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The philosophy of modality investigates necessity and possibility, and related notions--are they objective features of mind-independent reality? If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? This volume presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. Between them, the papers address fundamental questions concerning realism and anti-realism about modality, the nature and basis of facts about what is possible and what is necessary, the nature of modal knowledge, modal logic and its relations to necessary existence and to counterfactual reasoning. The general introduction locates the individual contributions in the wider context of the contemporary discussion of the metaphysics and epistemology of modality. ... Read more

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Testimony is a crucial source of knowledge: we are to a large extent reliant upon what others tell us. It has been the subject of much recent interest in epistemology, and this volume collects twelve original essays on the topic by some of the world's leading philosophers. It will be the starting point for future research in this fertile field.

Contributors include Robert Audi, C. A. J. Coady, Elizabeth Fricker, Richard Fumerton, Sanford C. Goldberg, Peter Graham, Jennifer Lackey, Keith Lehrer, Richard Moran, Frederick F. Schmitt, Ernest Sosa, and James Van Cleve. ... Read more

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From a Geometrical Point of View explores historical and philosophical aspects of category theory, trying therewith to expose its significance in the mathematical landscape. The main thesis is that Klein s Erlangen program in geometry is in fact a particular instance of a general and broad phenomenon revealed by category theory. The volume starts with Eilenberg and Mac Lane s work in the early 1940 s and follows the major developments of the theory from this perspective. Particular attention is paid to the philosophical elements involved in this development. The book ends with a presentation of categorical logic, some of its results and its significance in the foundations of mathematics.

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This collection of essays in support of the theory of evolutionary epistemology includes articles by Karl Popper, Peter Munz and Gerhard Vollmer. This volume attempts to show how an evolutionary and non-justificational approach affects the sociology of knowledge. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great compilation of Epistemology
Although this book is somewhat dated at this point, it is a wonderful volume that deals with evolutionary epistemology in its early days.It has many essays from Cambell and Popper as well as other intriguing writings.I use this book in researching, citation, and general reading.The essays are not so long as to make it impossible to read one or two at one sitting.Great book for the person interested in evolution and epistemology.Highly recommended.

Great book, but..
I thought it was a great book, with the contributions of W.W. Bartley III and Karl Popper, experts in their fields of Protestant History and Scientific Philosophy. But what does John F. Post's essay have to do with Scientific Theory? Since he writes in Chapter X that there exists something called the "Possible Liar"-paradox and after that develops it (erronously) into an "Gödelian Theorem for Theories of Rationality", in Chapter XII. In the last chapter he (formally) deduces that no formal reasoning can be applied to science and leaves us hanging in mid-air in order to try to find a decent substitute to critical discussion or rationality.

I believe this error stems from his "choice of instruments". Because when he writes on page 230: "Suppose that X is contingent (ed. aka as a consistent, synthetic statement) and that X's negation implies S (ed. it's criticizer) Most contingent theories are such that if -X is invalid, then X is true. But this means that X's survival of the test verifies X. This too is the opposite of what we want.", he has given himself the instrument to construct his "Gödelian Theorem", which he claims: "It even applies (..) to theories that are not versions of CR (ed. Critical Rationalism), such as positivism, verificationism, instrumentalism, and some forms of pragmatism." (page 264)

When I e-mailed him on his email-address readily obtainable from the internet, I got an answer from him which stated that he hadn't thought about it for about 20 years now and was busy with a book on meta-ethics, but he seemed (at least on the surface) willing enough to start a discussion of his 1971/1983 papers. When I confronted him with the above error in his reasoning he immediately started using manipulative techniques which I learned in high school, like the "appeal to authority"-argument: "I'm puzzled as to why a fellow devotee of logic (ed. italics mine) like yourself did not point to where those arguments might go wrong" (from e-mail he wrote to me on 11-11-2005).

It turns out that the person who has proved "impossible" critical discussion and has made a "Gödelian Theorem" of all known problem-solving techniques, cannot handle a 26-year old who has some affinity with science and who believes Bartley's CR to be formalizable and consistent. The reason why I believe it to be so is not because I have a vested interest in criticizing "Gödelian Theorems", but because Bartley said it all in his book "The Retreat to Commitment(1984, second Edition)", in which he describes (in a fascinating way) the development of Protestantism towards a dogmatic version of Christianity, that: 1) Analytic statements are not per definition true. (RtC, page 240: "The idea that `necessary' truths cannot be revised (..) of science." 2) Synthetic statements CAN BE (but not necessarily) conjunctions (or disjunctions) of (analytic) statements. (Emanates from the whole atmosphere of the book.) 3) There exists something called the notion of deducibility. (RtC, page 133: "The idea of testing and revising in the light of tests (..) needs to be corrected.)

From this foundation I derived the following counterproof (as copied from my e-mail to Sir Post on 1-11-2005): "Although Bartley claims that he didn't aim for statements to be the
"backbone" of his theory, I believe that your statements A, B & C hit his theory quite on the head with their self-referent properties and their logical implications. The part I am disagreeing about is that you are not willing to have the negation of contingent statements to allow them to imply their contingent statement's negation. Why is this? In my view a contingent statement is neither inconsistent nor analytic, and can thus best be described as a consistent synthetic statement. But these kind of statements are VERY hard to come by in a self-refering context and are thus ALL THE MORE likely that their negations to imply that they are false. Because you chose this (instrumental) sort of criticizability you immediately get the two premises which lead to conclusion that C is uncriticizable, namely: 1) (S)(PSC->PSB) and 2) (S)(PSB->-PSC). Without this "choice of instruments" you would get the theory Bartley proposed and the Possible Liar-paradox would not be applicable to this situation anymore(unless B is construed analytically)."

Since I am a rational person who despises armed conflict I was happy (to say the least) when I found out about Bartley's solution to the tu quoque-argument which he explains in his book "Retreat to Commitment". I was aghasted when I read the essay by Post about the inherent problems with all self-referential theories of Rationality. I'm happy to have solved it.

A great collection
Evolutionary epistemology applies Darwinianprinciplesof naturalselectiontoscientifictheoriesandto knowledge generally. Itisconcernedwithproblem-solvinganderror eliminationundervariousformsofselectivepressure, in contrastwithschools of thought which are concernedwiththe justificationof beliefs or the explication of concepts.

The major emphasis in this book is on the biologicalline of thought,with some attention toWilliamW. Bartley'swork on rationality.The articles were not originally planned forthis volume; most are based on papers delivered at a series of seminars during the early 1980s and some are much older pieces thatarereprintedbecausetheymakea specially significantcontributiontoevolutionaryepistemology.The volumestandsin need of an introductionto makevisiblethe skeletonof ideas that provides adegree of coherence tothe collection.The absence of this guide will createsome problems for people who are not familiar with evolutionary epistemology in general,and with Popper's work in particular .For more on this, google on Rathouse+Popper or Rathouse+Bartley.

In Part I the philosophers William W.Bartley and Rosaria Egidi,the scientists Gunter Wachterhauser and Gerhard Vollmer,and the psychologistDonaldCampbell,together withPopper,contributeeight chapters which make up almost half the book. Bartley criticises aversion of subjectivism or idealism ("the world is mydream") which he labels 'presentationalism'.His critique is relevant to all those epistemologies which equate knowledge with true belief, though few are prepared to follow the consequences with the rigor of presentationalists such as Ernst Mach (1838-1916.)Mach argued thatthereis no such thing as a real tree,out thereinthe garden,because when we claim to see it, what we actually see is an image of a tree as it is presented to our mindby our sensory andcognitive apparatus.

This anthropomorphic accountofthe externalworldcanbe criticisedon biological grounds,as Bartley does in asectiontitled "About a frog,idealistically disposed".Frogsregister onlyfourkindsof visual effects because only fourtypesof signalcanbe sent to their brains. These visual effects aresufficientto enablefrogstoperform tasks such ascatchingsmallmoving objectsand leaping towards dark spaces if apredatorappears.Theworldof the frog,as a projection of itslimitedvisual capacity,is very impoverishedand not one that we would accept asthefullstory even, with ourownfairlylimitedsenses. Yeta presentationalist frogwould claim that the worldconsists only of the contrasts, the small dark objects, the moving shadows andsuddendimming of light which it perceives.Thus itwould ignorethepossibility that its knowledge of the worldisnot 'given'butis the product of the evolvedsenseorganswhich reflectsome,butnot all,aspects of the worldwhichfrogs inhabit.Thisview might seem absurd if itwere advanced bya frog, butitshuman equivalent dominates Westernphilosophy, with apparent support from the findings of modern physics.

Bartleysuggests that the roots of the theory that he labelspresentationalism

"may benot only deep but psychological,and even metaphysical...for it seems to me that philosophers of science do notordinarily choose presentationalism;rather they are driven toit by certain deep structural assumptions that permeatemost of western philosophy."

Amongthoseassumptions which he identifies are reductionism, determinism and positivism. These theories, with some others of a moretechnicalnaturesuchasinstrumentalism(theoriesare nothing but instruments) and subjectivist interpretations ofthe calculusofprobability,constitute what could be calledthe dominantframeworkof Westernthought,especiallyscientific thought.The basicassumptionsthatsupport evolutionary epistemology contradict the old frameworkat almost every point. Hence it is possible to detect a "new program" for western philosophy, with the following elements: non-justificationism, objectivism, non-determinism and non-reductionism.

PartIItreats Bartley's ideas. He has the first and last word, with John F.Post (three short pieces),John W. N. Watkinsand Gerhard Radnitzky sandwiched in between. The point of departure isthetheory of rationality and the limits of criticismwhich Bartley advanced in The Retreat to Commitment.Bartley'stheoryof rationalitygeneralizes Popper's critique of the notionthata beliefisnothingif it isnotpositivelyjustified. Thisapproach abandons the quest forpositive justification and insteadsettles fora critical preferenceforoneoption ratherthanothers,inthe light ofcriticalargumentsand evidenceoffered uptothatpoint.AsRadnitzkyputsit, "Questions of acceptance arereplacedby questions of preference".Many people are likely to regard this resultasa purely verbal 'solution' to the problem of justification,merely shifting theproblem from the source of justificationtothe sourceofcriticalpreference. Butthe shiftisfromthe impossibletaskof justification toproductive taskssuchasexploringthetypesof criticism thatcanbeusedtoformcritical preferences.

PartIIIofthe volume, titled "Rationalityandthe Sociology of Knowledge, "branches off in various directions with essays from Peter Munz,Antony Flew and Bartley(again). Munz responds to RichardRorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, whichcontends that philosophers should not try to competewith scientistsinsolvingproblems but,instead,shouldsustainelegant conversations.Munz shows that Rortyhas ignored evolutionaryepistemologyasan alternativetothe'mirror' theorythatthe mind passively copies the world (whichRorty rejects)andto theappeal to a select community of peersfor settling knowledge claims (which Rorty apparently accepts).

Evolution...the answer?
The traditional problems in epistemology led to the binary oppositions of Descartes, Kant, etc. The scholastic "quod" vs. "quo" distinction, the Cartesian subject-object dualism, and the Kantian ding-an-sich versus appearence dualism have been the centers of a considerable amount of debate in the history of epistemological kibitzing. Now, with Sir Karl Popper in the lead, some philosophers have set out to solve the problems of epistemology by approaching it in an evolutionary way! To me, this is all hogwash. I say, prove the theory of evolution BEFORE you use it as the basis for an epistemology! Show us the billions of missing links! Explain to us how in the world language came out of non-verbal life-forms. But, before that, how on earth did life appear from non-life? Is the theory of evolution falsifiable? NO! Actually, what I really want to know is, how did something come from nothing. It is an unfalsifiable presupposition. Furthermore, it is taken for granted that nothing comes from nothing, now. Well, I did give the book 3 stars. I found the part on Rorty, by Peter Munz, to be quite entertaining, as well as insighful. No one, that I know of, can quite criticize Rorty the way that Munz does. But, hey, it is a very scholarly book. Written by many great minds. It is interesting, even if wrong. ... Read more

Product Description
Ayn Rand presented Objectivism as a philosophy of reason. But is it? That is the question Scott Ryan seeks to answer in this careful examination of the Objectivist epistemology and its alleged sufficiency as the philosophical foundation of a free and prosperous commonwealth. Sorting painstakingly through Rand's writings on the subject, Mr. Ryan concludes that the epistemology of Objectivism is incoherent and debases both the concept and the practice of rationality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Epitome of ungracious
Mr. Ryan says he admires Brand Blanshard. In an online article he chides Ayn Rand fans to learn about graciousness from Blanshard. He does not emulate Blanshard with this book. He is the opposite of gracious to Ayn Rand. The book is full of derisive remarks like "Rand failed to consider ... ", "she carelessly thought ...", "she wasn't entitled to think ...", and all her ideas simply stem from a "fear of religion." He regularly and ungraciously misrepresents her, e.g. having her perceive an abstraction (p. 48). Witness the title. It's not 'Objectivism and Rationality'.

Much of the book is about the theory (or problem) of universals. Ryan brings up the topic repeatedly, beyond annoyance. He claims it is an ontological, not an epistemological problem. Wrong, it's both. He asserts Rand is a nominalist in ontology but a moderate realist in epistemology. How can that be if the theory of universals is only ontological? I offer two reasons. First he confuses the two aspects. Second, he portrays her that way to try to make her look ridiculous. He calls Ayn Rand's solution an "optical illusion."

He claims Rand didn't understand the problem. Given what Ryan writes about it, she understood it better than he does. He says he agrees with Blanshard on universals. However, Blanshard's position is far from Ryan's own confused one he calls "realist",and Ryan's use of "generic universals" and "specific universals" does not match Blanshard's. I think Ryan fails to understand Blanshard's theory.

Blanshard rejected the Platonic theory and the Aristotelian theory, both realist. He rejected "generic universals" (Reason and Analysis, IX, 28, 29, 34) and non-specific, qualitative universals for lack of sameness (RA, IX, 14). Ryan does not. Blanshard endorsed specific, qualitative universals, based on identity (sameness). Blanshard: "By a generic universal, I mean one whose instances are individual things or persons, for example, man, horse, or stone. By a qualitative universal I mean one whose instances are qualities or characters of one kind, for example, colour, sound, or shape. By a specific universal I mean a quality or character that is incapable of sub-division into kinds, for example, this shade of red or this degree of loudness in a sound" (RA, IX, 14). Note that Blanshard's distinction rests on different instances -- entities and generic attributes (like color or number, but not red or three) versus specific attributes (like red or three, but not color or number). Ryan's does not.

Blanshard largely agreed with John Locke about generic and nonspecific qualitative universals, based on resemblance (RA, IX, 34). Locke's theory is usually regarded as a conceptualist, resemblance one. It is anti-realist (contra Plato and Aristotle and Ryan). Indeed, it is much like Rand's. Strongly related to universals in nearly all accounts except Ryan's is essence, which he barely mentions.

Chapter 8 is about two views of reason. He starts with some quotes from Rand. Included are two versions:
1. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses.
2. Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses.

Ryan exploits this difference. I believe Rand was a bit sloppy including "perceives" in the first one. Her perceptual/conceptual division and other common ones like senses/intellect and sensation/reflection justify its exclusion.

He describes Blanshard's view of reason and judges it far better. He says somebody may judge the two views have a lot in common, but Ryan insists such a judgment is far amiss. His arguments are flimsy. One is that Blanshard wrote more than 200 pages on perception and Rand very little! The key element in Blanshard's view is to grasp necessary connections. Ryan sees hardly anything in common between Blanshard's "grasp necessary connections" and Rand's "identify and integrate". Indeed, Ryan's book barely recognizes Rand's frequent use of "integrate" (and its cognates) and the great importance she gave to integration.

Ryan devotes Chapter 11 to "primacy of existence" versus "primacy of consciousness." Throughout he treats it as only an ontological question -- the existence of God, idealism versus materialism, and the mind-reality connection. But Rand also presented it as a choice regarding a person's mental functioning, as a person's epistemological orientation. Ryan even extensively quotes Rand to that effect on p. 267. Even more can be found in Rand's writing to support said orientation that Ryan does not include. Ryan's commentary evades all of them.

Contra the evidence that Rand's position on primacy of existence is far more than atheism versus theism, Ryan claims it is simply "fear of religion." I suggest the reader consider the opposite -- Ryan's philosophical motivation is simply "fear of atheism."

One more awful attribute of this book is it lacks an index. This is compounded by Ryan often referring to what he writes elsewhere without saying where or even indicating what he allegedly said.

I reluctantly say I did agree with Ryan infrequently, e.g. on measurement omission and some on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. Most of the latter is based on an essay by Leonard Peikoff, not Rand herself, but I guess they pretty much agreed.

Very good - and NOT about Rand's "life"
I'm bewildered by the suggestion that this book takes a derisive tone toward Ayn Rand or tries to tear apart her entire life. In fact it treats her far more respectfully than she probably deserves, and its sole focus is on her philosophy - and only on a part of that (epistemology and, to a lesser extent, ethics).

Author Scott Ryan specifically states at several points that he likes some of Rand's fiction and is himself politically libertarian. He repeatedly acknowledges that some of her *personal* opinions reflected genuine insight. But he doesn't think her *philosophy* is sufficient to carry the weight of those insights; following her philosophy by itself is therefore a recipe for trouble.

This all seems perfectly straightforward to me, and the vast majority of Ryan's criticisms hit their philosophical marks. (I don't agree with all of them but they're carefully thought out - generally much more so than Rand's own views were. Ryan is also a very good writer.) I cannot imagine how someone who actually *read* the book could come away with the impression that Ryan devotes much attention to Rand's personal life. This book is not in any way about Rand the person.

Nor can I understand how anyone who *read* the book could think Ryan sees no need for a philosophical foundation for a free society. In fact Ryan says right up front that he thinks absolute idealism *is* the proper philosophical foundation for a free society. As Ryan himself states repeatedly (and I agree), the reader need not accept his views in order to find his criticisms useful. But I don't see how he could have insisted any more clearly that the free society *does* need a philosophical foundation (and that Objectivism isn't it).

Of course, if those comments are just part of an Objectivist attempt to taint the book's reputation, they become much more understandable. But in that case, they're really arguments for *reading* the book, aren't they?

Ryan's Corruption of Objectivity
I bought this book with the hope of descovering an interesting and innovative view of Ayn Rand. But after reading it, and researching Ryan on the web, I can find no reason to recommend this book to anyone, novice or advanced practioner.

Rather than a critical analysis of the work of a great author and philosopher, Ryan seems intent on anihilating every aspect of her life, or as a previous writer coments, deconstructing Ayn Rand. Even more, I found his mocking, disrespectful tone toward Ayn Rand to be unnecessary and childish, and his use of the omniscient voice--in replication of Rand--to be without the requisite talent, ability, and great experience she had in the world.

Further more, he attempts to defeat Rand by use of the negative, which I find very revealing in a psychological sense--one choosing to spend so much time trying to expose negatives rather than creating a positive vision of one's own. Also, by not identifying with her fight against the prevailing culture, he doesn't seem to understand what she was trying to do in the world, and doesn't understand the entirely hostile culture she had to fight against and the enormity of the battle, something that would effect anyone at anytime.

Yes, Ayn Rand made mistakes, and when you accept that, one can appreciate the world-moving vision she gave the world, and her unrelenting defense of the individual's right to live his or her life by their own rational vision. Like many libertarians, Ryan refuses to accept the need for a philosophical foundation for a free society, and his attempted defense of altruism by defining it, as helping others, shows a reluctance to understand what Ayn Rand was saying in regards to altruism as the foundation for communism, fascism, and religious fanaticism, as we see with Al Queda.

One of the big problems with this book, is that Ryan is very hard to understand. Unlike Ayn Rand, who writes clearly and distinctly, Ryan lacks a concrete and graphic style, andtends to use abstract terms that are open to different interpretations so as to leave the reader, many times, not sure of what he is referring to.

Then, too, ironically like many orthodox Objectivists to whom he refers to contemptuously, he tends to conceptualize, not from the facts of reality, but from his own need to prove Ayn Rand or wrong, and thus misinterprets much of what she says. This comes to light with his treatment of Ayn Rand's essay, "The Metaphysical Versus The Man Made." Here, Ryan misinterprets what she says, offers his own version of her words, and then goes on to argue his point, using his misinterpretation rather than what Ayn Rand was saying.

Along with this Ryan states that Ayn Rand often reified her views of the world, meaning she transformed abstracts into concretes--one's conceptualizations of events into metaphysical concretes. I find no problem with this assessment, but then so what?--Ryan repeatedly does the exact same thing in his writings, especially with Ayn Rand, going as far as to refer to her as a "looter and a speed freek" in one of his comments on Amazon, as well as to make undeserved and contemptuous comments about people associated with the traditional school of Objectivism.

Furthermore, I have to be skeptical of anyone who leaves out the benevolent and very positive aspects of Ayn Rand's life and philosophy. She was a giant of a women who achieved great things in the world, and blazed a frontier path for all those who want to live in the world. To Ryan, it is all negativity, and he oftens falls into the trap of comparing the philosophy of Objectivism with some of the less than positive behavior of people who practice the philosophy of Objectivism, two very different concepts. As with all great social movements that challenge the world, people make mistakes, and people are wounded and damaged, and Objectivism is no exception. Yet, in Ryan's view there is no room for acclaim and respect, nor does he give space to the great amount of independent people, who live their own lives in the way they see fit, but yet have enormous respect and admiration for Ayn Rand.

Excellent philosophical critique
What bizarre reviews appear on this page! If they are genuine reviews at all, they have surely been submitted by disgruntled Objectivists who don't want this book to be read.

No wonder, either. Mr Ryan has delivered a powerhouse philosophical critqique of Objectivism in this work. I'm not at all surprised that Rand's followers are having trouble refuting it (in part because it's written well over their heads; Ryan is considerably more expert in real philosophy than Rand was, let alone her acolytes).

Ryan demonstrates consistently, time after time, that Rand's explicit philosophy depended implicitly on unacknowledged premises that were at odds with it. In summary, and with an irony not at all lost on Ryan, Objectivism itself is a huge "stolen concept."

Ryan is not Rand's enemy; on the contrary, he expressly states that he enjoys much of her fiction and agrees broadly with her political philosophy. He just doesn't think she was much of an epistemologist. Any unbiased reader of this book will come to agree, after watching Ryan deconstruct and decimate her theories on page after page of careful exposition and analysis.

There aren't very many competent philosophical critiques of Objectivism in print. This is one of the best. Its detractors either don't know what they're talking about, or just don't want you to read it, or (most likely) both. Don't let them turn you away.

Scott Ryan Cuts Rand Down to Size with Style to Spare
(...) Scott Ryan, previously best known for his work "In Refutation of Newton, A Mathematician's Assault on Calculus," steps into the world of philosophy swinging full on. His critiques are incisive but vitriolic, and in the end I got the feeling that Scott Ryan holds a bitter grudge against Ayn Rand, or maybe just Russians in general (maybe still a bit mad about Stalingrad perhaps?)? Who knows? Overall it's a good book if you like to speak ill of the dead.

-Ray ... Read more

Product Description
This unique textbook--the first to offer balanced, comprehensive coverage of all major perspectives on the rational justification of religious belief--includes twenty-four key papers by some of the world's leading philosophers of religion.Arranged in six sections, each representing a major approach to religious epistemology, the book begins with papers by noted atheists, setting the stage for the main theistic responses--Wittgensteinian Fideism, Reformed epistemology, natural theology, prudential accounts of religious beliefs, and rational belief based in religious experience--in each case offering a representative sample of papers by leading exponents, a critical paper, and a substantial bibliography.A comprehensive introductory essay and ample cross-references help students to contrast and evaluate the different approaches, while the overall arrangement encourages them to assess the full range of philosophical positions on the issue.

Carefully selected to provide both a comprehensive overview of current work and a series of modern perspectives on many classic sources--Swinburne's detailed discussion of Hume's critique of the design argument, for example, as well as an entire section evaluating and extending Pascal's famous Wager--the essays also provide a uniquely readable survey that will be useful in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of religion and epistemology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Solid Collection of Scholars
This collection is a who's who of scholars who are dealing with the philosophical study of epistemology (the study of knowledge). The book is divided into 6 (VI) different sections which include Atheism (Antony Flew, Michael Martin, William L. Rowe, etc), Wittgensteinian Fideism (Norman Malcolm, Kai Nielsen, etc), Reformed Epistemology (Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, etc), Natural Theology (William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, etc), Prudential Accounts of Religious Belief (Thomas Morris, James Cargile, etc), and Rational Belief and Religious Experience (William P. Alston, John Hick, etc). Each section has a different popular philosopher discussing a particular issue that relates to epistemology. While the book itself claims to be somewhat of an introductory text, a new student to the issues at hand may get bogged down in the lingo. However, many of the articles are written in a fairly easy to read style. If you are willing to sit down and digest the contents then this book is a great text to read, but if you are wanting a more "popular" and/or easy text to read then you might hold off on this one until you get more used to the issues at hand. Either way, this book is a great tool for now or later in your current studies.

Excellent overview of religious epistemology
This is a very useful collection of papers by noted analytic philosophers, all concerned with the epistemology of religion.The introduction sets up the basic structure of the book, which is divided into six sections, eachnamed after one of the major contemporary approaches to religiousepistemology:atheism, natural theology, Wittgensteinian fideism, reformedepistemology, approaches based on religious experience, and prudentialaccounts of religious belief.I especially recommend the following: "Atheological Apologetics", "The Argument from Evil and someVarieties of Atheism" (W. Rowe), "Colors, Flavors, and God"(R. M. Adams), "The Argument from Design" (R. Swinburne),"The Groundlessness of Belief" (N. Malcolm), Plantinga's paper,and "You Bet Your Life" (Lycan & Schlesinger). ... Read more

Product Description
Probability theory is increasingly important to philosophy. Bayesian probabilistic models offer us ways of getting to grips with fundamental problems about information, coherence, reliability, confirmation, and testimony, and thus show how we can justify beliefs and evaluate theories. Bovens and Hartmann provide a systematic guide to the use of probabilistic methods not just in epistemology, but also in philosophy of science, voting theory, jurisprudence, and cognitive psychology. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume represents the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in theory of knowledge. It is ideal as a reader for all courses in epistemology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent work!
The item I ordered was delivered much faster than I expected. Thank you for excellent work. The condition of the book is also good.

Excellent Anthology of Contemporary Epistemology
I've already reviewed the Kim and Sosa anthology in contemporary metaphysics, and I have much the same verdict on their anthology in contemporary epistemology:this, to the best of my knowledge, is the single best anthology of contemporary philosophical work in this area for advanced students of philosophy.(That, of course, isn't to say that there isn't a better anthology in epistemology; there are simply far too many philosophy anthologies for me to know that with any certainly.)The virtues of this anthology are considerable.Its coverage of most areas is broad, the readings have been carefully selected from the contemporary classics of the field, and it touches on the most of the central areas of research in contemporary epistemology. Furthermore, this anthology is packed with papers displaying the virtues of good analytic philosophy:patience in explaining the nature and importance of the issues, precision in exposition and description, clarity and honesty of argument, and carefulness in analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of various positions.

The reader should know that this is emphatically not a historically anthology--they don't even include a selection on skepticism by Descartes!Since these are all contemporary readings, this anthology isn't a place to go for knowledge of the epistemological views of the great philosophers.Nearly every election is from the last fifty years, and a good many of them are from the last twenty or so.So the focus of this anthology is on the sort of metaphysics that is being done in analytic philosophy right now.

The subjects covered include, inter alia, the following:skepticism, the analysis of knowledge, justification, foundationalism vs. coherentism, naturalized epistemology, externalism vs. internalism, virtue epistemology, and contextualism.The aim of the individual sections on each of these questions isn't to provide a synoptic view of the positions in these areas.That, of course, simply couldn't be done in an anthology of this sort.The aim instead is to give the reader a sense of the positions defended in this area, to provide her with the outlines of a couple possible positions on each of the issues, and to give her the background to enter into the contemporary literature on the subjects.

Now, it may seem that there are some obvious lacunae in this list.Where, for instance, is coverage of rationalism and a priori knowledge or of the problem of induction?It is, of course, true that more could have been added to this anthology--but that's going to be true of any anthology.I doubt it's a major problem here, though, as it seems to me that you'll have no problems engaging with most of the literature in contemporary epistemology if you've mastered the material covered in this anthology.And it seems to me that this is the role that an anthology of this sort should play--providing the reader with an entry into contemporary literature in the field.

But while I think this is an ideal way to introduce oneself to the contemporary literature, the reader should know that this isn't an anthology filled with introductory material by the editors themselves.Most of the sections begin with only a page or two of introductory material, and those few pages are expected to both introduce the basic issues in a few paragraphs and relate the readings included to the basic issues and to one another.It's not clear to me that much more than this sort of brief introductory material is necessary here, though.First, as is often the case in philosophy, many of the basic issues discussed don't need much motivation since they can be stated in a few words and since they concern questions that, on their face, are quite straightforward and simple.But there is more to it than that.What seems most important is that the subject matter of most epistemological worry is pretty narrowly focused.For epistemology is really concerned with a small number of very basic and interrelated questions (viz. Can we know anything?And, if so, how can we know it?What is it to know something?), and so it's possible to see most all of these selections as engaged with a limited range of general issues.Moreover, it is possible to see general connections between the different subjects here since many of the positions discussed are motivated by a concern with rebutting skepticism.In fact, the structure of anthology mirrors the structure of epistemology from Descartes to the present day:we begin with challenge presented by skepticism, and we go from there.The anthology begins with a section on skepticism, and it's possible to see almost everything thereafter as involving an attempt to deal with skepticism and what it shows us about our knowledge of the world.Many papers discuss how the skepticism is formulated, why it seems plausible, why it goes wrong (if it does), how we can meet the skeptic's demand, or why the skeptic doesn't really present us with a challenge.

Naturally, this material is going to be helpful for people working in other areas of philosophy, as epistemological issues turn up everywhere.Skepticism and responses to it have a role to play in every area of philosophy, and so understanding the material in this anthology should be helpful if you're going to study just about anything in contemporary philosophy.But, unless you already have some background in contemporary philosophy, this is not an anthology I'd recommend for someone beginning study of the subject.While some of its selections should be accessible to anyone with an interest in this subject, many of them technical and philosophically sophisticated.Since many of these selections are journal articles or selections from book-length treatises on the issues, the authors often assume that the reader is coming to this material with a thorough grounding in the aims and methods of contemporary philosophy.So, before you try to tackle most of this anthology, I'd recommend reading an introductory text in contemporary epistemology or at least doing some coursework in related areas.

This is an ideal anthology for courses surveying contemporary metaphysics that are aimed at graduate students and advanced undergraduates.The only drawback is the fairly high price, but this book is certainly worth it if you're interested in this area of contemporary analytic philosophy.

An Exemplary Epistemology Text.
Sosa and Kim's text is a guide through the most influential andprovocative articles in philosophical epistemology.Provides a goodbackground for issues regarding knowledge and skepticism, and includesclassic essays as well as contemporary journal articles.Perfect for anintroductory graduate level epistemology course. ... Read more

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Kant's Critique of Judgment has often been interpreted by scholars as comprising separate treatments of three uneasily connected topics: beauty, biology, and empirical knowledge. Rachel Zuckert's book interprets the Critique as a unified argument concerning all three domains. She argues that on Kant's view, human beings demonstrate a distinctive cognitive ability in appreciating beauty and understanding organic life: an ability to anticipate a whole that we do not completely understand according to preconceived categories. This ability is necessary, moreover, for human beings to gain knowledge of nature in its empirical character as it is, not as we might assume it to be. Her wide-ranging and original study will be valuable for readers in all areas of Kant's philosophy. ... Read more

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Popkin and Stroll review each major theory of philosophy chronologically, and then further organise these theories into their respective subject areas: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. Within each subject area, the authors discuss how the sceptical challenge gave rise to new philosophical positions. The volume concludes with an especially interesting debate between the authors on the merits of scepticism today. Stroll thinks that, ultimately, the doubts expressed by sceptics can be refuted, while Popkin denies this. This is an outstanding introduction to the problems of philosophy by two eminent philosophers with a gift for presenting the history of ideas in a very enjoyable fashion.Amazon.com Review
Skeptical Philosophy for Everyone is a deliberate recounting of skepticism's role in the development of philosophy. Richard H. Popkin and Avrum Stroll contend that the history of philosophy has been propelled largely by skepticism, or more precisely, responses to skepticism. They distinguish between everyday skepticism, defined as skepticism about facts, and philosophical skepticism, the sort of thoroughgoing skepticism that denies we know anything at all. It is the latter kind of skepticism that, in their view, has driven Western thought.

As the title implies, Popkin and Stroll's account of skepticism is indeed suited for lay readers or students, but the concepts are rendered so simply as to court reductionism. The book is readable but methodical and tends to omit detail. They sketch a modest historical account of skepticism's role in philosophy, hitting the high points in summary fashion before tackling skepticism topically, doing a chapter each on the philosophy of religion, ethics, and political philosophy. The final chapter is a debate between Popkin and Avrum about skepticism's defensibility, wrangling over whether "skepticism can raise probing criticisms without being correct in itself." --Eric de Place ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Horse feathers meet feather horses
I thought I might be able to learn something from a book which takes a vast overview of philosophical problems, illustrated by concrete examples, but I did not get very far into this book.Is it so typical that philosophers are so high up in their ivory tower that their hypothetical situations lack any substance?

This book has no idea how often it is wrong about fundamental things like law; like how real people who have problems is not at all the same as how people have legal problems.Americans should realize:they live in a country where even their legal problems have legal problems, and people who want to count ballots better watch out that the Supreme Court does not get in their way.Strange cases might involve something more unusual than "two persons arrested for stealing money."(p. 22).If one of them is younger, it might be assumed that the other "is a hardened criminal, arrested and convicted many times for various offenses.His stealing is a part of a pattern of behavior."(p. 20).Judges might expect to consider that a young person hasn't had time to get caught as often, in imposing their sentences, but this book expects [wrongly, I'm sure] the jurors to be informed of everything the defendants ever did, and then argue about giving more punishment to whomever is worse."In the cases of the two thieves, we can imagine a debate among the jurors, some of whom might argue that, independent of the histories of the accused persons, equal crimes should be treated equally, and some of whom argue that background factors should be taken into consideration in dispensing justice."(p. 22).If an attorney is effectively representing the thieves, all the extraneous information about a pattern of behavior will be excluded as prejudicial beyond the weight of its probative value, but this book, like most philosophy, would totally boggle everyone's mind if it tried to realistically describe how attorneys can complicate things.Sentencing guidelines now take much of this out of the hands of judges, so any defendant who is not treated according to a standardized chart could become an obstacle to the judge advancing in federal courts, where confirmation hearings harp on odd behavior.Pickering is not listed in the index, but the Democrats in the U.S. Senate are unlikely to confirm him for an Appeals court because of the case of Daniel Swan, who seemed to Pickering to be too young and drunk to serve six years for burning a cross in the yard of the interracial couple in his neighborhood.Causing trouble in his neighborhood was something that even his neighbors didn't seem too concerned about, if you can guess which state he lived in.Whole vast crowds of people have been burning crosses in movies that I have seen, set back in the days before television, when people got out and did things together, and everybody had some sense of what kind of consequences, like arson or bombing, was sure to follow.Daniel Swan might have been released from prison in less than two years, sentenced for a lesser crime than whatever Timothy McVeigh was convicted of for an actual revolutionary bombing, but McVeigh was old enough to know better, as anyone who ever went to Waco, Texas to try to help David Koresh must be by now.

I'm far too extreme to read a whole book that considers anything which is perfectly clear an extreme."The extreme right-to-life position advances the following considerations in support of its position:First, it argues that from the moment of conception, a human fetus is a human being, and that all human beings are persons.Second, as mentioned above, it states that such persons are innocent of any crime."(p. 23).The second step is necessary because we already know that people who have been born are part of a society that constantly kills, sometimes counting the dead, but considering the production of meat an agricultural item that is easier to replenish than 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean, now that we have almost saved the whales.If there is anything people haven't killed, I am not sure if I have heard of it, though I know that in section 125 of THE GAY SCIENCE, Nietzsche wrote, " `Where is God?' he cried; `I'll tell you!We have killed him -- you and I!We are all his murderers. . . . Do we still smell nothing of the divine decomposition? -- Gods, too, decompose!God is dead!God remains dead!And we have killed him!"For real Christians, it is communion that makes this kind of thing a ritual participation in who we are, body and blood, and if killing millions is what we do, it seems likely to continue regardless of anything this book might say about protecting the innocent.

An unusually accessiblephilosophy book
Popkin and Stroll, using skepticism as a springboard, have written an insightful, informal introduction to philosophy. The book is clear and readable but not superficial. In a neutral way, the authors review how all great thinkers from the Greeks to the contemporary have dealt with theories about our ability to know anything.
The work is structured in three parts: The first defines skepticism and deals with different philosophers. The second applies various philosophical principles to the study of religion, ethics and politics. The third is a debate between the authors, one of them is a skeptic. I heartily recommend this book to the general public. ... Read more

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Introducing a new variant on Bayesian decision theory the author offers a compelling case that, while no panacea, decision theory does in fact have the most profound consequences for the way in which philosophers think about inquiry, criticism and rational belief. The new variant on Bayesian theory is presented in such a way that a nonspecialist will be able to understand it. The book also offers new solutions to some classic paradoxes. It focuses on the intuitive motivations of the Bayesian approach to epistemology and addresses the philosophical worries to which it has given rise. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Kaplan overlooks the contributions of Keynes and Ellsberg regarding the role of confidence in decision making
Kaplan 's book is interesting.However,his goal ,which is to present an alternative to strict Bayesianism's (a) special case emphasis on precise ,single number estimates of probabilities and (b) its conflation of degree of belief with degree of confidence,was already accomplished by J M Keynes in chapters 6,15,17,and 26 of the A Treatise on Probability (TP,1921).Kaplan offers an alternative approach to those of Keynes and Ellsberg,showing how his con( )analysis of chapter 1 can take into account confidence.Unfortunately,neither Keynes nor Ellsberg are mentioned in the book.Every single one of the problems that Kaplan works out in chapter one ,showing how confidence can be taken into account ,can also be solved using Keynes's interval estimate approach to probability and his conventional coefficient of risk and weight,c(chapter 26,sections 7 and 8 of the TP.See also pp.314-315).c explicitly incorporates Keynes's weight of the evidence variable ,w.Confidence is a positive function of the weight of the evidence.The same goes for Ellsberg'
s 1962 dissertation that was recently published in 2001.It incorporates the key concepts presented in Ellsberg's 1961 Quarterly Journal of Economics article.Ellsberg introduced his rho variable that explicitly deals with the confidence that a decision maker has in his estimate of a probability.

Kaplan instead refers to work done by Levi as a precursor to his own work on modifying strict Bayesianism.Keynes'swork on indeterminate probabilities and confidence predates Levi's work by 60 years.
Kaplan also overlooks fundamental logical problems that exist at the core of strict Bayesianism that make his alternative formulations even more attractive.Recently,Kadane,Schervish,and Siedenfeld,in their " Rethinking the Foundations of Statistics "(Cambridge University Press,1999), have completely thrown in the towel and admitted implicitly that Keynes and Ellsberg were right and Ramsey,De Finetti,and Savage were incorrect.The book is composed of 16 essays,all of which have been previously published in academic journals and/or other books.Throughout the book,the authors concede that there are many holes and deficiencies in the logical foundations of the subjectivist approach.The biggest hole is vastly understated by KSS: " In fact,it seems reasonable to deny that there are consequences in practical decisions.Thus,our position is that,lacking consequences,expected utility theory must treat probability distributions as extraneous(italicized)..."(KSS,1999,p.195).Of course,"...lacking consequences...", means that the outcomes are state independent.On pp.157-160,KSS had already demonstrated the near impossibility in the real world of being able to specify outcomes that would make their utilities state independent.Given that the subjective probabilities are completely extraneous,there is no longer any way in which the a priori beliefs of a decision maker can be represented by a unique probability distribution on purely decision theoretic grounds alone.This means that unique,definite,precise,numerical ,single number estimates of subjective probabilities do not exist.This result goes to the heart of the entire edifice erected by Ramsey,De Finetti,and Savage,in particular.Savage argued that,based on a careful elicitation of subjective preferences based on betting quotients,a unique probability measure(distribution)can be defined to represent the agent's preference relation.Nowhere is it stated by KSS that this position( of Savage) goes to the heart of the dispute ,between Keynes and Ramsey on the one hand, and Savage and Ellsberg on the other hand,about the inherent indeterminateness of many probability estimates.The comparative -interval estimate-approach to estimating probabilities,presented by Keynes for the first time in the A Treatise on Probability(TP;1921),is fully operational since all of the problems that used the difficult Boolean approach can instead use the substantially easier integer-mixed integer linear programming approach in order to obtain solutions.It appears that Savage's approach is a very special case of Ellsberg's(Keynes's) approach that is applicable only when a single,unique probability distribution can be specified a priori. KSS's technical result,first presented in 1990 in the Journal of the American Statistical Association(JASA), completely undermines the logical ,decision theoretic foundations of the subjectivist approach to estimating probabilities.
Kaplan should have emphasized the numerous logical deficiencies in the current Bayesian approach,as well as having conceded that Keynes and Ellsberg were right all along.Kaplan's book is worthwhile because he has presented a alternative way of integrating topics which Strict bayesianism has sweep under the rug for too long,at least since thebizarre assertions made by Ramsey about Keynes's approach in two very,very poor book reviews in 1922 and 1926.

A Review of Decision Theory as Philosophy
Decision Theory as Philosophy is good as far as it goes but
like so much of utility theory and conventional economics it
assumes that utility is a scalar. In fact human values can
not be described by a single scalar quantity (see The Sources
of Value by S. C. Pepper, U. Calif. Press, 1958).Values and
utility are at least vector quantities (see Multiple Criteria
Optimization by R. E. Steuer, Wiley and Sons) having multiple
roughly orthogonal components. This is why capitalism is at
odds with real human values.

Excellent Book!
Wonderfully intriguing and lucid. Mr. Kaplan is an asset to the field of Epistemology! ... Read more

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This collection of essays, first published two decades ago,presents central feminist critiques and analyses of natural and socialsciences and their philosophies. Unfortunately, in spite of thebrilliant body of research and scholarship in these fields insubsequent decades, the insights of these essays remain as timely nowas they were then: philosophy and the sciences still presume kinds ofsocial innocence to which they are not entitled. The essays focus on Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, andMarx; on the 'adversary method' model of philosophic reasoning; onprinciples of individuation on philosophical ontology and philosophyof language; on individualistic assumptions in psychology;functionalism in sociological and biological theory; evolutionarytheory; the methodology of political science; and conceptions ofobjective inquiry in the sciences. In taking insights of both Liberaland Marxian women's movements into the purportedly most abstract andvalue-free areas of Western thought, these essays chart sexist andandrocentric assumptions, claims and practices in the cognitive,technical cores of Western sciences and their philosophies. They beginto identify the distinctive aspects of women's experiences andlocations in male-supremacist social structures which can provideresources needed for the creation of post-androcentric thinking inresearch, scholarship, and public policy. Such uses of feministinsights remain controversial today, and even among some feminists.

These authors were all junior researchers and scholars two decadesago; today many are among the most distinguished senior scholars intheir fields. Their work here provides a splendid opportunity forupper-level undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy and thesocial sciences to explore some of the most intriguing andcontroversial challenges to disciplinary projects and to public policytoday. ... Read more

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What can South Park tell us about Socrates and the nature of evil? How does The Office help us to understand Sartre and existentialist ethics? Can Battlestar Galactica shed light on the existence of God?

• Introducing Philosophy Through Pop Culture uses popular culture to illustrate important philosophical concepts and the work of the major philosophers
• With examples from film, television, and music including South Park, The Matrix , X-Men, Batman, Harry Potter, Metallica and Lost, even the most abstract and complex philosophical ideas become easier to grasp
• Features key essays from across the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, as well as helpful editorial material and a glossary of philosophical terms
• From metaphysics to epistemology; from ethics to the meaning of life, this unique introduction makes philosophy as engaging as popular culture itself
• Supplementary website available with teaching guides, sample materials and links to further resources at www.pop-philosophy.org

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This volume presents a selection of the most important writings in the debate on the nature of meaning and reference which started one hundred years ago with Frege's classic essay "On Sense and Reference." Contributors include Bertrand Russell, P.F. Strawson, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, John McDowell, Michael Dummett, Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, David Wiggins, and Gareth Evans. The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a wide variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. ... Read more

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This challenging study places fiction squarely at the center of the discussion of metaphysics. Philosophers have traditionally treated fiction as involving a set of narrow problems in logic or the philosophy of language. By contrast Amie Thomasson argues that fiction has far-reaching implications for central problems of metaphysics. The book develops an "artifactual" theory of fiction, whereby fictional characters are abstract artifacts as ordinary as laws or symphonies or works of literature.In taking seriously the work of literary scholars and in citing a wide range of literary examples, this book will interest not only philosophers concerned with metaphysics and the philosophy of language, but also those in literary theory interested in these foundational issues. ... Read more

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This interdisciplinary collection of classical and contemporary readings provides a clear and comprehensive guide to the many hotly-debated philosophical issues at the heart of artificial intelligence.Amazon.com Review
A collection of classic articles from the field of artificialintelligence (AI), The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligencewould be a good complement to an introductory textbook on AIfundamentals. The back cover of the book states that the material isintended for the university student or general reader, but don't befooled. Unless you are a student in a supportive class setting or ageneral reader who happens to have a degree in engineering, you arelikely to find the content difficult. The first chapter, for example,assumes knowledge of calculus. However, if you have the rightpreparation, you'll be treated to fifteen important papers inAI--including Alan Turing's Computing Machinery andIntelligence article, which proposed the now well-known Turingtest for determining whether a machine is intelligent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Programmers should start here.
This book is a very good collection of classic papers that you should read before you even think of posting to comp.ai or any of the other AI related groups. If you're interested in AI (or anything for that matter), you need to look to the field's recognized philosophy before you do anything else. ... Read more