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Philosophical thinking about truth has revolved around two key questions. First, what is the nature of truth? Second, why should we value it? It has proven difficult to answer both questions at once. Some theories analyse truth in terms of goodness. Truth is a specific kind of goodness for beliefs. They have an easy explanation of truth's value, but they obscure the connection between truth and how things are. What does belief have to do with whether it's true that there is water on Mars? Other theories treat truth as a descriptive feature: a claim is true when things are as it says they are. Such theories face a version of G. E. Moore's open question problem. How could a claim's purely desc...
Covers pragmatism and philosophy.
Philosophical thinking about truth has revolved around two key questions. First, what is the nature of truth? Second, why should we value it? It has proven difficult to answer both questions at once. Some theories analyse truth in terms of goodness. Truth is a specific kind of goodness for beliefs. They have an easy explanation of truth's value, but they obscure the connection between truth and how things are. What does belief have to do with whether it's true that there is water on Mars? Other theories treat truth as a descriptive feature: a claim is true when things are as it says they are. Such theories face a version of G. E. Moore's open question problem. How could a claim's purely desc...
Naturalism, Reference, and Ontology is a collection of twelve original essays honoring Roger F. Gibson, who has been a leading proponent and defender of W. V. Quine's philosophy for nearly thirty years. The essays address a wide range of topics, including normativity and naturalized epistemology, holism, consciousness, the philosophy of logic, perception, value theory, and the arts. The contributors are an international group of prominent philosophers as well as rising scholars including: Robert Barrett, Lars Bergström, Richard Creath, David Henderson, Terence Horgan, Ernest Lepore, Pete Mandik, Alex Orenstein, Kenneth Shockley, J. Robert Thompson, Josefa Toribio, Joseph Ullian, Josh Weisberg, and Chase B. Wrenn.
What is truth? Philosophers are interested in a range of issues involving the concept of truth beginning with what sorts of things can be true. This is a collection of eighteen new and original research papers on truth and other alethic phenomena by twenty of the most promising young scholars working on truth today.
This volume is the first sustained examination of epistemic situationism: the clash between virtue epistemology and the situationist hypothesis inspired by research in empirical psychology. Situationism began as a challenge to the psychology of character traits, targeting ethical theories that presuppose a trait psychology. Psychological research suggests that (often trivial) environmental variables have greater explanatory power than character traits. Epistemology pursues questions about the nature of knowledge. While there are internal differences within virtue epistemology between responsibilists and reliabilists, they all analyze knowledge in terms of epistemic virtues and vices. However...
Aesthetics: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a teaching-focused resource, which highlights the contributions that imaginative scenarios—paradoxes, puzzles, and thought experiments alike—have made to the development of contemporary analytic aesthetics. The book is divided into sections pertaining to art-making, ontology, aesthetic judgements, appreciation and interpretation, and ethics and value, and offers an accessible summary of ten debates falling under each section. Each entry also features a detailed annotated bibliography, making it an ideal companion for courses surveying a broad collection of topics and readings in aesthetics. Key Features: Uses a problem-centered approach to aesthetics (rather than author- or theory-centered) making the text more inviting to first-time students of the subject Offers stand-alone chapters, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course Provides up-to-date, annotated bibliographies at the end of each entry, amounting to an extensive review of the literature on contemporary analytic aesthetics
This Companion brings together a team of leading figures in contemporary philosophy to provide an in-depth exposition and analysis of Quine’s extensive influence across philosophy’s many subfields, highlighting the breadth of his work, and revealing his continued significance today. Provides an in-depth account and analysis of W.V.O. Quine’s contribution to American Philosophy, and his position as one of the late twentieth-century’s most influential analytic philosophers Brings together newly-commissioned essays by leading figures within contemporary philosophy Covers Quine’s work across philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, ontology and metaphysics, epistemology, and more Explores his work in relation to the origins of analytic philosophy in America, and to the history of philosophy more broadly Highlights the breadth of Quine’s work across the discipline, and demonstrates the continuing influence of his work within the philosophical community
While belief in religious supernatural claims is waning throughout the West, evidence suggests belief in nonreligious supernatural claims is on the rise. What explains this contradiction? How can a society with a falling belief in God have a rising belief in ghosts, psychic powers, ancient astronauts, and other supernatural or pseudo-scientific phenomena? Taking the same anthropological approach he employed in his notable studies of religion, atheist author and activist David G. McAfee turns his attention to nonreligious faith-based claims. Whether going undercover as a medium, getting tested at Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles, or interviewing celebrity paranormalists and famous skeptics, he leaves no stone unturned in his investigation. As in the case of religion, he finds an unwillingness among "believers" to critically examine their most closely held convictions. Only once individuals honestly assess their own sacred cows will they be able to ensure that their beliefs conform to the known facts—and that our decisions as a society are based on the best available evidence.
In this new kind of entrée to contemporary discussions of free will and human agency, Garrett Pendergraft collects and illuminates 50 of the most relevant puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Assuming no familiarity with the philosophical literature on free will, each chapter describes a case, explains the questions that it raises, briefly summarizes some of the key responses to the case, and provides a list of suggested readings. Every chapter is accessible, succinct, and self-contained. The puzzles are divided into five broad categories: the threat from fatalism, the threat from determinism, practical reason, social dimensions, and moral luck. Entries cover topics such as the gran...