I argue that to know that a proposition is true one must have justification for being certain that the proposition is true. That is, one must have infallible epistemic justification for believing the proposition. It is widely accepted among epistemologists that we rarely, if ever, have such strong justification for our beliefs. It follows that there is precious little that we know. That conclusion is unacceptable to many philosophers. I argue that the positions that lead to the skeptical conclusion are well-motivated and that the skeptical conclusion is implicitly accepted by ordinary speakers. My dissertation has three main components: a metaphilosophical position, an epistemological position, and an error theory. First, the metaphilosophical position. One very important part of philosophy is the analysis of our ordinary concepts. Analysis of our concepts begins with reflecting on what we are inclined to say about various actual and possible cases when considered under specific descriptions. This traditional method has recently come under attack, due in part to the rise of semantic externalism. I agree with externalists that if ‘meaning is reference’ then there is little reason to think reflecting on our concepts from the armchair will provide insight to the nature of the concepts we investigate. I defend a version of semantic internalism which grounds meaning in factors with which subjects are directly acquainted. That view supports the traditional methodology. Furthermore, as the goal of philosophical analysis is to accurately describe concepts of philosophical interest, the only kind of objection that could be decisive against a proposed analysis is that it does not correctly describe our concept. That opens the door to a skeptical analysis of knowledge. Second, the epistemological position. I argue that the unacceptability of sentences of the form “S knows that p but it is possible for S that not-p” is best explained by the hypothesis that our concept of knowledge requires having justification for being certain that what one believes is true. I offer as a criterion of justified certainty the idea that when one knows a proposition is true, one is in a position to decisively answer questions about one’s knowledge of that proposition. I survey a number of competing theories of knowledge and show that they allow for the possibility of knowledge when one fails my criterion of decisive answerability. Those views fail my criterion because according to those views there is nothing the subject is aware of that guarantees for the subject that the allegedly known proposition is true. On that basis, I contend that knowledge is direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the proposition one believes. Third, the error theory. Of course, we rarely have direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the propositions we believe. So, our knowledge attributions are generally false. Yet, they are overwhelmingly natural to make. I argue that competent speakers are often quick to recognize knowledge attributions as a kind of ‘loose talk’ akin to the way we loosely ascribe geometric properties to ordinary objects. We regularly call objects ‘square’ that are not even close to being square, and we are quick to recognize this when challenged. I argue that we do this because we are so accustomed to communicating using strict language to make false claims that we often do not attend to the literal falsity of what we are saying. While we accept very demanding standards for knowledge, the phenomenon of recognizing that our knowledge claims are regularly false is as pervasive as our use of loose speech.

This thesis presents the first scholarly attempt to provide a systematic study—by way of rational reconstruction—of Avicenna’s philosophical analysis of knowledge. The analysis is centred on the well-known but ill-researched epistemic notions of apprehension (taṣawwur) and judgement (taṣdīq) that Avicenna consistently claims to be the necessary and sufficient conditions for anyone to be regarded as having knowledge. The study, however, begins with an account of Avicenna’s philosophical programme and its primary philosophical assumption, namely, his metaphysical realism. I argue that this assumption is the most fundamental principle from which emerge all strands of his thought and by which all his philosophical views are unified into a single philosophical system. Thus, I argue that it is with a clear view of his metaphysical realism and the broader philosophical programme which grows out of it that we can make fully sense of Avicenna’s philosophical analysis of knowledge and his epistemology in general. Bearing this in mind, I proceed with a systematic and rational reconstruction of Avicenna’s epistemic concepts of apprehension and judgement and followed then by his conception of truth (al-haq), which is implicit in his epistemic notion of judgement. Given that for Avicenna, as we shall see, it is only true judgement that can be counted as knowledge. Furthermore, a truly realist philosophical account of knowledge, or epistemology in general, must make a contact with psychology. I provide therefore an account of Avicenna’s psychological explanations of all the mental processes that involved in knowing. This includes his account of epistemic faculties—such as consciousness, sense perception, mind, and reason—and all the kinds of knowledge that these faculties yield to human beings. With the completion of my attempt at a systematic and rational reconstruction of Avicenna’s philosophical account of knowledge in terms of the epistemic notions of apprehension, judgement, and truth, I close the study by way of summarising his analysis of knowledge in modern form. And, lastly, I suggest that given the fact that this thesis is the first scholarly attempt at a systematic study of Avicenna’s philosophical analysis of knowledge, I should like it to be seen as a prolegomenon to develop rigorous arguments for his analysis as the basis for a tenable alternative to the traditional account of knowledge.

A descriptive and critical account of the theory of valuation presented by C.I. Lewis in An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. Both the a priori and empirical basis for the theory are examined. The essential weakness of the theory lies in an inability to overcome some of the criticisms of the emotivists, especially in the concept of the ultimately valuable. Hence Lewis in unable, even, to present a view as plausible as the emotivists in that his theory of evaluation is, for all practical purposes, a tautology. In order to overcome this difficulty Lewis must hypostatize some non-empirical property or some imperative. However, Lewis has presented the most comprehensive and analytic defense of a naturalistic system since the appearance of Perry's Interest Theory. Many of the value concepts are analyzed showing the development and structure of Lewis' theory. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

This thesis centers on two trends in epistemology: (i) the dissatisfaction with the reductive analysis of knowledge, the project of explicating knowledge in terms of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions, and (ii) the popularity of virtue-theoretic epistemologies. The goal of this thesis is to endorse non-reductive virtue epistemology. Given that prominent renditions of virtue epistemology assume the reductive model, however, such a move is not straightforward—work needs to be done to elucidate what is wrong with the reductive model, in general, and why reductive accounts of virtue epistemology, specifically, are lacking. The first part of this thesis involves diagnosing what is wrong with the reductive model and defending that diagnosis against objections. The problem with the reductive project is the Gettier Problem. In Chapter 1, I lend credence to Linda Zagzebski's grim 1994 diagnosis of Gettier problems (and the abandonment of the reductive model) by examining the nature of luck, the key component of Gettier problems. In Chapter 2, I vindicate this diagnosis against a range of critiques from the contemporary literature. The second part involves applying this diagnosis to prominent versions of (reductive) virtue epistemology. In Chapter 3, we consider the virtue epistemology of Alvin Plantinga. In Chapter 4, we consider the virtue epistemology of Ernest Sosa. Both are seminal and iconic; nevertheless, I argue that, in accord with our diagnosis, neither is able to viably surmount the Gettier Problem. Having diagnosed what is wrong with the reductive project and applied this diagnosis to prominent versions of (reductive) virtue epistemology, the final part of this thesis explores the possibility of non-reductive virtue epistemology. In Chapter 5, I argue that there are three strategies that can be used to develop non-reductive virtue epistemologies, strategies that are compatible with seminal non-reductive accounts of knowledge and preserve our favorite virtue-theoretic concepts.

This thesis addresses the problem of the analysis of knowledge. The persistent failure of analyses of knowledge in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is used to motivate exploring alternative approaches to the analytical problem. In parallel to a similar development in the theory of truth, in which the persistent failure to provide a satisfactory answer to the question as to what the nature of truth is has led to the exploration of deflationary and minimalist approaches to the theory of truth, the prospects for deflationary and minimalist approaches to the theory of knowledge are investigated. While it is argued that deflationary approaches are ultimately unsatisfactory, a minimalist approach to epistemology, which characterises the concept of knowledge by a set of platitudes about knowledge, is defended. The first version of a minimalist framework for the theory of knowledge is developed. Two more substantive developments of the minimalist framework are discussed. In the first development a safety condition on knowledge is derived from the minimalist framework. Problems for this development are discussed and solved. In the second development, an ability condition is derived from the minimalist framework. Reason is provided to believe that, arguably, the ability condition can avoid the problems that beset traditional analyses of knowledge. It is also shown that even if this argument fails, minimalist approaches to epistemology may serve to provide a functional definition of knowledge. Reason is thus provided to believe that minimalist approaches to epistemology can make progress towards addressing the problem of the analysis of knowledge.

Undergraduate honors paper--Mount Holyoke College, 2007. Dept. of Philosophy. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-107).

A proposta geral desta tese é discutir argumentos de uma linha cognitivista sobre o uso típico de intuições na literatura epistemológica. Em particular, o uso feito por epistemológicos interessados no projeto conhecido como análise do co-nhecimento. A questão central desta tese já está formulada em seu título: qual a estrutura psicológica do conceito ordinário de conhecimento? Em outras palavras, investigamos qual a organização psicológica da unidade mental que responde por nossos julgamentos intuitivos ordinários sobre casos de conhecimento. Argumen-tamos que a resposta a esta pergunta pode gerar lições importantes para o projeto epistemológico, em especial quanto a sua satisfatoriedade. Nossa investigação per-corre literaturas da epistemologia, psicologia comparativa, psicologia do desenvol-vimento, e a psicologia popular (folk). Em uma segunda parte da tese, tratamos de outros argumentos que surgem desta linha cognitivista na literatura epistemológi-ca, tais como argumentos empíricos sobre a robustez de intuições – no sentido de serem amplamente compartilhadas – e considerações sobre as bases cognitivas de uma intuição. Por fim, descrevemos uma forma de dar sentido à metodologia epis-temológica que leva em consideração argumentos cognitivistas em termos da no-ção de equilíbrio reflexivo. / The proposal of this dissertation is to discuss issues from a cognitivist line about the typical use of intuitions in the epistemological literature. In particular, issues about the use of epistemologists interested in the traditional project of the analysis of knowledge. The central question of this dissertation is already formulated in its title: What is the psychological structure of ordinary concept of knowledge? In oth-er words, we investigate what is the psychological organization of the mental unity that responds for our intuitive judgments about cases of knowledge. We argue that the answer for this question can provide important lessons for the epistemological project, especially about whether it can be satisfied. Our inquiry goes through the literature of epistemology, comparative psychology, psychology of development, and folk psychology. In a second part, we deal with other kinds of arguments from this cognitivist line in epistemology, such as empirical arguments about the ro-bustness of intuitions – in the sense of being widely shared – and considerations about the cognitive basis of intuitions. Finally, we describe one way of making sense of the epistemological methodology which takes into account cognitivist ar-guments in terms of the notion of reflective equilibrium.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:12:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.PDF: 592160 bytes, checksum: 1e3e2e63a1177515b3803954795fa703 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-09-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The purpose of this dissertation is to defend the position known in epistemic literature as epistemic externalism. This position essentially consists in the thesis that some of the features which determine when a belief is a case of knowledge or a case of justified belief are external to the epistemic agent, i.e., they are not internal states of the agent, nor need to be consciously accessed by him. We neither criticize any particular internalist theory, nor advocate a particular externalist theory. Instead, we discuss three different topics that work as a general motivation for adopting externalism. The option for these topics is guided by an interest in naturalistic epistemology and in recent discussions of epistemology. First, we discuss the use of cases the description of imaginary cases with the intent to emphasize the intuition of a particular proposition or to show the counterintuitive consequence of a theory in the debate between internalists and externalists. We try to provide a sort of psychological diagnosis of the use of this intuitive tool and argue that the literature on concepts psychology suggests an advantage for externalist theories. Second, we discuss the contextualist approach about the skeptical paradox and its relation to conceptual analysis. We argue that a semantic approach fails to solve the paradox and that the proper understanding of its origin, and also an invariantist rejection of the contextualist approach, provide a motivation to accept the externalist solution of the problem. At last, we deal with John Pollock s criticism against externalism the idea that a proper naturalistic theory of justification has to be internalist. We analyze whether his refutation really affects all form of externalism, particularly, process reliabilism. We present Pollock s procedural theory of epistemic norms, and discuss if the reasons he presents can actually refute process reliabilism. We claim that the reasons presented do not really put Pollock s project in an advantage. / A proposta deste trabalho é defender a posição conhecida na literatura epistemológica como externalismo epistêmico. O externalismo epistêmico consiste essencialmente na tese de que alguns dos fatores que determinam quando uma crença constitui um caso de conhecimento ou um caso de crença justificada são externos ao agente epistêmico, i.e., não são estados internos ao sujeito, nem precisam ser acessados conscientemente por ele. Nós não atacamos nenhuma teoria particular do internalismo, ou mesmo defendemos uma teoria externalista particular. Em lugar disto, discutimos três tópicos distintos que servem de motivação geral para a adoção do externalismo. A escolha destes tópicos é guiada pelo interesse em uma epistemologia naturalizada e em discussões recentes da epistemologia. Primeiro, nós discutimos a utilização da análise de casos a descrição de casos imaginários com a intenção de salientar a intuição de uma proposição particular ou mostrar a consequência antiintuitiva de uma teoria no debate entre internalistas e externalistas. Nós tentamos fornecer uma espécie de diagnóstico psicológico sobre o uso desta ferramenta intuitiva e argumentamos que a literatura em psicologia de conceitos sugere um favorecimento a teorias externalistas. Segundo, nós discutimos a abordagem contextualista sobre o paradoxo cético e sua relação com a análise conceitual. Nós argumentamos que uma abordagem semântica falha em resolver o paradoxo e que a compreensão adequada de sua origem, assim como uma rejeição invariantista da posição contextualista, fornece uma motivação para aceitarmos a solução externalista do problema. Por último, nós tratamos da crítica de John Pollock ao externalismo, que consiste justamente na ideia de que uma teoria de justificação naturalista adequada deve ser internalista. Nós analisamos se sua refutação realmente atinge toda forma de externalismo e, em particular, o confiabilismo de processo. Nós apresentamos a teoria procedimental de normas epistêmicas de Pollock e discutimos se as razões que ele apresenta podem realmente refutar o confiabilismo de processo. Nós defendemos que as razões que são apresentadas não colocam realmente o projeto de Pollock em vantagem.

A proposta geral desta tese é discutir argumentos de uma linha cognitivista sobre o uso típico de intuições na literatura epistemológica. Em particular, o uso feito por epistemológicos interessados no projeto conhecido como análise do co-nhecimento. A questão central desta tese já está formulada em seu título: qual a estrutura psicológica do conceito ordinário de conhecimento? Em outras palavras, investigamos qual a organização psicológica da unidade mental que responde por nossos julgamentos intuitivos ordinários sobre casos de conhecimento. Argumen-tamos que a resposta a esta pergunta pode gerar lições importantes para o projeto epistemológico, em especial quanto a sua satisfatoriedade. Nossa investigação per-corre literaturas da epistemologia, psicologia comparativa, psicologia do desenvol-vimento, e a psicologia popular (folk). Em uma segunda parte da tese, tratamos de outros argumentos que surgem desta linha cognitivista na literatura epistemológi-ca, tais como argumentos empíricos sobre a robustez de intuições – no sentido de serem amplamente compartilhadas – e considerações sobre as bases cognitivas de uma intuição. Por fim, descrevemos uma forma de dar sentido à metodologia epis-temológica que leva em consideração argumentos cognitivistas em termos da no-ção de equilíbrio reflexivo. / The proposal of this dissertation is to discuss issues from a cognitivist line about the typical use of intuitions in the epistemological literature. In particular, issues about the use of epistemologists interested in the traditional project of the analysis of knowledge. The central question of this dissertation is already formulated in its title: What is the psychological structure of ordinary concept of knowledge? In oth-er words, we investigate what is the psychological organization of the mental unity that responds for our intuitive judgments about cases of knowledge. We argue that the answer for this question can provide important lessons for the epistemological project, especially about whether it can be satisfied. Our inquiry goes through the literature of epistemology, comparative psychology, psychology of development, and folk psychology. In a second part, we deal with other kinds of arguments from this cognitivist line in epistemology, such as empirical arguments about the ro-bustness of intuitions – in the sense of being widely shared – and considerations about the cognitive basis of intuitions. Finally, we describe one way of making sense of the epistemological methodology which takes into account cognitivist ar-guments in terms of the notion of reflective equilibrium.

A proposta geral desta tese é discutir argumentos de uma linha cognitivista sobre o uso típico de intuições na literatura epistemológica. Em particular, o uso feito por epistemológicos interessados no projeto conhecido como análise do co-nhecimento. A questão central desta tese já está formulada em seu título: qual a estrutura psicológica do conceito ordinário de conhecimento? Em outras palavras, investigamos qual a organização psicológica da unidade mental que responde por nossos julgamentos intuitivos ordinários sobre casos de conhecimento. Argumen-tamos que a resposta a esta pergunta pode gerar lições importantes para o projeto epistemológico, em especial quanto a sua satisfatoriedade. Nossa investigação per-corre literaturas da epistemologia, psicologia comparativa, psicologia do desenvol-vimento, e a psicologia popular (folk). Em uma segunda parte da tese, tratamos de outros argumentos que surgem desta linha cognitivista na literatura epistemológi-ca, tais como argumentos empíricos sobre a robustez de intuições – no sentido de serem amplamente compartilhadas – e considerações sobre as bases cognitivas de uma intuição. Por fim, descrevemos uma forma de dar sentido à metodologia epis-temológica que leva em consideração argumentos cognitivistas em termos da no-ção de equilíbrio reflexivo. / The proposal of this dissertation is to discuss issues from a cognitivist line about the typical use of intuitions in the epistemological literature. In particular, issues about the use of epistemologists interested in the traditional project of the analysis of knowledge. The central question of this dissertation is already formulated in its title: What is the psychological structure of ordinary concept of knowledge? In oth-er words, we investigate what is the psychological organization of the mental unity that responds for our intuitive judgments about cases of knowledge. We argue that the answer for this question can provide important lessons for the epistemological project, especially about whether it can be satisfied. Our inquiry goes through the literature of epistemology, comparative psychology, psychology of development, and folk psychology. In a second part, we deal with other kinds of arguments from this cognitivist line in epistemology, such as empirical arguments about the ro-bustness of intuitions – in the sense of being widely shared – and considerations about the cognitive basis of intuitions. Finally, we describe one way of making sense of the epistemological methodology which takes into account cognitivist ar-guments in terms of the notion of reflective equilibrium.