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In this article, the author attempts to pull together information and opinion relevant to an assessment of the religious significance of psychedelic drugs. The author states that the evidence indicates that these substances are not dangerous if responsibly used, and that they are non-habit-forming. Most researchers agree that a physiological tolerance is built up with regular use. The author discusses some of the results of his brief study on sixteen students who had taken LSD in their college campus. There were a number references to self-objectification, and to gains in insight about oneself. There was great variation in the degree of love experienced; some felt closer to other persons, others felt more separated and isolated. Certain types of inner events are experienced as fearful and hallucinatory by some subjects, and ecstatic, religious and highly beneficial by others. The relation between preparation for the drug session and the nature of the experience is problematical. One clear result of research so far is that set and setting are of considerable importance in determining what happens.

This paper extends the subjective expected utility model of decision making under uncertainty to include incomplete beliefs and tastes. The main results are two axiomatizations of the multiptior expected multiutility representations of preference relations under uncertainty. The paper also introduces new axiomatizations of Knightian uncertainty and the expected multiutility model with complete beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre‐reflective "sense of agency." However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause–effect sequence. In those contexts, it has been interpreted as a top‐down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. These two views need not be in conflict with one another, if one thinks of them as concerning two separate mechanisms through which temporal binding can occur. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility: that there is a unitary way of explaining temporal binding both within and outside the context of voluntary action as a top‐down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. Any such explanation needs to account for ways in which agency, and factors connected with agency, has been shown to affect the strength of temporal binding. We show that principles of causal inference and causal selection already familiar from the literature on causal learning have the potential to explain why the strength of people's causal beliefs can be affected by the extent to which they are themselves actively involved in bringing about events, thus in turn affecting binding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the robustness of an equilibrium to incomplete information in binary‐action supermodular games. Using a generalized version of belief operator, we explore the restrictions that prior beliefs impose on higher order beliefs. In particular, we obtain a nontrivial lower bound on the probability of a common belief event, uniform over type spaces, when the underlying game has a monotone potential. Conversely, when the game has no monotone potential, we construct a type space with an arbitrarily high probability event in which players never have common belief about that event. As an implication of these results, we show for generic binary‐action supermodular games that an action profile is robust to incomplete information if and only if it is a monotone potential maximizer. Our study offers new methodology and insight to the analysis of global game equilibrium selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictions under common knowledge of payoffs may differ from those under arbitrarily, but finitely, many orders of mutual knowledge; Rubinstein's (1989) Email game is a seminal example. Weinstein and Yildiz (2007) showed that the discontinuity in the example generalizes: for all types with multiple rationalizable (ICR) actions, there exist similar types with unique rationalizable action. This paper studies how a wide class of departures from common belief in rationality impact Weinstein and Yildiz's discontinuity. We weaken ICR to ICRλ, where λ is a sequence whose term λn is the probability players attach to (n − 1)th‐order belief in rationality. We find that Weinstein and Yildiz's discontinuity remains when λn is above an appropriate threshold for all n, but fails when λn converges to 0. That is, if players' confidence in mutual rationality persists at high orders, the discontinuity persists, but if confidence vanishes at high orders, the discontinuity vanishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the use of probability in philosophy particularly the nature and role of chance in guiding belief. The author proposes a solution to a problem discussed in a paper by David Lewis about contradiction to a principle that expresses the role of chance in guiding belief. The author presents a principle for using information about chance to guide belief that does not require a theory of chance at any stage. According to the author, the proposal is based on two papers on chance and its influence by Ned Hall and John Roberts.

This paper defends reductionism about testimonial justification of beliefs against two influential arguments. One is the empirical argument to the effect that the reductionist justification of our trust in testimony is either circular since it relies on testimonial evidence or else there is scarce evidence in support of our trust in testimony. The other is the transcendental argument to the effect that trust in testimony is a prerequisite for the very existence of testimonial evidence since without the presumption of people's truthfulness we cannot interpret their utterances as testimony with propositional contents. This paper contends that the epistemic subject can interpret utterances as testimony with propositional contents without presupposing the credibility of testimony, and that evidence available to the normal epistemic subject can justify her trust in testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether the expected equity premium constructed from survey forecasts is consistent with the implications of the rational belief approach or the distorted belief approach to explaining the equity premium puzzle. To address this question, a panel data model with a fixed individual effect and a business cycle effect is analyzed. The results appear more favorable to the distorted belief approach. The average expected equity premium is lower than the average realized equity premium during the sample period. The average bias across economists is significant and varies over the business cycle, which is consistent with distorted beliefs that are excessively pessimistic over expansions and excessively optimistic over contractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to a growing body of research on shared cognition by examining shared beliefs about failure in organizational work groups. We argue that the popular ideal of organizational learning from failure is likely to be impeded by powerful psychological and organizational barriers to engaging in behaviors through which this can occur. We hypothesize that people hold tacit beliefs about appropriate responses to mistakes, problems and conflict, and that these are shared within and vary between organizational work groups (HI). These shared beliefs vary in the extent to which they take a learning approach to failure — specifically in the extent to which they endorse identifying, discussing, and analysing mistakes, problems, and conflicts. We also hypothesize that effective coaching, clear direction and a supportive work context influence beliefs related to failure (H2), and that beliefs about failure influence group performance (H3). These hypotheses combine to suggest a theoretical model of antecedents and consequences of shared beliefs about failure in work groups. The paper presents empirical evidence from a recent field study to test the model and finds support for Hypotheses 1, 2. and 3. Hypothesis 4 — that shared beliefs about failure mediate between the antecedents and the outcome of group performance — was not supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is possible to represent decision makers' beliefs on the algebra R×R, rather than R alone. Doing so allows us to represent decision makers' perceptions of risk on one part of the algebra, and their perceptions of uncertainty on the other. This paper shows that such beliefs can be updated in a 'Bayesian' manner and that the resulting representation of beliefs is reasonable relative to some other approaches. The model of belief formation and decision making is then used to explain some instances of anomalous economic behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I construct players' prior beliefs and show that these prior beliefs lead the players to learn to play an approximate Nash equilibrium uniformly in any infinitely repeated slightly perturbed game with discounting and perfect monitoring. That is, given any ε > 0, there exists a (single) profile of players' prior beliefs that leads play to almost surely converge to an ε-Nash equilibrium uniformly for any (finite normal form) stage game with slight payoff perturbation and any discount factor less than 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If religion is faith concerning man's fate, how can this faith find expression today? This is a historical question: for all that will follow about shedding received notions and holding tradition in abeyance, this tradition, this received notion of the relevance of history, of man's historicity, cannot be done without in assessing surrender and hence its relevance for religion. There are some expectations, in particular two, that the title of this paper may raise but that are false; they should be dissipated at once. One, there will be no discussion of the social aspects of religion. Nor will there be any comparison between the analysis of surrender and innumerable extant comments on related phenomena, such as religious or mystical experiences. In this late historical phase, when there even is a sense in which we might be past history, or might soon be past history, religion may well appear as the mood embraced in an effort to come to terms with two unanswerable questions-it is the phase in our history in which one knows that these questions are unanswerable.

Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that (a) knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and (b) knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how people should and will behave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belief disagreements have been suggested as a major contributing factor to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. This paper theoretically evaluates this hypothesis. I assume that optimists have limited wealth and take on leverage so as to take positions in line with their beliefs. To have a significant effect on asset prices, they need to borrow from traders with pessimistic beliefs using loans collateralized by the asset itself. Since pessimists do not value the collateral as much as optimists do, they are reluctant to lend, which provides an endogenous constraint on optimists' ability to borrow and to influence asset prices. I demonstrate that the tightness of this constraint depends on the nature of belief disagreements. Optimism concerning the probability of down-side states has no or little effect on asset prices because these types of optimism are disciplined by this constraint. Instead, optimism concerning the relative probability of upside states could have significant effects on asset prices. This asymmetric disciplining effect is robust to allowing for short selling because pessimists that borrow the asset face a similar endogenous constraint. These results emphasize that what investors dis-agree about matters for asset prices, to a greater extent than the level of disagreements. When richer contracts are available, relatively complex contracts that resemble some of the recent financial innovations in the mortgage market endogenously emerge to facilitate betting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intellectual virtues include two seemingly quite different types of traits: reliable faculties on the one hand and inquiry-regulating traits of intellectual character like conscientiousness and openmindedness on the other. Extant virtue theories do not appear to have provided a single account that adequately covers both types of virtue. In this paper, I examine the different ways in which a trait or disposition can contribute to our cognitive goal of acquiring significant true beliefs. I propose that the two types of virtues can be understood as contributing in different ways to our cognitive goal, and develop a general framework for understanding their value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pervasive concern with the use of subjective data in choice models is that they are biased and endogenous. This paper examines the extent to which cognitive biases plague subjective data, and specifically addresses the questions of: (1) whether cognitive dissonance affects the reporting of beliefs; and (2) whether individuals exert sufficient mental effort when probed about their subjective beliefs. For this purpose, I collect a unique panel dataset of Northwestern University undergraduates which contains their subjective expectations about major-specific outcomes for their chosen major as well as for other alternatives in their choice set. I do not find evidence of cognitive biases systematically affecting the reporting of beliefs. By analyzing patterns of belief updating, I can rule out cognitive dissonance being of serious concern in the current setting. There does not seem to be any systematic (non-classical) measurement error in the reporting of beliefs: I do not find systematic patterns in mental recall of previous responses, or in the extent of rounding in the reported beliefs for the various majors. Comparison of subjective beliefs with objective measures suggests that students have well-formed expectations. Overall, the results paint a favorable picture for the use of subjective expectations data in choice models. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that McDowell's brand of disjunctivism about perceptual knowledge is ill-motivated. First, I present a reconstruction of one main motivation for disjunctivism, in the form of an argument that theories that posit a "highest common factor" between veridical and non-veridical experiences must be wrong. Then I show that the argument owes its plausibility to a failure to distinguish between justification and warrant (where "warrant" is understood as whatever has to be added to true belief to yield knowledge). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In celebration of C. West Churchman's work, this article investigates one of the most cherished endeavours of his thinking: to provide a normative meaning for the conduct of human affiars. Churchman has always emphasized ‘What-Ought-To-Be’, at the expense of the ‘What-Is’. To achieve this purpose, four Systems Thinking paradigms, namely Hard Systems Thinking, Soft Systems Thinking, Critical Systems Thinking, and Multimodal Systems Thinking, are investigated with regard to their foundations for normative guidance. This investigation is made by identifying their respective basic convictions in the form of so-called ‘religious ground-motives’, which are based on the assumption that all human thinking and acting starts with a credal conviction, be it Christian, Jew, Islamic, Buddhist, or other. As a result it is found that these systems thinking paradigms are either founded on an inherent contradiction or provide a normative foundation that lacks a social contract for their implementation, and therefore these paradigms do not provide a stable and satisfactory normative guidance for system design. Note: The key claim of this author is that, to be normative, an ethical theory must be grounded in a transcendental justification which is based on some religious faith. The opinions presented in this paper are strictly the author's, who does not claim that his beliefs have more merit or are more ethical than those of any competitive faiths. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops a conception of epistemic warrant as applied to perceptual belief, called "entitlement", that does not require the warranted individual to be capable of understanding the warrant. The conception is situated within an account of animal perception and unsophisticated perceptual belief. It characterizes entitlement as fulfillment of an epistemic norm that is apriori associated with a certain representational function that can be known apriori to be a function of perception. The paper connects antiindividualism, a thesis about the nature of mental states, and perceptual entitlement. It presents an argument that explains the objectivity and validity of perceptual entitlement partly in terms of the nature of perceptual states—hence the nature of perceptual beliefs, which are constitutively associated with perceptual states. The paper discusses ways that an individual can be entitled to perceptual belief through its connection to perception, and ways that entitlement to perceptual belief can be undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and defends in detail a novel account of belief, an account inspired by Ryle's dispositional characterization of belief, but emphasizing irreducibly phenomenal and cognitive dispositions as well as behavioral dispositions. Potential externalist and functionalist objections are considered, as well as concerns motivated by the inevitably ceteris paribus nature of the relevant dispositional attributions. It is argued that a dispositional account of belief is particularly well-suited to handle what might be called "in-between" cases of believing— cases in which it is neither quite right to describe a person as having a particular belief nor quite right to describe her as lacking it. This paper describes and defends in detail a novel account of belief, an account inspired by Ryle's dispositional characterization of belief, but emphasizing irreducibly phenomenal and cognitive dispositions as well as behavioral dispositions. Potential externalist and functionalist objections are considered, as well as concerns motivated by the inevitably ceteris paribus nature of the relevant dispositional attributions. It is argued that a dispositional account of belief is particularly well-suited to handle what might be called "in-between" cases of believing— cases in which it is neither quite right to describe a person as having a particular belief nor quite right to describe her as lacking it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I question Stark's and Bainbridge's (1985) characterization of the Bible Belt view of southern religion as a myth. The origins of the Bible Belt are examined in this paper. Using a conceptualization of the Bible Belt thesis based on a "captive region" view of religion, I expected clergy to be over represented in the South. Data on full-time clergy were analyzed by region during the 1890-1930 period. When urban/rural background was controlled, consistent evidence in support of the Bible Belt thesis appeared. The lack of clergy over representation in the rural South may be explained by the importance of part-time clergy, which were not counted. In addition, the data offered no support for the application of the captive region view of religion to the black experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The full time religious professional in a religious collectivity occupies a strategic position in the social system in which he is professionally involved. The multifarious tasks in which he engages are to be seen as due, in part, to the diffuseness of his responsibilities, a diffuseness which is characteristic of leadership roles in any social system. The coordinating and harmonizing facets of any leadership role demand this kind of generalized or diffuse role definition. While this diffuseness is characteristic of any leadership role in any social system, goals or objectives of the social system which sustains the full time professional religious leader are themselves more diffuse and less amenable to rational evaluation than are the goals of most organizations in this society. In its own understanding, the church exists to cure souls, to save souls, and/or to witness to God's saving act in Jesus as the Christ; hence, as conceived internally, its ultimate goal transcends moral, cognitive and emotive goals or objectives, although dimensions of each goal are involved in the objectives of the social system that constitutes the church and in the theological understanding that informs these goals.

This research examines self‐efficacy beliefs and prior learning of accounting students to determine how useful these variables are for predicting academic success in accounting courses. Self‐efficacy beliefs are the confidence one has in the ability to perform certain tasks or skills (Bandura, 1997). As Bandura (1977) argued, the results here showed that confidence in one's ability to succeed is the most powerful predictor of academic success. This research provides pathways for increased student success by indicating that a focus on enhancing student self‐efficacy will lead to higher achievement. The implications of this research for accounting education practice is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce a notion of continuous implementation and characterize when a social choice function is continuously implementable. More specifically, we say that a social choice function is continuously (partially) implementable if it is (partially) implementable for types in the model under study and it continues to be (partially) implementable for types 'close' to this initial model. Our results show that this notion is tightly connected to full implementation in rationalizable strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weinstein and Yildiz (2007) have shown that in static games, only very weak predictions are robust to perturbations of higher order beliefs. These predictions are precisely those provided by interim correlated rationalizability (ICR). This negative result is obtained under the assumption that agents have no information on payoffs. This assumption is unnatural in many settings. It is therefore natural to ask whether Weinstein and Yildiz's results remain true under more general information structures. This paper characterizes the 'robust predictions' in static and dynamic games, under arbitrary information structures. This characterization is provided by an extensive form solution concept: interim sequential rationalizability (ISR). In static games, ISR coincides with ICR and does not depend on the assumptions on agents' information. Hence the 'no information' assumption entails no loss of generality in these settings. This is not the case in dynamic games, where ISR refines ICR and depends on the details of the information structure. In these settings, the robust predictions depend on the assumptions on agents' information. This reveals a hitherto neglected interaction between information and higher order uncertainty, raising novel questions of robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent geographical work has pointed to the complex and negotiated nature, and spatiality, of intergenerational relations. In this paper, we draw on research with young Scottish Christians and their guardians to explore the influence of intergenerationality on their religious identities, beliefs and practices. Our interest is to ask what these recent developments in the way we approach geographies of youth and age can tell us about the changing geographies of religion and vice versa. Much previous research has assumed a process of simple transmission, a static notion that is countered by interview data we present here. The diverse influences on the religiosity of young people - from institutions, religious leaders, culture, peers as well as the family - mean that intergenerational relations involve multiple and complex subject positions. We explore some of these positions, characterising them as correspondent, compliant, challenging and conflicting. We argue that intergenerational relations need to be understood as part of the site-based practices that are central to the development and experience of young people's religious identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I draw attention to a peculiar epistemic feature exhibited by certain deductively valid inferences. Certain deductively valid inferences are unable to enhance the reliability of one’s belief that the conclusion is true—in a sense that will be fully explained. As I shall show, this feature is demonstrably present in certain philosophically significant inferences—such as GE Moore’s notorious ‘proof’ of the existence of the external world. I suggest that this peculiar epistemic feature might be correlated with the much discussed phenomenon that Crispin Wright and Martin Davies have called ‘transmission failure’—the apparent failure, on the part of some deductively valid inferences to transmit one’s justification for believing the premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the Islamic Resurgence has underestimated the intellectual trials that some key personalities underwent at a crucial stage of the crisis of post-colonial societies. The intellectual leaders of the Resurgence faced the task to redefine the social value of faith and of its converse, doubt, as the insidious flip-side of processes of modernization. Their response to the challenge contributed to a reconfiguration of the intellectual field: in order to reach larger audiences they reinterpreted their cultural credentials and even life narratives in terms of the communicative standards suitable to new media. This paper analyses how the motives of doubt and faith in the trajectories of two personalities aspiring to the status of ‘Islamic intellectual’ (the Sufi scholar and Shaykh al-Azhar ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud and the media-savvy lay thinker Mustafa Mahmud) contributed to a reconfiguration of the intellectual field. We investigate how their legacy is presently discussed among educated audiences. Finally, we show how the ambivalence of the reception of their public teaching reflects the troubled search for a new ideological balance by the Egyptian middle classes. Résumé L’étude de la Résurgence islamique a sous-estimé les épreuves intellectuelles par laquelle sont passés certains de ses grands noms à un stade crucial de la crise des sociétés postcoloniales. Les meneurs intellectuels de la Résurgence se sont trouvés confrontés à la tâche de redéfinir la valeur sociale de la foi et de son opposé, le doute, comme le revers insidieux des processus de modernisation. En relevant ce défi, ils ont contribuéà reconfigurer le champ intellectuel : pour atteindre un public plus large, ils ont réinterprété leurs références culturelles et même leurs récits de vies selon les standards de communication adaptés aux nouveaux médias. Les auteurs analysent ici la façon dont les motifs du doute et de la foi dans la trajectoire de deux personnalités aspirant au statut « d’intellectuel islamique », l’érudit soufi Shaykh al-Azhar ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud et le penseur laïque Mustafa Mahmud, fin connaisseur des média, ont contribuéà la reconfiguration du champ intellectuel. Les auteurs étudient le débat dont leur héritage fait aujourd'hui l’objet dans les cercles éduqués. Pour finir, ils montrent comment l’ambivalence de l’accueil fait à leur enseignement public reflète la difficile recherche d’un équilibre idéologique dans les classes moyennes égyptiennes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an account of in virtue of what thinkers are justified in employing certain basic belief-forming methods. The guiding idea is inspired by Reichenbach’s work on induction. There are certain projects in which thinkers are rationally required to engage. Thinkers are epistemically justified in employing a belief-forming method that is indispensable for successfully engaging in such a project. We present a detailed account based on this intuitive thought, and address objections to it. We conclude by commenting on the implications that our account may have for other important epistemological debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustained scholarly interest in the malanggan carvings of New Ireland has achieved consensus regarding the social, political, and economic functions of the ceremonies in which they are used but inconclusive interpretations of the iconography of the art objects themselves continue. This paper finds an interpretation of recurring motifs in a reexamination of early reports, published and unpublished, of former burial customs. The perspective presented here supports but cannot confirm informants' insistence that the carvings are not religious but just pictures. No conclusions are reached regarding pre- or post-Christian beliefs in general, but doubt is cast on their role in malanggan art. Some theoretical implications and further research directions are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often thought that, although Spinoza develops a bold and distinctive conception of God (the unique substance, or Natura Naturans, in which all else inheres and which possesses infinitely many attributes, including extension), the arguments that he offers which purport to prove God’s existence contribute nothing new to natural theology. Rather, he is seen as just another participant in the seventeenth century revival of the ontological argument initiated by Descartes and taken up by Malebranche and Leibniz among others. That this is the case is both puzzling and unfortunate. It is puzzling because although Spinoza does offer an ontological proof for the existence of God, he also offers three other non-ontological proofs. It is unfortunate because these other non-ontological proofs are both more convincing and more interesting than his ontological proof. In this paper, I offer reconstructions and assessments of all of Spinoza’s arguments and argue that Spinoza’s metaphysical rationalism and his commitment to something like a Principle of Sufficient Reason are the driving force behind Spinoza’s non-ontological arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I defend a view of the structure of visual property-awareness by considering the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. I argue that visual property-awareness is a three-place relation between a subject, a property, and a manner of presentation. Manners of presentation mediate our visual awareness of properties without being objects of visual awareness themselves. I provide criteria of identity for manners of presentation, and I argue that our ignorance of their intrinsic nature does not compromise the viability of a theory that employs them. In closing, I argue that the proposed manners of presentation are consistent with key direct-realist claims about the structure of visual awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist accounts of epistemic rationality fail because what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the content of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist can avoid Kelly’s objections. The paper concludes by sketching what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most explorations of the epistemic implications of Semantic Anti-Individualism (SAI) focus on issues of self-knowledge (first-person authority) and/or external-world skepticism. Less explored has been SAI's implications for the epistemology of reasoning. In this paper I argue that SAI has some nontrivial implications on this score. I bring these out by reflecting on a problem first raised by Boghossian (1992) . Whereas Boghossian's main interest was in establishing the incompatibility of SAI and “the a priority of logical abilities” ( Boghossian 1992 : 22), I argue that Boghossian's argument is better interpreted as pointing to SAI's implications for the nature of discursive justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fallibilism about knowledge and justification is a widely held view in epistemology. In this paper, I will try to arrive at a proper formulation of fallibilism. Fallibilists often hold that Cartesian skepticism is a view that deserves to be taken seriously and dealt with somehow. I argue that it turns out that a canonical form of skeptical argument depends upon the denial of fallibilism. I conclude by considering a response on behalf of the skeptic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely assumed that memory has only the capacity to preserve epistemic features that have been generated by other sources. Specifically, if S knows (justifiedly believes/rationally believes) that p via memory at T2, then it is argued that (i) S must have known (justifiedly believed/rationally believed) that p when it was originally acquired at T1, and (ii) S must have acquired knowledge that p (justification with respect to p/rationality with respect to p) at T1 via a non-memorial source. Thus, according to this view, memory cannot make an unknown proposition known, an unjustified belief justified, or an irrational belief rational—it can only preserve what is already known, justified, or rational. In this paper, I argue that condition (i) is false and, a fortiori, that condition (ii) is false. Hence, I show that, contrary to received wisdom in contemporary epistemology, memory can function as a generative epistemic source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gilbert Harman and Judith Thomson have argued that moral facts cannot explain our moral beliefs, claiming that such facts could not play a causal role in the formation of those beliefs. This paper shows these arguments to be misguided, for they would require that we abandon any number of intuitively plausible explanations in non-moral contexts as well. But abandoning the causal strand in the argument over moral explanations does not spell immediate victory for the moral realist, since it must still be shown that moral facts do figure in our best global explanatory theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

InCulture and ValueWittgenstein remarks that the truly“religious man” thinks himself to be, not merely“imperfect” or“ill,” but wholly“ wretched.” While such sentiments are of obvious biographical interest, in this paper I show why they are also worthy of serious philosophical attention. Although the influence of Wittgenstein's thinking on the philosophy of religion is often judged negatively (as, for example, leading to quietist and/or fideist-relativist conclusions) I argue that the distinctly ethical conception of religion (specifically Christianity) that Wittgenstein presents should lead us to a quite different assessment. In particular, his preoccupation with the categorical nature of religion suggests a conception of“genuine” religious belief which disrupts both the economics of eschatological-salvationist hope, and the traditional ethical precept that“ought implies can.” In short, what Wittgenstein presents is a sketch of a religion without recompense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to demonstrate that a contrast can be drawn between coherentism as an account of the structure of justification, and coherentism as a method of inquiry. Whereas the former position aims to offer an answer to the `regress of justification' problem, the latter position claims that coherence plays a vital and indispensable role as a criterion of truth, given the fallibility of cognitive methods such as perception and memory. It is argued that `early' coherentists like Bradley and Blanshard were coherentists of the latter kind, and that this sort of coherentism is not open to certain sorts of standard objection that can be raised against justificatory coherentism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most existing formalizations treat belief change as a single-step process, and ignore several problems that become important when a theory, or belief state, is revised over several steps. This paper identifies these problems, and argues for the need to retain all of the multiple possible outcomes of a belief change step, and for a framework in which the effects of a belief change step persist as long as is consistently possible. To demonstrate that such a formalization is indeed possible, we develop a framework, which uses the language of PJ-default logic (Delgrande and Jackson 1991) to represent a belief state, and which enables the effects of a belief change step to persist by propagating belief constraints. Belief change in this framework maps one belief state to another, where each belief state is a collection of theories given by the set of extensions of the PJ-default theory representing that belief state. Belief constraints do not need to be separately recorded; they are encoded as clearly identifiable components of a PJ-default theory. The framework meets the requirements for iterated belief change that we identify and satisfies most of the AGM postulates (Alchourrón, Gärdenfors, and Makinson 1985) as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One thing all forms of foundationalism have in common is that they hold that a belief can be justified noninferentially—i.e., that its justification need not depend on its being inferred from some other justified (or unjustified) belief. In some recent publications, Peter Klein argues that in virtue of having this feature, all forms of foundationalism are infected with an unacceptable arbitrariness that makes it irrational to be a practicing foundationalist. In this paper, I will explain why his objections to foundationalism fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often noted that institutional objects and artifacts depend on human beliefs and intentions and so fail to meet the realist paradigm of mind-independent objects. In this paper I draw out exactly in what ways the thesis of mind-independence fails, and show that it has some surprising consequences. For the specific forms of mind-dependence involved entail that we have certain forms of epistemic privilege with regard to our own institutional and artifactual kinds, protecting us from certain possibilities of ignorance and error; they also demonstrate that not all cases of reference to these kinds can proceed along a purely causal model. As a result, realist views in ontology, epistemology, and semantics that were developed with natural scientific kinds in mind cannot fully apply to the kinds of the social and human sciences. In closing I consider some wider consequences of these results for social science and philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue against the standard view that ontological debates can be fully described as disagreements about what we should believe to exist. The central thesis of the paper is that believing in Fs in the ontologically relevant sense requires more than merely believing that Fs exist. Believing in Fs is not even a propositional attitude; it is rather an attitude one bears to the term expressed by 'Fs'. The representational correctness of such a belief requires not only that there be Fs, but also that the term expressed by 'Fs' should not misrepresent them. In certain cases we might believe that there are Fs without believing our conception of Fs applies to them. This may well be the situation we are in with regard to abstract entities of various sorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper models information as possibilities consistent with signals received from the environment. Knowledge is obtained by reasoning about the signals received as well as those that might have been received but were not. The term 'knowledge' is used to refer to those beliefs that are obtained by reasoning about the available information, and nothing else. That is, one ought to be able to fully justify what one knows by means of the information that is available. The term 'belief' is used to refer to those beliefs that are based on information but not necessarily only on information. The author investigates the relationship between information, knowledge and belief, as well as the issue of updating knowledge and belief in response to changes in information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the concept of identity to the white racialist or separatist movement, typically referred to as the white supremacist movement in many mainstream publications. While similar racial identity and shared perceptions of the meaning of racialism bind the movement together, there are other important concerns that potentially divide the movement but also have served to attract members to it. One of these potentially divisive areas, the differences in religious views, is explored here through an analysis of the white separatist literature and interviews with movement members. Three belief systems of movement members--Christian or Israel Identity, Church of the Creator, and Odinism--are examined. All three contribute to strengthening the racial identity of white racialists, but are at the same time potentially antagonistic to each other. It is suggested that this religious divide will be a key issue in influencing the future development of the movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Buddha taught that everything is connected and constantly changing. These fundamental observations of the world are shared by ecology and evolution. We are living in a time of unprecedented rates of extinction. Science provides us with the information that we need to address this extinction crisis. However, the problems underlying extinction generally do not result from a lack of scientific understanding, but they rather result from an unwillingness to take the needed action. I present mindfulness and meditative aspects of Zen practice that provide the deeper “knowing,” or awareness that we need to inspire action on these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this paper provides a brief review of the literature on religious belief and practice suggesting that much of this remains to be fully assimilated within the sociology of religion. The paper examines the contention that contemporary British religious practice can be characterized as 'believing without belonging'. Drawing on a survey of rural residents in five areas of England, the paper suggests that a majority of people express high levels of religious belief and a sense of belonging to a particular denomination. Formal religious observance is, however, low. Through a detailed examination of attitudes to the Church of England, a picture emerges of a populace with a well developed sense of the role of the Church and its clergy which is, in the main, affirmative and positive. An important question remains as to why such sentiment is so unevenly transmitted into formal religious observance such as regular attendance at church services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examined the relationship between class, religion and political ideology. I proposed to show that religious beliefs and values incorporate elements of class based ideology which then serve to legitimate a militant or submissive world view. Class, in this paper, is defined as a collectivity of individuals who are conscious of their socio-economic status and interests. I distinguish between ascending, retrenching, bourgeois, and the alienated classes. Corresponding to these classes are four types of religions: inclusive and exclusive militant and submissive religions. The religious values which assume theology-like status are as follows. The religions of the ascending classes are primarily inclusive militants emphasizing the values of collectivity, equality and justice. The religions of the retrenching classes are exclusive militants which stress individualism, freedom, and Christian love. Bourgeois religions are inclusive submissive and while they incorporate the values of the above two, they also add the values of charity and decorum. The religions of the alienated classes are exclusive submissive and anti-class although they do manifest a caste-like system with an elitist self concept and a total commitment to the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding and interpretation of the presumed "secularization" of Britain and other European nations is clouded by a lack of adequate information regarding the substance and timing of religious change. This paper represents the first systematic effort to collect and analyze existing survey data on religious belief in Britain from the late 1930s to the present. Overall, the results show an increase in general scepticism about the existence of God, the related erosion of dominant, traditional Christian beliefs, and the persistence of nontraditional beliefs. A theoretical perspective is needed that recognizes the often corrosive effects of modern life on the transmission of religious beliefs and the continued popularity of worldviews which presume a transcendent referent, however broadly defined.

This paper exposes a serious shortcoming in the methods by which social scientists typically analyze the relationship between formal education and religious belief. Those who think about this relationship commonly imagine its producing quite disparate patterns of effect. Two of the most prominent of these are characterized by the contrary images of "erosion" and "fissure." The problem is that conventional statistical techniques are generally ill-suited to distinguishing between these disparate effect patterns, and so I propose a method of logic modeling that is better able to do so. I illustrate and prove the utility of this method using data drawn from the 1988 and 1993 General Social Surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]