Reflective Knowledge draws together ground-breaking work in epistemology by Ernest Sosa. He argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on virtuous circularity, shows how this idea may be found explicitly or just below the surface in such illustrious predecessors as Descartes and Moore, and defends the view against its rivals.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: [email protected] August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University of Nottingham. (...) For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)

Comprehensive and packed, Alvin Plantinga's two-volume treatise defies summary. The first volume, Warrant: Current Views, is a meticulous critical survey of epistemology today. Many current approaches are presented and exhaustively discussed, and a negative verdict is passed on each in turn. This prepares the way for volume two, Warrant and Proper Function, where a positive view is advanced and developed in satisfying detail. The cumulative result is most impressive, and should command attention for years to come. Here I cannot possibly (...) do justice to the scope and richness of Plantinga's accomplishment. Given the limitations imposed by the occasion, I will discuss only what seem the most important and original proposals, and will compare them with some relevant alternatives. (shrink)

Finding a powerful ally in Bertrand Russell, who provided the foreword for this book, Gellner embarked on the project that was to put him on the intellectual ...

In Quentin Smith and Aleksander Jokic (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Essays (OUP, 2002).

This is a new release of the original 1927 edition.

This paper is truly a joint effort and it could not have been written without the contribution of both authors. Garson, though, deserves credit (or blame) for first seeing the need for two kinds of quantifier scope, and also for devising essentials of the positive theory.

Kitcher and Aspray distinguish a mainstream tradition in the philosophy of mathematics concerned with foundationalist epistemology, and a ‘maverick’ or naturalistic tradition, originating with Lakatos. My claim is that if the consequences of Lakatos's contribution are fully worked out, no less than a radical reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics is necessitated, including history, methodology and a fallibilist epistemology as central to the field. In the paper an interpretation of Lakatos's philosophy of mathematics is offered, followed by some critical discussion, (...) and an extension to a social constructivist position (which might well have been unacceptable to Lakatos). (shrink)

There is a controversy in contemporary philosophy over the question whether or not knowledge must have a foundation. On one side are the foundationalists, who do accept the metaphor and find the foundation in sensory experience or the like. The coherentists, on the other side, reject the foundations metaphor and consider our body of knowledge a coherent whole floating free of any foundations. This controversy grew rapidly with the rise of idealism many years ago, and it is prominent today not (...) only in epistemology proper but also in philosophy of science and even in ethics. The discussion of this issue has been lamentably hampered by confusion and misunderstanding, and in this neither side is wholly innocent. The reflections that follow are not meant to settle the controversy, but only to help us understand it more clearly. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfleet RICHARD H. POPKIN EDWARD STILLINGFLEET(1635-1699), the Bishop of Worcester, is known only as Locke's opponent. Although he was a leading figure in seventeenth century intellectual history, he is now almost completely forgotten.1 He is only mentioned once in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the first person to write against Deism. 2 His texts have been ditlicult to locate, and have hardly been studied. Although (...) Locke's answers to him comprise a large volume in Locke's Works, little interest has been shown in Stillingfleet's side of the story. His letters to Locke were last printed in the 1710 edition of his works. (I am now publishing a photoreproduction edition of the attacks on Locke, and a photoreproduction of the six volumes of his works is due soon.) In spite of this neglect, Stillingfleet was a quite interesting figure. He was not a simple moss-back, a religious reactionary, fighting progressive theories like Locke's. Rather, he was trying to maintain some basis for religious belief in the face of the intellectual upheavals in the seventeenth century. For over forty years he struggled against a wide range of philosophical and theological developments of the time that he saw as leading to scepticism and infidelity. Stillingfleet attempted to defend the reasonableness of Christianity in an intellectual world dominated by the new science, the new philosophy, the religious wars, the rise of irreligion, Bible criticism, and Spinozism. In the new scientific, philosophical and theological context he sought to show how an intelligent, reasonable man could maintain his religious views as more probable than their denials. And, he tried to show the perils involved in various new lines of thought. As he wrote to Locke, "in an age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are so much exposed by the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity, it is a thing of dangerous consequence to start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave men's minds more doubtJull than before." 3 Stillingfleet criticized various new views of thinkers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke, and tried to show that they were unreasonable and x No section is devoted to Stillingfleet in Charles de R~musat's Histoire de la Philosophie en Angleterre depuis Bacon jusqu'gt Locke, 2 vols. (Paris, 1875). He is of course briefly treated by Locke scholars, but only in relation to Locke. 2 Ernest C. Mossner, "Deism," Encyclopedia of Philosophy ('New York, 1967), II, 328. 3 Edward StiUingfleet,The Bishop o~ Worcester's Answer to Mr. Locke's Letter (London, 1697), pp. 37-38. [303] 304 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY destructive. Instead he advocated a commonsense philosophy incorporating Aristotelian and Stoic elements, as an adequate basis for a reasonable view of the world. Stillingflect's critique of empiricism, in its Epicurean and Lockean forms, revealed some of the basic difficulties in this emerging philosophy. His own views in some ways foreshadowed the counter-philosophy that Thomas Reid was to offer a century later against the full-blown empirical scepticism of Hume. And Hume's essay "Of Miracles" can, I believe, be seen as the reductio ad absurdum of Stillingfleet's commonsense philosophy. In this paper I shall try to sketch out Bishop Stilhngfleet's philosophy, and to indicate the role it played in the history of British empirical thought. The Bishop's attack on Locke only occurred at the very end of his long and fruitful intellectual career. (He died during the debate in 1699.) To appreciate why he was so concerned with exposing the sceptical and irreligious tendencies in Locke's thought, and the potential conflicts between empiricism and the tenets of Judeo-Christianity, one has to look at his entire theological and philosophical career. Stillingfleet was one of the most erudite divines of the seventeenth century, a leading member of the brilliant group of Anglican theologians, including, besides himself, William Chillingworth, Bishop John Wilkins (the founder of the Royal Society), and Archbishop John Tillotson.4 Stillingfleet was extremely sensitive to the fundamental issues being raised in the religious, scientific and philosophical debates of the time, and tried, like his fellow Anglican divines, to develop a commonsense semirational, semiempirical defense... (shrink)

In recent years, virtue epistemology has won the attention of a wide range of philosophers. A developed form of the position has been expounded forcefully by Ernest Sosa and represents the most plausible version of reliabilism to date. Through the person of Alvin Plantinga, virtue epistemology has taken philosophy of religion by storm, evoking objections and defenses in a wide variety of journals and volumes. Historically, virtue epistemology has its roots in the work of Thomas Reid, and the (...) explosion of Reid scholarship in the last few years is perhaps both a cause and an effect of recent interest in the position.In this paper I want to examine the virtues and vices of virtue epistemology. My conclusion will be that the position is correct, when qualified appropriately. The central claim of virtue epistemology is that, Gettier problems aside, knowledge is true belief which results from a cognitive virtue. In section one I will clarify this claim with some brief remarks about the nature of virtues in general, and cognitive virtues in particular. In section two I will consider two objections to the theory of knowledge which results. In section three of the paper I will argue that virtue epistemology can be qualified so as to avoid the objections raised in section two. Finally, I will argue that the amendments which solve the objections of section two also allow us to solve a version of the dreaded generality problem. (shrink)

La sociología ecológica de los últimos años, a través de diversos enfoques, ha expresado una grave preocupación: nuestra civilización ha superado los límites naturales para el crecimiento. Población y economía, las dos variables fundamentales en este tema, han traspasado hace tiempo todas las fronteras, incluso las que hablan de un desarrollo sostenible. Esto afectaría a todas las teorías sociológicas contemporáneas. De ello trata el presente ensayo, profundizando en cuatro perspectivas diferentes: la gobernanza de la complejidad, el postdesarrollo y el desarrollo (...) local alternativo, los escenarios de un decrecimiento y cuesta abajo prósperos y, finalmente, las visiones de un colapso catastrófico .The ecological sociology of last years, across diverse approaches, it has expressed a serious worry: our civilization has overcome the natural limits for the growth. Population and economy, both fundamental variables in this topic, have penetrated some time ago all the borders, even those who speak about a sustainable development. This would concern all the sociological contemporary theories. Of it treats the present essay, penetrating into four different perspectives: the gobernanza of the complexity, the postdevelopment and the local alternative development, the stages of a decrease and it costs down prosperously and, finally, the visions of a catastrophic collapse. (shrink)

Professor Reichenbach's writings have repeatedly called attention to the important rôle which probability statements play in all inquiry, and he has made amply clear that no philosophy of science can be regarded as adequate which does not square its accounts with the problems of probable inference. Recently he has brought together in convenient form many reflections on the methodology of science familiar to readers of his earlier works, and at the same time he has set himself the task of solving (...) many well-known problems of epistemology in terms of his theory of probability. His latest book is therefore of great interest, both because of the light it throws on Professor Reichenbach's own views and because it reveals the power and limitations of one approach to the problems of science. In particular, while it does not add to the details of his theory of probability worked out elsewhere, the applications Professor Reichenbach now makes of it supply fresh clues for judging its import and adequacy. The object of the present essay, therefore, is to expound a number of his views on probability and epistemology, with a view to examining his conclusions and their relevance to the problems he aims to resolve. The discussion will try to determine whether several features of his present views do not follow from assumptions which he has not sufficiently considered; whether his logical constructions do not create new puzzles; and whether a different starting-point should not be taken if the clarification of scientific concepts and procedures, to which Professor Reichenbach's devotion is as unexcelled as it is well known, is to be successfully conducted. (shrink)

Problems for Generic Reliabilism lead to a more specific account of knowledge as involving the exercise of intellectual virtues or faculties.

Baptism is a sacrament that Christ established before His ascension. It symbolizes His death and resurrection, representing the unity of the baptized person with Christ and their acceptance into the body of Christ. This paper explores baptism in the New Testament (NT) by focusing on some specific personalities. The study shows that water baptism, as an outward act, serves as a reminder and symbol of God’s redeeming work through Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. Consequently, baptism unites us with (...) Christ and invites us to be part of the Christian community. The study concludes that baptism is not an optional extra, but a command from our Lord Jesus Christ to all generations of believers, regardless of denomination, tribe, race, culture, or ethnicity. The study uses published textbooks, electronic books, and journal articles as secondary sources to examine baptism in the NT. (shrink)

La ciencia abierta constituye una transformación radical en la manera de llevar a cabo la investigación científica. Se trata de un nuevo modelo de hacer ciencia que se basa en el trabajo colaborativo entre personas de la academia y también en la apertura y la transparencia de todas las fases de la investigación. La ciencia abierta tiene sus antecedentes en el uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación por quienes investigan y en la consolidación del acceso abierto (...) a las publicaciones. Por otro lado, en su desarrollo también ha contado con tres elementos facilitadores: su conexión con los valores clásicos de la ciencia, la acción de responsables políticos con capacidad resolutiva en sus organizaciones, y el apoyo institucional, en especial de la Comisión Europea y de diversas agencias de financiación de la investigación. En el artículo se analizan diversas definiciones de ciencia abierta para destacar sus características fundamentales: apertura, transparencia y reutilización de contenidos. Se considera la ciencia abierta como un término «paraguas» que agrupa diversas piezas o elementos como el acceso abierto, los datos abiertos, la revisión abierta, el uso de preprints, la ciencia ciudadana y los nuevos modelos de evaluación. A pesar de que existe discrepancia sobre cuáles son esas piezas elementales, el artículo se centra en los seis elementos mencionados, repasa la situación actual de cada uno de ellos, y pone especial énfasis en su grado de desarrollo y en lo que aportan a la ciencia abierta. Se constata una notable diversidad en el desarrollo de cada una de las piezas y también la ausencia de una acción coordinada, lo que podría suponer una ralentización de las prácticas de ciencia abierta. A pesar de los destacados avances en acceso abierto, de la notable compartición de datos de investigación y de un respetable uso de preprints, se ha avanzado muy poco en el establecimiento de nuevas métricas y de nuevos modelos de evaluación, aun cuando estos son un elemento clave para incentivar la expansión de la ciencia abierta en todas las disciplinas. (shrink)