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This thesis is, in part, a defence of a broad-based approach to epistemology. We should be wary of taking too narrow a focus and thus neglecting important aspects of knowledge. If we are too focused on one methodology then we are likely to miss insights that can come about from a different perspective. With this in mind, I investigate two particular methodologies in detail: Kornblith’s naturalism and Craig’s ‘genealogical’ approach. Kornblith emphasises the importance of looking at knowledge in the context of the natural world, thus stressing the continuity between animal and human knowledge. Craig, on the other hand, focuses on a distinctly human aspect of knowledge: the importance of enquiry and the sharing of information. As such, the two theories of knowledge that are developed have different emphases. I argue that by bringing them together we can better understand what knowledge is. This leads us to the other main contribution of this thesis, which is a defence of the role of reflection in epistemology. This has often been neglected in contemporary epistemology, primarily because of the effectiveness of externalist theories of knowledge. The focus on externalism has lead to reflection being sidelined. I do not argue that reflection is necessary for knowledge, but rather want to bring back attention to the important role that it plays in human life. Reflectively accessible justification is necessary for our knowledge claims and therefore plays a vital role in enquiry. If we add reflectively accessible justification to knowledge then it is both more stable and more valuable. Even if it is not necessary for knowledge, reflection should not be neglected.

Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學. / Manuscript. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 302-307). / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue. / Chapter 一 --- 導言 / Chapter 二 --- 維也納學團之起源與發展簡史 / Chapter 1 --- 維也納學團的起源 / Chapter 2 --- 維也納學團的目的與方法 / Chapter 3 --- 維也納學團的理論淵源 / Chapter 4 --- 維也納學團的發展 / Chapter 三 --- 意義判準的提出 / Chapter 5 --- 形上學的消除 / Chapter 6 --- 述句的區分 / Chapter 四 --- 意義判準的早期陳構式 / Chapter 7 --- 意義判準最早期陳構式──完全檢証性原則 / Chapter 8 --- 完全否証性原則及其困難 / Chapter 五 --- 意義判準其他不同之陳構及其困難 / Chapter 9 --- 意義判準第三個樣式──部分檢証性原則 / Chapter 10 --- 可翻譯性原則 / Chapter 11 --- 以可隸屬性來代替可翻譯性 / Chapter 12 --- 「隸屬於人」的意義的釐清 / Chapter 六 --- 經驗論語言及傾向性概念與理論概念之引介 / Chapter 13 --- 語言系統人的建構 / Chapter 14 --- 傾向性概念與化約句子方法 / Chapter 15 --- 理論概念與關連規則 / Chapter 16 --- 語言結構的釐定 / Chapter 七 --- 部分印証性原則 / Chapter 17 --- 意義判準的第四個樣式----------部分印証性原則 / Chapter 八 --- 基礎問題論旨 / Chapter 18 --- 什麽是基礎問題 / Chapter 九 --- 基料述句之性質徵定 / Chapter 19 --- 維根斯坦與基本命題 / Chapter 20 --- 舒力克之基料述句理論 / Chapter 21 --- 奈拿夫之基料述句 / Chapter 22 --- 卡納晉之原始基料述句基料述句 / Chapter 十 --- 基料述句之物理化 / Chapter 23 --- 物理語言為一互為主觀的語言的証明 / Chapter 24 --- 物理語言的互為主觀性 / Chapter 十一 --- 基料述句之語法觀及其困難 / Chapter 25 --- 將「基料述句」視為一語法指謂辭的理論 / Chapter 26 --- 基料述句之語法觀的批評 / Chapter 27 --- 融貫真理論的批評 / Chapter 28 --- 命題與事實的關係 / Chapter 29 --- 「命題與事實比較」是什麽意義? / Chapter 十二 --- 語言結構的選取與基料述句 / Chapter 30 --- 語言結構與基料述句 / Chapter 31 --- 基本謂詞選取的兩個方法論上的決定 / Chapter 32 --- 基本謂詞內容的確定──物理謂詞或心理謂詞之選擇 / Chapter 十三 --- 真確知識基礎之重估

Judgments of symmetry lay at the heart of the classical theory of probability. It was by direct appeal to the symmetries exhibited by the processes underlying simple games of chance that the earliest theorists of probability were able to justify the initial assumptions of equiprobability which allowed them to compute the probabilities of more complex events using combinatorial methods, i.e., by simply counting cases. Nevertheless, in spite of the role that symmetry played in the earliest writings on the subject, in light of the fact it is only in highly contrived settings that a direct appeal to symmetries can suffice to determine the probabilities of events, many philosophers have been led to conclude that the concept of symmetry itself has, at best, a limited role to play in a general theory of probability. In this essay, I argue that this view of the matter is mistaken, and that judgments of symmetry, in fact, have an indispensible role to play in all probabilistic reasoning. In chapter 1, I provide a detailed account of symmetry-based reasoning and argue against the view that the judgments of relevance on which such reasoning is based must be construed in subjective terms if symmetry-based reasoning is to be applied to deterministic processes. In chapter 2, I argue that the two most plausible proposals for how to avoid an appeal to symmetry in the assignment of probabilities (viz., those which are based on a priori principles of epistemic conservatism or the observed frequencies of events) must themselves rely on implicit assumptions of symmetry if they are to defend themselves against the charges of incoherency and arbitrariness. In chapter 3, I consider a decision-theoretic example of symmetry-based reasoning, in which the appeal to symmetry arises in the context of an agent's choice of a deliberative methodology. In this context, the principle of symmetry amounts to the requirement that the agent avoid adopting a biased deliberative methodology, i.e., one which treats two equally legitimate sources of information differently. In the specific context of the exchange paradox, I propose an account of how biased information is to be handled, which, despite suffering from some important defects, does, I believe, capture some of our general intuitions about how a rational agent ought to adjust his expectations to correct for the effects of bias.

This dissertation examines socioecological rhythms in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in New Ireland Province between 2015 and 2016 and archival research conducted in 2017, I describe how the movement of bodies, spirits, and substances in and out of place engenders knowledge of distant pasts, social relations in the present, and the anticipation of diverse futures. I argue that it is possible—first through local ontologies and epistemologies, and second through an engaged environmental anthropology—to identify and negotiate the compositional forces which accelerate or delay such movements. In making this argument, I analyze a critical question asked by Mandak-speaking peoples of any new arrival (U pas mia?/From where have you come), and develop a second, supplemental question To whom do you owe the timing of your arrival? as a means of “sounding” spaces like the deep sea. In 2011, a multinational company known as Nautilus Minerals received permission from the Independent State of Papua New Guinea to commence the world’s first seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) mine in the deep Bismarck Sea. SMS deposits are rich in gold, copper, and other valuable metals, and have been identified in conjunction with deepwater hydrothermal vents along tectonic faults. In published literature and public fora, Nautilus has suggested the “offshore” location of the proposed site, along with its depth, darkness, pressure, and intermittent volcanism, afford it certain “natural” advantages over terrestrial mine sites. The Solwara 1 mine, they have argued, will cause “minimal environmental harm” and will be free of “landowner issues.” To this extent, Solwara 1 has been envisioned by the company, its consulting scientists, and the PNG government as a way of making development sustainable. Many people in New Ireland and its neighboring islands reject this assertion. Having experienced multiple waves of dispossession across successive generations, they are well aware that when foreign interests remove objects from their place, these objects often resist or refuse repatriation. Seabed mining not only poses a threat to sharks, tuna, and the endemic biodiversity present in the deep Bismarck Sea, but worse, it threatens the potential for social relations and self-determined futures that emerge out of such spaces. Through local meetings, legal channels, and social media, New Irelanders continue to resist the experimental nature of the mine. Considering this resistance, along with my own primary accountability to the people who have become my relatives in New Ireland and New Hanover (Lovongai), I offer in this dissertation a way of knowing Solwara 1 through Presence. As I describe it, Presence is both a spatiotemporal concept and a methodology. In the first sense, it serves as the logical ground for the critical questions asked of all new arrivals (mentioned above); it is the here and now from which the there and then can be imagined. As a research methodology, Presence makes possible a rhythmic political ecology—a way of experiencing and qualifying change within spaces that have been physically or discursively alienated from the peoples to whom we are (or should be) most accountable. Overall, Presence makes possible a critical redefinition of “environment”—one which accounts for the history of nurture by which potential relations are made to emerge at certain moments, or in other words, their nurtural history. This dissertation is divided into six chapters. In the first chapter, I describe the historical context of my arrival and fieldwork in the village of Tembin on New Ireland’s western shore. I include this for the reader as an answer to the question, From where have I come? In the second chapter, I draw on ethnographic evidence from a Mandak mortuary ceremony to describe the context and the work involved in producing a particular cultural object known as a mumu. While this particular mumu cannot be abstracted from the conditions of its own emergence without great consequence, my description of its production together with an appended timeline are intended to afford the reader a sense of the physical and conceptual grounds of what I am calling nurtural history. In the third chapter, I draw on theories of space, place, and knowledge from indigenous Pacific scholars and from philosopher Henri Lefebvre to formulate a rhythmic political ecology. The fourth and fifth chapters apply this approach to Deep Seabed Mining (DSM) and “Sharkcalling Culture,” respectively. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, I consider in these chapters how distant places emerge into the present through both representation (by scientists, cultural tourists, and indigenous New Irelanders) and through “sounding,” or calling. In the final chapter, I consider how Solwara 1 has emerged as a social being in the Bismarck Archipelago, and how indigenous practices of sharkcalling and naming may be understood as assertions of continued sovereignty across local seas and in biksolwara—the big ocean.

It is orthodoxy in contemporary philosophy of cognitive science to hold that the human brain processes information, both about the body in which the brain is located and about the world more generally. The internal states of the brain that encode this information are known as mental representations. Two matters concerning mental representation are interwoven here: the role of representational content in cognition and the format of mental representation. Robert Cummins, among others, argues that content is intrinsic to mental representation, rather than involving matters external to a representation, such as the use to which the representation is put. He also holds that resemblance accounts of representation best make sense of this fact. Thus, according to Cummins, the content of a mental representation is determined by its form. This thesis argues that an account of representation requiring that representations possess resembling structure is unlikely to be correct given (a) the minimal requirements that something must meet in order to count as a mental representation, (b) the tasks required of representation in cognition, such as capturing abstract properties, combining with other representations, and tracking change, and (c) the possibility that content stands in a different relation to form and cognition from the one Cummins has in mind. In criticising Cummins, however, this thesis explores possible implementations of resemblance theories in connectionist representation. It also redraws his map of the psychosemantic field to suggest that classical theories of cognition, which posit concatenative schemes of symbolic representation, share some of the benefits of tying content to orm. Finally, in exploring various notions of the role of form in representation, this thesis also advocates a pluralistic approach to the mental representations implicated in human cognition. / Thesis (M.A.)--School of Humanities, 2004.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Philosophy. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-241). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99135

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-173).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-40).