Our beliefs utilize various sources: perception, memory, induction, etc. We trust these sources to provide reliable information about the world around us. My dissertation investigates how this trust could be justified. Chapter one introduces background material. I argue that justification rather than knowledge is of primary epistemological importance, discuss the internalism/externalism debate(s), and introduce an evidentialist thesis that provides a starting point/framework for epistemological theorizing. Chapter two introduces a puzzle concerning justification. Can a belief source provide justification absent prior justification for believing it's reliable? Any answer appears to either make justifying the reliability of a source intellectually unsatisfying or all together impossible. Chapter three considers and rejects a plethora of proposed solutions to our puzzle. Investigating these solutions illustrates the need to further investigate evidence, evidence possession, and evidential support. Chapter four discusses the metaphysics of evidence. I argue that evidence always consists of a set of facts and that fact-proposition pairs stand in confirmation relations isomorphic to those holding between pairs of propositions. Chapter five argues that justification requires what I call actually connected possession of supporting evidence: a subject must be aware of supporting evidence and of the support relation itself. Chapter six argues that the relation constitutive of a set of facts being justificatory evidence is a sui generis and irreducible relation that is knowable a priori. Chapter seven begins by showing how Richard Fumerton's acquaintance theory meets the constraints on a theory of justification laid down in previous chapters. I modify the theory so as to: (i) make room for fallible foundational justification, and (ii) allow inferential justification absent higher-order beliefs about evidential connections. Chapter eight applies the developed theory of justification to our initial puzzle. I show how my modified acquaintance theory is in a unique position to vindicate the idea that necessarily a source provides a person with justification only if she is aware of evidence for the reliability of that source. However, this awareness of evidence for a source's reliability falls short of a justified belief and thereby avoids impalement from our dilemma's skeptical horn.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / South Africa's health transformation blueprint is designed to replace apartheid's inequities and instill instead a new utilitarian approach by the health care sector. This study gives attention to the medical gaze and the body in hospitalisation. At macropolitical level the study focuses on the ways in which the new health policy impacted on power relations and multi-levelled subject positions of medical and nursing staff, as well as on patients in a hierarchy of spaces such as in the wards, in the institution and at a national level, in terms of policy implementation and the reconstruction of the health care services. It shows that policy and institutional discourses and arrangements were embedded in a regime of visuality which discursively homogenised people from different cultural realities. Yet, at the same time biases related to constructions of bodies in relation to class, age, gender and 'value' continued to exist. At the level of hospital protocols and structure the thesis examines the social, political and conceptual frameworks that conveyed, allowed or disallowed particular meaning to the institution. It describes the formal, dominant discourses and processes in the wards and show how these impacted on everyday interaction and relations of power, autonomy, authority, conflict and resistance. The study shows that for patients there often was a disjuncture between policy and practice, as biomedical practitioners and policy makers struggled to define the scope and implementation of health care services in response to pressures for change and concomitant fluctuation. By problematising the notion of the medical gaze and by giving attention to discourses and practices, which were not legitimated by it, the study draws attention to realities that were deemed largely irrelevant by western medical epistemology, such as subjective experiences and knowledge, which, though lacking the same legitimation as the gaze, did not disappear but only become less visible. In this way the study widens the social context in which medical practice can be perceived and understood within a transforming South African health care system.

This work tries to analyze the concept of certainty in the Ludwig Wittgenstein's book 'On Certainty' and evaluate whether it corresponds to the criteria expressed by Pope John Paul II in the encyclical letter 'Fides et Ratio'. The first chapter explains the origins of the book and set it within the context of modern concept of certainty and skepticism, with an emphasis on thinking of G.E. Moore, who is main source of inspiration for Wittgenstein. The second chapter deals with the content of the book and tries to answer a series of questions about Wittgenstein's philosophical method. The third chapter first formulates requirements of the former pope on a healthy philosophy from the encyclical letter 'Fides et Ratio' and then try to find out whether these requirements are met or not. Work ends with a description of several elements of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, which can serve as inspiration for thinking and reasoning even if we are unable to accept the whole of his system of thought. Keywords Ludwig Wittgenstein, epistemology, Fides et Ratio, certainty

This dissertation motivates and defends what I call non-inferential epistemic circularity. Traditionally epistemic circularity is understood to be a property of arguments, where justification to believe these arguments’ premises depends upon the truth of their conclusions. I argue that epistemically circular arguments face a dilemma. If the conditions for non-inferential justification to believe their premises are too weak, these arguments are either indiscriminate or permit one to bootstrap trivially to higher-order justification. If to avoid these problems the conditions for non-inferential justification are strengthened on the basis of evidence, then epistemically circular arguments beg the question because they collapse into logical circularity. To address these problems I argue that an account of non-inferential justification should be developed that limits the role of evidential grounds and finds room instead for non-evidential sources of justification. I conclude that epistemic circularity is constitutive of non-inferential justification because it is a property of the intentional acts in virtue of which this justification is earned.

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This paper argues for the counter intuitive notion that some prejudice is morally justified. The argument is divided up into three parts: (1) what prejudice is, (2) the role of epistemology and (3) the final moral argument. The first section initially establishes a working definition which allows prejudice to be justified epistemically. The section then continues to demonstrate how prejudice has the logical structure of generic statements and facilitates a more generous view of prejudice and what it often expresses. The first section is concluded by explaining how prejudice is a result of the cognitive process called categorization, and how this cognitive process is inevitable and necessary. The second section addresses relevant epistemology, especially how belief comes to be epistemically justified. The papers argue for the notion of two different thresholds: justified belief and acceptance. This conception of epistemically justified belief is then connected to morality through Rosen’s following principle: “When X does A out of innocent ignorance, then X is guilt-free in that he did A, assuming that A would have been a guilt-free act if things were as X thought.” This bridge thereby allows prejudice to be morally justified through epistemic justification. The last section of the paper presents examples of prejudice and analyzes them by using the premises from the first two first sections. If epistemically justified belief necessarily generates moral justification, these examples illustrate prejudice which is morally justified. Two objections against this conclusion are then addressed. The first objection concerns the types of prejudice illustrated in the examples, and questions whether they really are prejudices. This objection is refuted by referencing the working definition of prejudice. The second objection concerns the harm prejudice impose on society on a larger level. Two versions of this objection are addressed and refuted.

The current approach to science for mainstream psychology relies on the philosophical foundation of positivism that cannot account for meaning as humans experience it. Phenomenology provides an alternative scientific approach in which meaning is constituted by acting toward objects in the world that is more consistent with how humans experience meaning. Immanuel Levinas argues that the phenomenological approach, while more consistent with human experience, does not provide a grounding for meaning. Rather, Levinas argues that meaning is grounded in the ethical encounter with the Other, or other person, such that meaning is given by the Other in rupture. For Levinas, the physical world, or elemental, and the I provide constraints for the meaning given by the Other but the Other is logically prior to all other experience. This alternative to the mainstream scientific approach in psychology of positivism has implications for the epistemology, methodology, and scientific community of psychology. The Levinasian perspective advocates an epistemology that is open to the rupture of the Other as a way to provide new knowledge. This emphasis on openness to rupture produces a methodology in which the scientist must allow object of study to influence the method used in research. Finally, the Levinasian perspective implies a scientific community that is sensitive to the rupture occasioned by the encounter with the Other.

Fields within education and training have been exploring the use of educational computer-based games, often referred to as serious games (SG), in multiple disciplines of academic research including the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domains. Traditionally, game designers tend to represent a different viewpoint about learning than instructional designers, or even teachers. More so, one of the fundamental roles designers play in making decisions is based on multiple factors, which include personal assumptions about constraints and perceived constraints in instructional practice. In order for games to be successful in classroom environments, classroom teachers need to be involved in the design process to help identify and assist in mitigating the classroom-based challenges that will be faced during implementation. The study sought to extend research on serious game attributes by examining the instructional design decisions and beliefs of individuals involved in the design, development, or implementation of serious games in education or training environments, through a web-based survey. Within the serious game community there are multiple approaches to designing learning environments; some view serious games as virtual environments explicitly for education or training, while others include digital games, simulations, and virtual worlds. While there is debate over the type of games that are most effective for learning, researchers have provided guiding qualifications and lists of characteristics that effective games should possess to improve current practice and implementation. Two central aims guided the study: (a) to identify relationships between the mental models put forth by each discipline when selecting serious game attributes, and (b) to provide insight into each subpopulation's beliefs about learning. Suggested implications for the study extend to educational practice, policy, and future research on designing, developing, and implementing serious games in learning environments. Findings suggest that the sample portrayed similar epistemological beliefs between all subgroups. Participants had the most sophisticated beliefs toward quick learning. Limited relationships were evident between participant's epistemological beliefs and selection of serious game attributes (SGA). However, findings indicated that each discipline has unique models and frameworks for designing serious games and perspectives on serious game implementation.

<p> The dissertation examines an intersection of ethics, epistemology, politics, and religious consciousness in the work of Canadian political theorist Charles Taylor. The goal of the study is to bring to light the central or even unifying role of theism in Taylor's broader philosophical project. More specifically, the dissertation speaks to the constructive moral and anthropological-as opposed to any merely ideological-role that theism plays in Taylor's thought, focusing especially on the conception of transcendence that underwrites his political and ethical theory. A basic claim of the dissertation is that Taylor's conception of transcendence, while remaining attentive to the demands of religious pluralism, has a kenotic shape that gives rise to an ethics that emphasizes enfleshed enactments of agape.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / The power and the problem of trust, πίστις, is nearly central to Plato’s Republic – in at least two senses. In the first sense, trust receives its most explicit consideration and treatment by Socrates in the central images of the Republic, specifically in the divided line image of Book VI, which Socrates uses to lay out the various powers and affections of knowing and opining in the soul and their corresponding objects. The line is divided into two proportional segments, both of which are divided again in turn. Trust, in its relation to the relative truth and clarity of objects of knowledge, is situated above imagination (εἰκασία), which relates to images, and by which Socrates means “first shadows, then appearances produced in water and in all close-grained, smooth, bright things, and everything of the sort.” Trust comes next in line, in the third place in relation to the truth itself. According to Socrates, trust, as a kind of power and affection of the soul, is related to “the animals around us, and everything that grows, and the whole class of artifacts (σκευαστὸν).” These are the things, Socrates says, that the objects of imagination are related to by way of likeness. Trust then, in this most basic sense, indicates the power of the soul by which human beings are primarily related to the objects in their environment – the everyday sorts of things which human beings encounter as they navigate their daily lives within the πόλις and the broader horizon of the κόσμος. They are the sorts of things that human beings generally take for granted. We are generally of the opinion that such things are what they are, as they appear. In another sense, trust is nearly central to the narrative of the Republic as it is situated within the divided line image itself. It is one of the two powers of the human soul that share a common border with the center of the divided line – the main division between the powers that relate to matters of opinion in the visible realm and the powers that are related to the intelligible realm, which is situated beyond the visible. On the other side of this major line of division lies the power of thought, διάνοια. Trust then, given where Socrates situates it along the divided line, although it is a lesser power in terms of its relationship to intelligible truths, still by way of its position and the border that it shares with thought, points to the very limit of the visible – perhaps the very limits of the κόσμος itself – the place where the visible gives way to the order of the intelligible. The power of trust, I will show by way of this work, is the power of the soul which can stretch opinion all the way out to its very limit – to the border of the visible and the intelligible which it shares with the power of thought. However, I argue that the power of trust is not only manifest in the nearly central treatment it receives in the central images of the Republic, it is also very much front and center, albeit often times implicitly, in the periphery of the Republic’s narrative, on either side of the central books. Much of this work constitutes an attempt draw out the power and the problem of trust as it arises in the periphery so that it may be seen not only in its tertiary relationship to truth in the divided line, but also in the immense import it holds for human beings in their lives within the πόλις and in the greater context of the κόσμος itself. Indeed, the power of trust may seem somewhat small in relation matters of the intelligible as they arise along the divided line; however, it will appear rather large when it is considered in relation to the lives of human beings as they find themselves born into a κόσμος and situated within a πόλις. By way of this situation, human beings find themselves fundamentally related to one another. Although trust, according to the divided line, is not strictly a matter of intelligence or that which is knowable in relation to truth in the intelligible realm, it is very much a matter of learning and coming to know – to the extent that this is possible – within the realm of becoming. The power of trust is critically important insofar as it informs our relation to our surroundings, the πόλις, and the κόσμος itself. Moreover, trust has an enormous impact on the kinds of lives that we choose to lead, that we find worth choosing, and it helps us determine in whom and in what we can ultimately place our trust. As such, the question of trust seems to, quite naturally, raise problem of judgment (κρίσις) in its turn. The question of judgment will run parallel to the theme of trust throughout this work. For, in many ways the two, trust and judgment, are inseparable. The two will arise quite frequently alongside one another, joined together as if in a kind of partnership. This is because, it seems, that in the order of the intelligible, and according to the power of knowing (νόησις) as it is developed in the divided line image, things that are known are simply known. Once a person, in the strictest sense, comes to know that something or other is true, he or she can take it for granted as something that is known – whatever it may be; however, in the realm of appearances and becoming, on the side of opinion, imagination, and trust, it is often the case that things must be judged, judgments must be made, and opinions must be formed on the basis of appearances alone – in the absence of any definitive sort of knowledge. And although trust constitutes a way of taking something for granted on the side of appearances, it is a kind of taking for granted that is at the same time held open – in a kind of suspension – provided that one does not confuse one’s judgments and opinions in accordance with trust with matters of knowing. That is, judgments which are made according to the power of trust, judgments that determine that something may or may not be taken for granted as it appears, are left decidedly unsettled in the way that matters of knowing and of knowledge are not. If we do not mistake the judgments that we make on the basis of trust with a certain kind of knowing, then the question of judgment as it relates to trust proves, by nature, to always be something of an open question. Trust in its relation to judgment, and the opinions that we form on the basis of this relation, can potentially become an opening onto the order of the intelligible. By way of its most basic operation, trust can be that power by which human beings can be made open to questions and inquiries that reach beyond the order of the visible and into the realm of the intelligible, questions concerning the truth of what is and not what merely appears; however, if matters of trust are mistaken for knowledge, then trust becomes a matter of enclosure. If one mistakes the opinions that one forms on the basis of trust for a kind of knowledge, then one mistakenly closes off the possibility of any further inquiry and further questioning into that which lies beyond appearance. And so, as I argue in this work, trust is both a source of great potential for the human being and a source of great risk. In Chapter I, I examine Socrates’ exchanges with Cephalus and Polemarchus respectively, as they occur in Book I. I argue that, even in these initial exchanges surrounding the question of justice, the question of trust in relation to judgment is already made manifest within the narrative of the Republic. I also discuss the way in which each interlocutor’s opinion about justice somehow mediates and informs his character in turn, especially in relation to the question of trust. Both Cephalus’ and Polemarchus’ formulations of justice, I argue, are somehow reflective of the trust each places in himself and in others. The way in which one relates to trust, then, will deeply inform the kind of person one becomes. In Chapter II, I continue this discussion of trust as it relates to issues of character, judgment, and justice in the context of Socrates’ exchange with Thrasymachus in Book I. I show how the tyrant is characterized and plagued by a fundamental sense of mistrust in others. This pervasive distrust is that which both propels the tyrant into a position of power over the πόλις, and it is also that which leads to his or her seemingly inevitable decline. I also make the case that this attitude is reflected by Thrasymachus in his own conduct in Book I, especially in the way in which he thinks about λόγος and the way in which he engages in dialogue with others. In Chapter III, I begin with a consideration of the various challenges that Glaucon and Adeimantus raise surrounding the question of justice, particularly as it relates to the themes of trust and judgment. I consider Glaucon’s depiction of the perfectly unjust individual. Then, I examine Adeimantus’ claim that in a πόλις, justice is either praised merely for its appearance, for the reputation it provides, or justice is simply forgone in favor of a conventional kind of injustice. I also examine the way in which the first πόλις that is constructed by Socrates in λόγος – the one that he calls the true and healthy πόλις but Glaucon calls a “πόλις of sows” – is characterized and made possible by the sense of trust that prevails within it. The citizens of this πόλις seem to have an unquestioning sense of trust in one another insofar as they each can be trusted to provide for the basic needs of each other without taking more than is needed in return. This sense of trust is extended beyond the boundaries of the healthy πόλις in its relations with its neighbors. Socrates initial account of the origin of the πόλις, I argue, gives way to what I call a “cosmopolis of trust.” In Chapter IV, I examine the πόλις in λόγος as it passes into the unhealthy πόλις of the relishes, which are introduced by Glaucon in Book II. I consider the various lines that need to be drawn within the πόλις, in addition to the various laws and programs of education that are instituted, so as to restore a sense of trust amongst the citizens of the πόλις – especially the guardians – in the face of the temptation and the threat posed by the relishes themselves. I argue that a similar gesture is made for the same underlying reasons in Book V in relation to ἔρος. I conclude with a detailed consideration of trust as it is treated by Socrates in the divided line image and how this informs trust’s relationship to judgment. In Chapter V, by way of conclusion, I consider the issues of trust and judgment as they relate to the central figure of the philosopher-king. For, as Socrates says in Book V, in order for the πόλις in λόγος to become a reality, a philosopher must come to rule in the πόλις. I reflect upon the way in which, in relation to trust and to judgment, the philosopher-king comes to constitute at once the highest aspiration of the πόλις and perhaps its greatest risk. I then consider what I take to be two separate attempts to situate the πόλις in λόγος within the boundaries of the κόσμος. The first of these takes place in Books VIII-IX of the Republic, in which the πόλις ruled by philosophical monarchy or aristocracy inevitably declines into timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and down into tyranny itself. I examine in outline, the way in which this decline is set underway by way of mistrust and various failures in judgment along the way. I then situate this discussion in relation to the narrative of the Timaeus, in which, at least as far as it seems, a separate attempt to situate the πόλις of the Republic within the boundary of the κόσμος is made. I argue that, in the face of the decline of the πόλις that we see in the Republic, the Timaeus might provide us with a model of soul and of κόσμος which, when placed in relation to the πόλις of the republic, resists the seeming inevitability of this decline and thereby vindicates the power of trust. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.