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This volume includes original essays that examine the underexplored relationship between recognition theory and key developments in critical social epistemology. Its aims are to explore how far certain kinds of epistemic injustice, epistemic oppression, and types of ignorance can be understood as distorted varieties of recognition and to determine whether contemporary work on epistemic injustice and critical social epistemology more generally have significant continuities with theories of recognition in the Frankfurt School tradition. Part I of the book focuses on bringing recognition theory and critical social epistemology into direct conversation. Part II is devoted to analysing a range of...
Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in evolutionary debunking arguments directed against certain types of belief, particularly moral and religious beliefs. According to those arguments, the evolutionary origins of the cognitive mechanisms that produce the targeted beliefs render these beliefs epistemically unjustified. The reason is that natural selection cares for reproduction and survival rather than truth, and false beliefs can in principle be as evolutionarily advantageous as true beliefs. The present volume brings together fourteen essays that examine evolutionary debunking arguments not only in ethics and philosophy of religion, but also in philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The essays move forward research on those arguments by shedding fresh light on old problems and proposing new lines of inquiry. The book will appeal to scholars and graduate students interested in the possible skeptical implications of evolutionary theory in any of the above domains.
Mental action deserves a place among foundational topics in action theory and philosophy of mind. Recent accounts of human agency tend to overlook the role of conscious mental action in our daily lives, while contemporary accounts of the conscious mind often ignore the role of mental action and agency in shaping consciousness. This collection aims to establish the centrality of mental action for discussions of agency and mind. The thirteen original essays provide a wide-ranging vision of the various and nuanced philosophical issues at stake. Among the questions explored by the contributors are: Which aspects of our conscious mental lives are agential? Can mental action be reduced to and expl...
The Routledge Companion to Pragmatism offers 44 cutting-edge chapters—written specifically for this volume by an international team of distinguished researchers—that assess the past, present, and future of pragmatism. Going beyond the exposition of canonical texts and figures, the collection presents pragmatism as a living philosophical idiom that continues to devise promising theses in contemporary debates. The chapters are organized into four major parts: Pragmatism’s history and figures Pragmatism and plural traditions Pragmatism’s reach Pragmatism’s relevance Each chapter provides up-to-date research tools for philosophers, students, and others who wish to locate pragmatist options in their contemporary research fields. As a whole, the volume demonstrates that the vitality of pragmatism lies in its ability to build upon, and transcend, the ideas and arguments of its founders. When seen in its full diversity, pragmatism emerges as one of the most successful and influential philosophical movements in Western philosophy.
This book offers a sustained scholarly analysis of Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience of art. It examines fundamental themes in Gadamer’s hermeneutical aesthetics such as play, festival, symbol, contemporaneity, enactment, art’s performative ontology, and hermeneutical identity. The first two chapters focus on Gadamer’s critical appropriation and movement beyond Kantian and Hegelian aesthetics. (Chapter 2 also includes a coda on Heidegger’s influence.) The final three chapters argue for the continued relevance of Gadamer’s hermeneutical aesthetics by bringing his claims into conversation with contemporary art and music, as well as the ethical and sociopolitical dimen...
While some take Gadamer's Truth and Method to be a departure from epistemological questions and concerns, author Carolyn Culbertson reads Gadamer's work as offering a valuable reflection on the nature of understanding—one that is deeply resonant with the recent social turn in epistemology. Like social epistemologists, Gadamer worries about the epistemic irresponsibility that we encourage when we treat an attitude of objectivity, wherein the inquirer lacks any awareness of their social and historical situation, as an epistemic ideal. Like social epistemologists too, Gadamer argues that understanding that one is socially and historically situated does not mean believing that one is fated to simply repeat traditional ideas without critique or modification—a concern frequently raised in response to critiques of Enlightenment epistemology. By developing such parallels, Gadamer and the Social Turn in Epistemology offers seasoned readers of Gadamer a new context in which to appreciate his discussion of understanding in Truth and Method and readers unfamiliar with Gadamer a productive point of access into his major work.
This book offers an original philosophical perspective on exemplarity. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s later work and Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, it argues that examples are not static entities but rather oscillate between singular and universal moments. There is a broad consensus that exemplary cases mediate between singular instances and universal concepts or norms. In the first part of the book, Mácha contends that there is a kind of différance between singular examples and general exemplars or paradigms. Every example is, in part, also an exemplar, and vice versa. Furthermore, he develops a paracomplete approach to the logic of exemplarity, which allows us to say of an exemplar ...
Communication is not only a means but also a place, where relationships establish. This book argues that a trustworthy relationship can be established through carefully managed communication. Thus, knowing and understanding language and its dynamic is essential to orient oneself during communication; this allows the speakers to fully take the opportunity to foster mutual trust. Knowing language does not only mean managing what is said, but especially being aware of what it implies, entails, and what is unsaid. This is especially true in the case of doctor-patient communication, where one of the speakers is also the subject of the speech. The author looks at the moment of interaction between the physician and the patient as the chance for building and consolidating a strong therapeutic alliance. If the chance is not taken or wisely managed, it could cause the opposite, i.e., loss of trust, also possibly influencing patient’s concordance to treatment. This unusual and valuable approach to doctor-patient communication has its roots in the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science.
This volume presents new essays on the theory and practice of recognition. In order to retain its overall plausibility as a critical social theory, contemporary recognition theory needs to be able to successfully combine theory with real-life perspectives, in both contemporary and historical contexts. Contemporary recognition theory has developed into an established and active multidisciplinary research programme. The chapters in this volume have two main purposes. First, they engage in theoretical development of the contemporary theories of recognition. They explore the conceptual histories and the environments of recognition, as well as the connection between recognition and authenticity, ...
This book explores the structure and function of memory and imagination, as well as the relation and interaction between the two states. It is the first book to offer an integrative approach to these two emerging areas of philosophical research. The essays in this volume deal with a variety of forms of imagining and remembering. The contributors come from a range of methodological backgrounds: empirically minded philosophers, analytic philosophers engaging mainly in conceptual analysis, and philosophers informed by the phenomenological tradition. Part 1 consists of novel contributions to ontological issues regarding the nature of memory and imagination and their respective structural features. Part 2 focuses on questions of justification and perspective regarding both states. The chapters in Part 3 discuss issues regarding memory and imagination as skills or abilities. Finally, Part 4 focuses on the relation between memory, imagination, and emotion. Philosophical Perspectives on Memory and Imagination will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of memory, philosophy of imagination, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.