, and many other topics. She demonstrates the considerable philosophical richness and power that these ideas retain today.
In this incisive new monograph one of Britain's most eminent philosophers explores the often overlooked tension between voluntariness and involuntariness in human cognition. He seeks to counter the widespread tendency for analytic epistemology to be dominated by the concept of belief. Is scientific knowledge properly conceived as being embodied, at its best, in a passive feeling of belief or in an active policy of acceptance? Should a jury's verdict declare what its members involuntarily believe or what they voluntarily accept? And should statements and assertions be presumed to express what their authors believe or what they accept? Does such a distinction between belief and acceptance help to resolve the paradoxes of self-deception and akrasia? Must people be taken to believe everything entailed by what they believe, or merely to accept everything entailed by what they accept? Through a systematic examination of these problems, the author sheds new light on issues of crucial importance in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception is a survey by leading philosophical thinkers of contemporary issues and new thinking in philosophy of perception. It includes sections on the history of the subject, introductions to contemporary issues in the epistemology, ontology and aesthetics of perception, treatments of the individual sense modalities and of the things we perceive by means of them, and a consideration of how perceptual information is integrated and consolidated. New analytic tools and applications to other areas of philosophy are discussed in depth. Each of the forty-five entries is written by a leading expert, some collaborating with younger figures; each seeks to introduce the reader to a broad range of issues. All contain new ideas on the topics covered; together they demonstrate the vigour and innovative zeal of a young field. The book is accessible to anybody who has an intellectual interest in issues concerning perception.
The Clarendon Aristotle Series is designed for both students and professionals. It provides accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts, accompanied by incisive commentaries that focus on philosophical problems and issues, The volumes in the series have been widely welcomed and favourably reviewed. Important new titles are being added to the series, and a number of well-established volumes are being reissued with revisions and/or supplementary material. Christopher Shields presents a new translation and commentary of Aristotle's De Anima, a work of interest to philosophers at all levels, as well as psychologists and students interested in the nature of life and living systems. The volume provides a full translation of the complete work, together with a comprehensive commentary. While sensitive to philological and textual matters, the commentary addresses itself to the philosophical reader who wishes to understand and assess Aristotle's accounts of the soul and body; perception; thinking; action; and the character of living systems. It aims to present controversial aspects of the text in a neutral, fair-minded manner, so that readers can come to be equipped to form their own judgments. This volume includes the crucial first book, which the original translation in the Clarendon Aristotles Series omitted.
Adrian Bardon's A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time is a short yet thorough introduction to the history, philosophy, and science of the study of time-from the pre-Socratic philosophers through Einstein and beyond. Its treatment is roughly chronological, starting with the ancient Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides and proceeding through the history of Western philosophy and science up to the present. Using illustrations and keeping technical language to a minimum, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time covers subjects such as time and change, the experience of time, physical and metaphysical approaches to the nature of time, the direction of time, time-travel, time and freedom of the will, and scientific and philosophical approaches to eternity and the beginning of time. Bardon brings the resources of over 2500 years of philosophy and science to bear on some of humanity's most fundamental and enduring questions.
Self-knowledge is the focus of considerable attention from philosophers: Knowing Our Own Minds gives a much-needed overview of current work on the subject, bringing together new essays by leading figures. Knowledge of one's own sensations, desires, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and other attitudes is characteristically different from other kinds of knowledge, such as knowledge of other people's mental attributes: it has greater immediacy, authority, and salience. The first six chapters examine philosophical questions raised by these features of self-knowledge. The next two look at the role of our knowledge of our own psychological states in our functioning as rational agents. The third group of essays examine the tension between the distinctive characteristics of self-knowledge and arguments that psychological content is externally-socially and environmentally-determined. The final pair of chapters extend the discussion to knowledge of one's own language. Together these original, stimulating, and closely interlinked essays demonstrate the special relevance of self-knowledge to a broad range of issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language.
A scholarly edition of Essay Concerning Human Understanding by P. H. Nidditch. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.
This is the third volume of philosophical writings by Donald Davidson. He presents a selection of his work on knowledge, mind, and language from the 1980s and the 1990s. We all have knowledge of our own minds, knowledge of the contents of other minds, and knowledge of the shared environment. Davidson examines the nature and status of each of these three sorts of knowledge, and the connections and differences among them. Along the way he has illuminating things to say about truth, human rationality, and the relations between language, thought, and the world.
Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defence of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves. Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, and in so doing he makes a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Kant says that phenomena-things as we know them-consist 'entirely of relations', by which he means forces. His claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This humility has its roots in some plausible philosophical beliefs: an empiricist belief in the receptivity of human knowledge and a metaphysical belief in the irreducibility of relational properties. Langton's interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism, and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to be superior even to modern-day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable.
Colin Howson offers a solution to one of the central, unsolved problems of Western philosophy, the problem of induction. In the mid-eighteenth century David Hume argued that successful prediction tells us nothing about the truth or probable truth of the predicting theory. Howson claims that Hume's argument is correct, and examines what follows about the relation between science and its empirical base.
In Contradiction advocates and defends the view that there are true
contradictions (dialetheism), a view that flies in the face of
orthodoxy in Western philosophy since Aristotle. The book has been
at the center of the controversies surrounding dialetheism ever
since its first publication in
Now in a new edition, this volume updates Davidson's exceptional Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984), which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. The original volume remains a central point of reference, and a focus of controversy, with its impact extending into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Addressing a central question--what it is for words to mean what they do--and featuring a previously uncollected, additional essay, this work will appeal to a wide audience of philosophers, linguists, and psychologists.
Paul Horwich's main aim in Reflections on Meaning is to explain how
mere noises, marks, gestures, and mental symbols are able to
capture the world--that is, how words and sentences (in whatever
medium) come to mean what they do, to stand for certain things, to
be true or false of reality. His
In Everything Ancient Was Once New, Emalani Case explores Indigenous persistence through the concept of Kahiki, a term that is at once both an ancestral homeland for Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiians) and the knowledge that there is life to be found beyond Hawai'i's shores. It is therefore both a symbol of ancestral connection and the potential that comes with remembering and acting upon that connection. Tracing physical, historical, intellectual, and spiritual journeys to and from Kahiki, Emalani frames it as a place of refuge and sanctuary, a place where ancient knowledge can constantly be made anew. It is in Kahiki, she argues, and in the sanctuary it creates, that today's Kanaka Maoli can find safety and reprieve from the continued onslaught of settler colonial violence, while also confronting some of the often uncomfortable and challenging realities of being Indigenous in Hawai'i, in the Pacific, and in the world. Each chapter of the book engages with Kahiki as a shifting term, employed by Kanaka Maoli to explain their lives and experiences to themselves at different points in history. In doing so, Everything Ancient Was Once New proposes and argues for reactivated and reinvigorated engagements with Kahiki, each supporting ongoing work aimed at decolonizing physical and ideological spaces, and reconnecting Kanaka Maoli to other peoples and places in the Pacific region and beyond in ways that are both purposeful and meaningful. In the book, Kahiki is therefore traced through pivotal moments in history and critical moments in contemporary times, explaining that while not always mentioned by name, the idea of Kahiki was, and is, always full of potential. In writing that is both personal and theoretical, Emalani weaves the past and the present together, reflecting on ancient concepts and their continued relevance in movements to protect lands, waters, and oceans; to fight for social justice; to reexamine our responsibilities and obligations to each other across the Pacific region; and to open space for continued dialogue on what it means to be Indigenous both when at home and when away. Combining personal narrative and reflection with research and critical analysis, Everything Ancient Was Once New journeys to and from Kahiki, the sanctuary for reflection, deep learning, and continued dreaming with the past, in the present, and far into the future.
Stephen Schiffer presents a groundbreaking account of meaning and
belief, and shows how it can illuminate a range of crucial problems
regarding language, mind, knowledge, and ontology. He introduces
the new doctrine of 'pleonastic propositions' to explain what the
things we mean and believe
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