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The article previews several conferences related to systems research and practice in July 2006. The Fourth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities will be held at the University of Carthage in Tunisia. The Sixth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in Organisations will be held at the Monash University Centre in Italy.

The aim of this paper is to provide some sketchy remarks on the post-empiricist phenomenon in philosophy of science, taking into account the themes of the relationships between language on the one side and reality on the other, and the parallel problem of the alleged elimination of metaphysics. Unlike the logical empiricists, Popper believes that a clear separation between (i) analytic and synthetic sentences, and (ii) between theory and observation, is an impossible task. According to his view, theory and observation are intimately linked to each other, and no pure observation is ever possible. A position very similar to Popper's was endorsed by the American pragmatists in the last two centuries with Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. There also are important similarities between what Popper says and William James' theses. It is clear that if we recognize that the theoretical dimension precedes observation, and if we claim furthermore that scientific theories have a creative character, then we may explain the "jumps" that often take place in the history of science. Later on Feyerabend and his followers have turned philosophy of science into something mysterious and not easily classifiable in philosophical or scientific terms. The anything goes undermines the meaning itself of the discipline. If science is equated to any other dimension of spirit - art, religion, or even witchcraft - the specific and cognitive character of scientific rationality is eliminated. It follows that philosophy of science loses any meaningful role within the field of human knowledge, while even philosophy as such becomes more similar to a joke than to a serious endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Whereas ethical considerations on imaging techniques and interpretations of neuroimaging results flourish, there is not much work on their preconditions. In this paper, therefore, we discuss epistemological considerations on neuroimaging and their implications for neuroethics. Results: Neuroimaging uses indirect methods to generate data about surrogate parameters for mental processes, and there are many determinants influencing the results, including current hypotheses and the state of knowledge. This leads to an interdependence between hypotheses and data. Additionally, different levels of description are involved, especially when experiments are designed to answer questions pertaining to broad concepts like the self, empathy or moral intentions. Interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks are needed to integrate findings from the life sciences and the humanities and to translate between them. While these epistemological issues are not specific for neuroimaging, there are some reasons why they are of special importance in this context: Due to their inferential proximity, ‘neuro-images’ seem to be self-evident, suggesting directness of observation and objectivity. This has to be critically discussed to prevent overinterpretation. Additionally, there is a high level of attention to neuroimaging, leading to a high frequency of presentation of neuroimaging data and making the critical examination of their epistemological properties even more pressing. Conclusions: Epistemological considerations are an important prerequisite for neuroethics. The presentation and communication of the results of neuroimaging studies, the potential generation of new phenomena and new ‘dysfunctions’ through neuroimaging, and the influence on central concepts at the foundations of ethics will be important future topics for this discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines recent attempts to defend Rule-Consequentialism against a traditional objection. That objection takes the form of a dilemma, that either Rule-Consequentialism collapses into Act-Consequentialism or it is incoherent. Attempts to avoid this dilemma based on the idea that using RC has better results than using AC are rejected on the grounds that they conflate the ideas of a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure. Other strategies, Brad Hooker‘s prominent amongst them, involving the thought that RC need contain no overarching concern to maximize the good are acknowledged to avoid the original dilemma, but lead to further problems of motivating and justifying RC in the absence of such a concern. The paper argues that Hooker‘s attempt to deal with these problems by using a ‘Reflective Equilibrium plus‘ method is unsuccessful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard‘s thought as he gropes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bachelard‘s emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly ’’phenomenological‘‘ in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Bachelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following features of (Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to ’’embracket‘‘ the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this paper aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard‘s metaphysical concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical break from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What results in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and object-ness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard‘s ’’new poetics‘‘ results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of the general epistemology of the ’’new scientific spirit‘‘ on to/across his aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "deep mapping", as an approach to place, has been deployed as both a descriptor of a specific suite of creative works and as a set of aesthetic practices. While its definition has been amorphous and adaptive, a number of distinct, yet related, manifestations identify as, or have been identified by, the term. In recent times, it has garnered attention beyond literary discourse, particularly within the "spatial" turn of representation in the humanities and as a result of expanded platforms of data presentation. This paper takes a brief look at the practice of "deep mapping", considering it as a consciously performative act and tracing a number of its various manifestations. It explores how deep mapping is a reflection of epistemological trends in ontological practices of connectivity and the "flattening" of knowledge systems. In particular those put forward by post structural and cultural theorists, such as Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari, as well as by theorists who associate with speculative realism. The concept of deep mapping as an aesthetic, methodological, and ideological tool, enables an approach to place that democratizes knowledge by crossing temporal, spatial, and disciplinary boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the space of possible worlds, there might be a best possible world (a uniquely best world or a world tied for best with some other worlds). Or, instead, for every possible world, there might be a better possible world. Suppose that the latter is true, i.e., that there is no best world. Many have thought that there is then an argument against the existence of God, i.e., the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect being; we will call such arguments no-best-world arguments. In this paper, we discuss ability-based objections to such arguments; an ability-based objection to a no-best world argument claims that the argument fails because one or more of its premises conflict with a plausible principle connecting the applicability of some type of moral evaluation to the agent's possession of a relevant ability. In particular, we formulate and evaluate an important new ability-based objection to the most promising no-best world argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain limitations arise from the persistent consideration of two common relations of islands in the humanities and social sciences: land and sea, and island and continent/mainland. What remains largely absent or silent are ways of being, knowing and doing—ontologies, epistemologies and methods—that illuminate island spaces as inter-related, mutually constituted and co-constructed: as island and island. Therefore, this paper seeks to map out and justify a research agenda proposing a robust and comprehensive exploration of this third and comparatively neglected nexus of relations. In advancing these aims, the paper's goal is to (re)inscribe the theoretical, metaphorical, real and empirical power and potential of the archipelago: of seas studded with islands; island chains; relations that may embrace equivalence, mutual relation and difference in signification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, Ancient Mesopotamian epistemic practices resulting in the vast corpus of cuneiform ‘lexical lists’ and other, similarly formatted treatises have been conceptualized as “ Listenwissenschaft” in Assyriology. Introduced by the German Assyriologist Wolfram v. Soden in , this concept has also been utilized in other disciplines of the Humanities as a terminological means to describe epistemic activity allegedly inferior to ‘Western’ modes of analytical and hypotactic scientific reasoning. Building on the exemplary evidence of a bilingual list of cuneiform compound graphemes from the early 2nd millennium BCE as well as on recent conceptualizations of ‘epistemic cultures’ and the instrumental function of material ‘representations’ in the context of epistemic practices, the present paper attempts to replace the essentialistic and teleological concept of an Ancient Mesopotamian “ Listenwissenschaft” with a new epistemological model describing the underlying epistemic practices as highly adaptive non-linear epistemic practices comparable to what has been described as ‘practices with »epistemic things«’ in recent epistemology and practice theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictivism asserts that novel confirmations carry special probative weight. Epistemic pluralism asserts that the judgments of agents (about, e.g., the probabilities of theories) carry epistemic import. In this paper, I propose a new theory of predictivism that is tailored to pluralistic evaluators of theories. I replace the orthodox notion of use-novelty with a notion of endorsement-novelty, and argue that the intuition that predictivism is true has two roots. I provide a detailed Bayesian rendering of this theory and argue that pluralistic theory evaluation pervades scientific practice. I compare my account of predictivism with those of Maher and Worrall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers and analysis of Ernest Sosa's Virtue Perspectivism. Although Sosa has been credited with fathering the influential contemporary movement known as Virtue Epistemology, I argue that Sosa imprudently abandons the reliabilist-based insights of Virtue Epistemology in favor of a reflection-based, ``perspectival'' view. Sosa's mixed allegiance to reliabilist-based and reflection-based views of knowledge, in fact, leads to an unwelcome tension in his thought which can be relieved by recognizing that his reflection-based view is in fact an account of the cognitive state of understanding, rather than an account of knowledge. Sosa makes matters difficult for himself because he expects too much, as it were, from the concept of knowledge, and in the process burdens his view with elements of reflection it does not require. To solve the problem, I suggest that Sosa needs to develop a two-tiered epistemology which recognizes that knowledge, on the one hand, and understanding, on the other, both have necessary and sufficient conditions unique to themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on referential uses and speaker meaning. Speech-act theorists' objection to Donnellan's distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions; Strategy of Searle.

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world's population, global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act without acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom - wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This is an argument I have propounded during the last three decades in six books, over thirty papers, and countless lectures delivered in universities and conferences all over the UK, Europe and north America. Despite all this effort, the argument has, by and large, been ignored. What is really surprising is that philosophers have paid no attention, despite the fact that that this body of work claims to solve the profoundly important philosophical problem: What kind of inquiry best helps us make progress towards as good a world as possible? There are, nevertheless, indications that some scientists and university administrators are beginning to become aware of the urgent need for science, and universities, to change. This is prompted, partly by growing awareness of the seriousness of environmental problems, especially global warming, and partly by a concern to improve the relationship between science and the public. So far, however, these changes have been small-scale, scattered and piecemeal. What we require is for academics and non-academics alike to wake up to the urgent need for change so that we may come to possess what we so strikingly and disastrously lack at present: a kind of inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Ethnology & Folklore Research / Narodna Umjetnost is the property of Institute of Ethnology & Folklore Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Stephen Grimm finds me inclined to bifurcate epistemic assessment into higher and lower orders while showing awareness of this only in recent writings. Two untoward consequences allegedly follow: (a) my rejection of Virtue Reliabilism, and (b) my knowledge-based account of the value attaching to our knowledge on the higher level. By contrast, Grimm considers Virtue Reliabilism a perfectly adequate account of knowledge, while the higher epistemic state he believes to be, rather, understanding, which he takes to be quite distinct from knowledge. Once knowledge and understanding are seen to be distinct, finally, this will help us to avoid the two untoward consequences. I am grateful for these interesting points, and would like to respond briefly in what follows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Persona y Bioética is the property of Universidad de la Sabana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Persona y Bioética is the property of Universidad de la Sabana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article develops a philosophy of the humanities by reading C.P. Snow's famous thesis of "the two cultures" through the early work of Alfred North Whitehead. I argue that, whereas Snow refers to Whitehead's Science and the Modern World, he ultimately paves the way for a reductive interpretation of humanities scholarship, which is a move that can be repaired by delving into Snow's own reference to Whitehead following a diffractive reading methodology. This way of reading was first formulated in the context of feminist epistemology (but can be found elsewhere and under different names) in an attempt to generate constructively conceptual rather than closed hermeneutical readings of theoretical texts by making the reading dynamic and open-ended (in Karen Barad's terms: reading their insights "through" one another). As such, reading diffractively shies away from relying on classification and is playful with the past, present, and future of the humanities. The article argues that the diffraction of Snow and Whitehead hinges on theories of "beauty" and will demonstrate (with Whitehead) that humanities scholarship originates in a total environment in which works of art--as the subject matter of humanities research--stand out and preserve themselves as "enduring objects". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his article "European Comparative Literature as Humanism" Bernard Franco presents an epistemological reflection on comparative literature in the context of the evolution of the relationships between different forms of knowledge. Franco argues that in the late nineteenth century the notion of the "humanities" replaced that of the "human sciences," but that we have recently returned to a humanist concept of knowledge linked to ethics. Franco focuses on the origins of this critical reflection about the nature of knowledge and on the debate in the Romantic period between rational and non-rational forms of knowledge. The idéologues (Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy, Fauriel) and Dilthey, Goethe, and Humboldt were at the heart of this epistemological debate, a debate that in early modernity had already been related to the question of humanism in the dialog between Erasmus and Luther. In the mid-twentieth century Zweig and Thomas Mann looked to literature to seek a European spirit and to build a model of cosmopolitanism in which literature becomes a deeper source of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to outline a general framework for dealing with questions of part-whole or mereology. The author provides a comprehensive and unified account of the different ways in which one object can be a part of another. The author's principal concern has been with the notion of absolute rather than relative part.

Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson’s influential article “Knowing How” argues that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that. One objection to their view is that knowledge-how is significantly different than knowledge-that because Gettier cases afflict the latter but not the former. Stanley and Williamson argue that this objection fails. Their response, however, is not adequate. Moreover, I sketch a plausible argument that knowledge-how is not susceptible to Gettier cases. This suggests a significant distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies problems with regard to providing criteria that regulate the matching of logical formulae and natural language. We then take on to solve these problems by defining a necessary and sufficient criterion of adequate formalization. On the basis of this criterion we argue that logic should not be seen as an ars iudicandi capable of evaluating the validity or invalidity of informal arguments, but as an ars explicandi that renders transparent the formal structure of informal reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we investigated students' domain-specific and domain-general epistemological perspectives within the social sciences/humanities and the sciences. Data validated a grounded theory of how epistemological beliefs develop at different paces in these domains. Results are discussed in terms of how to use these differences to inform teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is philosophy an appropriate means for inducing the 'moral point of view' with respect to nature? The moral point of view involves a feeling for the inner reality of others, a feeling which, it is argued, is induced more by processes of synergistic interaction than by the kind of rational deliberation that classically constituted philosophy. But how are we to engage synergistically with other-than-human life forms and systems? While synergy with animals presents no in-principle difficulty, synergy with larger life systems takes us into epistemological realms explored only in the margins of the Western tradition, such as in Goethe's Romantic alternative to science. These 'alternative' epistemological realms are however the very province of the Daoist arts of China, and these arts accordingly furnish us with practices conducive to a moral consciousness of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I discuss Soames’s proposal that Moore could have avoided a central problem in his moral philosophy if he had utilized a method he himself pioneered in epistemology. The problem in Moore’s moral philosophy concerns what it is for a moral claim to be self-evident. The method in Moore’s epistemology concerns not denying the obvious. In review of the distance between something’s being self-evident and its being obvious, it is suggested that Soames’s proposal is mistaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first three sections, I argue that Hobbes has a distinctive conception of philosophy, the highest value of which is not truth, but human benefit; and that his philosophical utterances are constrained by this value (both insofar as they are philosophical in particular, and insofar as they are public utterances of any kind). I address an evidentiary problem for this view in the penultimate section, and then turn to the question of how such a conception of philosophy requires different interpretations of particular philosophical positions. The whole is intended as a case study of the need for an interpreter to understand how the interpreted philosopher conceives of the nature and aim of his undertaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the theory of neo-pragmatism by historiographer Richard Rorty, and the theory of postmodernism by historiographer Keith Jenkins. Rorty believes that there is a need to tell stories of the mighty dead in order to make hopes surpassed concretely. Rorty suggests that it would be best to think of objectivity as a matter of ability to achieve agreement. Jenkins on the other hand believes that the facts of history never come to humanity pure because history is refracted in the mind of the recorder.

Presents a case in which testimony generates knowledge that the source lacks. Examples offered in Lackey (1999) and Graham (2000); Generation of knowledge through testimony which itself is unreliable, insensitive, and unsafe; Examination of how testimony that is unreliable can nevertheless succeed in being trustworthy; Argument that trustworthiness is that property of testimony, the possession of which renders the testimony worthy of being trusted.

A striking feature of the traditional armchair method of philosophy is the use of imaginary examples: for instance, of Gettier cases as counterexamples to the justified true belief analysis of knowledge. The use of such examples is often thought to involve some sort ofa priorirational intuition, which crude rationalists regard as a virtue and crude empiricists as a vice. It is argued here that, on the contrary, what is involved is simply an application of our general cognitive capacity to handle counterfactual conditionals, which is not exclusivelya prioriand is not usefully conceived as a form of rational intuition. It is explained how questions of metaphysical possibility and necessity are equivalent to questions about counterfactuals, and the epistemology of the former (in particular, the role of conceiving or imagining) is a special case of the epistemology of the latter. A non-imaginary Gettier case is presented in order to show how little difference it makes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have studied epistemological development – or how one understands knowledge and knowing – of college students for many years. Research in this domain has included benchmarking studies of epistemological development, examinations of how curricular innovations impact epistemology, and some studies of differences in epistemological development based on disciplinary areas. The latter group of studies has generally focused on differences in epistemological beliefs for students who are studying in two different domains (e.g., nursing students versus physics students). In this study, we qualitatively investigate whether the epistemological perspectives of 60 science/engineering college students differs across the disciplinary areas of the sciences and the humanities. Our results indicate that such differences do exist and include a proposed grounded theory that describes how students' epistemologies may vary across knowledge domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to T.M. Scanlon's buck-passing account of value, to be valuable is not to possess intrinsic value as a simple and unanalysable property, but rather to have other properties that provide reasons to take up an attitude in favour of their owner or against it. The 'wrong kind of reasons' objection to this view is that we may have reasons to respond for or against something without this having any bearing on its value. The challenge is to explain why such reasons are of the wrong kind. This is what I set out to do, after illustrating the objection more thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the epistemic privileges of introspective knowledge, and the frailties of perceptual knowledge. Disagreements over the precise nature and extent of first-person authority; Distinction between introspective and perceptual knowledge; Examination of the privileges that McKinney attributes to first-person introspective knowledge.

Argues for the possibility of inverted first-person authority. Nature and extent of first-person authority; Contrast between the two types of knowledge, first-person introspective knowledge and perceptual knowledge; States of the brain; Examination of whether mental states could be known by means of something analogous to perception; Argument that the inverted first-person authority has an obvious bearing upon skepticism.

Discusses the conceptual role of the first person and the reference of the first person. Example of the kind of transition that constitutes the conceptual role of the first person; Distinction between a relational use of the spatial prepositions and a monadic use; Discussion on how the first person relate to egocentric space; Conditions under which a first-person judgment is verified; Primitive transitions between spatial vision and spatial action.

Since virtually every mathematical theory can be interpreted in set theory, the latter is a foundation for mathematics. Whether set theory, as opposed to any of its rivals, is the right foundation for mathematics depends on what a foundation is for. One purpose is philosophical, to provide the metaphysical basis for mathematics. Another is epistemic, to provide the basis of all mathematical knowledge. Another is to serve mathematics, by lending insight into the various fields. Another is to provide an arena for exploring relations and interactions between mathematical fields, their relative strengths, etc. Given the different goals, there is little point to determining a single foundation for all of mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost every contemporary theory of knowledge is a version of fallibilism, yet an adequate statement of fallibilism has not yet been provided. Standard definitions cannot account for fallibilistic knowledge of necessary truths. I consider and reject several attempts to resolve this difficulty before arguing that a belief is an instance of fallibilistic knowledge when it could have failed to be knowledge. This is a fully general account of fallibilism that applies to knowledge of necessary truths. Moreover, it reveals, not only the connection between fallibility and error, but the connection between fallibility and accidental truth as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article states that the Knower paradox exposes the circularity of the conceptualization of knowledge. The article provides an explanation of the Knower paradox for the purpose of demonstrating how the paradox arises. A modification to the concept of knowledge is presented to solve the paradox and structure knowledge.

This article presents information related to the rhetorical situation in philosophy. The rhetorical situation has been visited and revisited since Lloyd F. Bitzer's statement in the first issue of "Philosophy and Rhetoric," in 1968. With each succession, the construct has grown and changed. The rhetorical audience consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change. The constraints of a rhetorical situation are made up of persons, events, objects, and relations that have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence. They derive from beliefs, attitudes, documents, facts, traditions, images, interests, motives and the like. The three constituents, comprise everything relevant in a rhetorical situation. When a rhetor enters the situation and creates discourse, the rhetor and the resulting text become additional constituents. A fitting response for a political campaign, for example, would not be fitting for a presidential inauguration. There are times, says Bitzer, when a rhetor misreads the prescription for fit, at which time, one presumes, the rhetoric does not achieve the ends dictated by the exigence.

Focuses on Donald Davidson's interpretation and understanding of philosophy. Explanation of linguistic understanding; Notion of theorizing.

Discusses the limits of relativism. Consequences of relativism; Description of the effective philosophical criticisms of relativism; Description of the feature of relativism which offered an illustration of P.F. Strawson's general criticism of philosophical sceptic.

The notion of common knowledge is of interest because it raises problems about the complexity of the cognitive states which one can sensibly attribute to finite self-conscious creatures when they confront one another. Common knowledge is of interest also because we need to invoke it in explaining the rationality of certain actions, namely those co-operative enterprises of which many conventional social practices, including language, seem to be examples. In what follows nothing hangs on the use of the word knowledge in the phrase common knowledge. The account one seeks is to be of a structure which can accommodate the mediaeval "common knowledge" that the Sun circles the Earth. What is primarily at issue is the nature of the propositions people can entertain, the routes of perception and inference by which they might come to have confidence in those propositions and the manner in which theft beliefs contribute to justifying their actions.

This article focuses on philosopher George Berkeley's theory of abstract ideas. In this article, the author shows that the essentials of abstraction are contained in Berkeley's own account of general ideas, and that Berkeley mistakenly thought that he was attacking abstraction as such, when he was at most attacking one version of it. Further, there is no reason to believe that the version which he was attacking was any snore central to philosopher John Locke's actual thought than the version which Berkeley himself accepted. In order to substantiate these claims it will be necessary to look again at Locke's account of abstraction and Berkeley's attack on the doctrine.

Demonstrates that Ockham was concerned, except during a very brief period, categorically to reject the Lockean view that a universal is a quality of the mind distinct from the mental act. Objective being of Ockham's fictum theory; Analysis of pertinent topics and relevant issues; Implications on philosophical studies.

Questions the philosophical notions of justification through the examination of the apposite features of the ordinary concept of justification. Difference between the justifications given by philosophers and the justification in everyday life; Relevance of moral philosophy in connection with justification; Things that need justification.

The article offers information on the use of distinctive jargon in many scientific disciplines. In humanities, many of the jargon words do not present a development over the ordinary language but a habit in relation to approach to subject and style. The humanities always has something of an inferiority complex equated to the precision and certainty provided by the sciences. It is believed that a particularized language can assist to show authority. However, it is argued that post modernist and modernist jargon is formulated without a conscious thought for the ordinary person.

This article focuses on the concept of surrender-and-catch phenomenology. The ideal of science is the most obviously self-critical, self-questioning intellectual activity, which systematically looks for exceptions which might explode regularities hypothesized and searches for explanations, hypotheses, interpretations, hunches, clues which differ from those which to the scientists best knowledge and conscience are true and certain. In terms of surrender-and-catch, the catch intends is knowledge of how things actually appear, that is, it is to get hold of their essence or eidos to get clarity on their meaning. The aim of clarifying intersubjective understanding is the illumination of how the transcendental and the empirical interact and such an aim would have been a response to the world not as of purely epistemological appeal but also as demanding moral, political, aesthetic response. The subjective meaning is the aim of understanding in the social sciences and humanities, the hoped-for result of acting on the injunction to get inside the other, to place a person into the others shoes, to look at the world from the others point of view.

Provides information on the definition of 21st-century philosopher C.S. Peirce's thought on philosophy. Reasons for the near abdication of the question of philosophical responsibility by 20th century philosophy; Overview of the question of philosophical responsibility; Factors to be considered in the definition of philosophy; Implication of the definition of philosophy as a clarification of basic issues.

Deals with Peirce's anti-sceptical argument on the realism-scepticism debate in general philosophy. Discussion on the forms of empiricism; Key problem of empiricism; Peircean response to the realist-empiricist debate.