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Unger (1974/2000 ) presents an argument for skepticism that significantly differs from the more traditional arguments for skepticism. The argument is based on two premises, to wit, that knowledge would entitle the knower to absolute certainty, and that an attitude of absolute certainty is always inadmissible from an epistemic viewpoint. The present paper scrutinizes the arguments that Unger provides in support of these premises and shows that none of them is tenable. It thus concludes that Unger's argument for skepticism fails to threaten the possibility of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits a puzzle that arises for theories of knowledge according to which one can know on the basis of merely inductive grounds. No matter how strong such theories require inductive grounds to be if a belief based on them is to qualify as knowledge, there are certain beliefs (namely, about the outcome of fair lotteries) that are based on even stronger inductive grounds, while, intuitively, they do not qualify as knowledge. This paper discusses what is often regarded as the most promising classical invariantist solution to the puzzle, namely, that beliefs about the outcomes of fair lotteries do not qualify as knowledge because they are too lucky to do so (or, relatedly, because they do not satisfy a safety condition on knowledge), while other beliefs based on potentially weaker inductive grounds are not too lucky (or, relatedly, because they are safe). A case is presented that shows that this solution to the puzzle is actually not viable. It is argued that there is no obvious alternative solution in sight and that therefore the puzzle still awaits a classical invariantist solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

Russell's version of the multiple-relation theory from the Theory of Knowledge manuscript is presented and defended against some objections. A new problem, related to defining truth via correspondence, is reconstructed from Russell's remarks and what we know of Wittgenstein's objection to Russell's theory. In the end, understanding this objection in terms of correspondence helps to link Russell's multiple-relation theory to his later views on propositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the attempt of Donald Davidson that explains knowledge of meaning in terms of truth conditions. The author argues that Davidson's two main rationales presented in his works were unsuccessful. He resumes that the task of doing the details of the story has a constructive part, where propositions are used as theoretical constructs and subject those theories to empirical test, and a foundational part where propositions are being explained.

I shall argue that, according to Aristotle, the knowledge we may attain is profoundly qualified by our status as human knowers. Throughout the corpus, Aristotle maintains a separation of knowledge at the broadest level into two kinds, human and divine. The separation is not complete—human knowers may enjoy temporarily what god or the gods enjoy on a continuous basis; but the division expresses a fact about humanity's place in the cosmos, one that imposes strict conditions on what we may know, with what degree of certainty, and in what areas. While passages bearing on human knowledge are familiar, looking at them collectively and in comparison with certain other well known Aristotelian doctrines may significantly affect how we understand the goals of his philosophy and why our hopes for reaching them must be limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important issue for information ethics is how much control people should have over the dissemination of information that they have created. Since intellectual property policies have an impact on our welfare primarily because they have a huge impact on our ability to acquire knowledge, there is an important role for epistemology in resolving this issue. This paper discusses the various ways in which intellectual property policies can have an impact on knowledge acquisition both positively and negatively. In particular, it looks at how intellectual property policies can affect the amount of information that people create, the quality of that information, the accessibility of that information, the diversity of that information, and the locatability of that information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History of mathematics occupies itself describing processes of growth and development, whereas philosophy of mathematics is concerned with questions of justification. Both play an essential role within the educational context. But there is a problem because genuine historical studies necessitate ever greater particularity whereas mathematics and philosophy require generality and abstraction. The paper offers some methodological reflections about these matters together with two case studies from nineteenth century history of arithmetic and integration theory, respectively, which try to strike a balance between the directly opposed requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on indispensability argument and anti-realism in philosophy of mathematics. It is posed that the indispensability argument for abstract mathematical entities has been an essential issue in the philosophy of mathematics. Moreover, it is mentioned that improving the assumptions on this concern can lead to a new anti-realistic philosophy of mathematics, particularly in mathematical calculations wherein what really exist and can be employed as tools are not abstract mathematical abilities, but inner representations created in imagining abstract mathematical entities, and that the thoughts created in imagining infinite mathematical entities are confined by external conditions.

The article offers information on cooperative naturalism. It is posed that the radical forms of naturalistic epistemology appear more like revolutionary manifestos than reasonable alternatives. Moreover, it is mentioned that a modest form of naturalism is worth promoting. It is also stated that this modest form can work with hermeneutics to solve epistemic problems. Relative to this, it is forwarded that seemingly cooperative naturalism connects the gap between analytic and continental philosophy.

Winfield's explication of Hegel's theory of mind, especially Hegel's theory of intelligence, is, he suggests, important for solving three problems that continue to haunt contemporary work in the philosophy of mind and epistemology: 1) A problem concerning the acquisition of language and its place in an account of consciousness, 2) A problem concerning the objectivity of representations, and 3) A problem concerning the grounds of knowing. I think Winfleld is correct in identifying all three problems as having their source in Kantian philosophy. I examine these three problems more carefully through a critical lens aimed at recent work by John McDowell and Robert Brandom. Both philosophers claim certain Hegelian influences. I argue that, in crucial ways, both Brandom and McDowell have each inherited the problems Hegel sought to solve and that are so clearly articulated in Winfleld's essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has recently been argued that any epistemological theory that allows for what is called basic knowledge, viz., knowledge that an agent acquires from a certain source, even if he fails to know that the source is reliable, falls victim to what is known as the problem of easy knowledge. The idea is that for such theories bootstrapping and closure allow us far too easily to acquire knowledge (justification) that seems unlikely under the envisaged circumstances. In this paper, I begin by highlighting the distinction between the (epistemic) legitimacy and dialectical effectiveness of such inferences. After evaluating some of the well-known solutions to this problem, I offer a mixed view of the legitimacy of easy knowledge inferences while trying to provide novel explanations as to how contrary intuitions arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I start from Phillips' discussion of Rhees's dissatisfaction with the idea of a language-game. Then, from a rereading of Moore, I go on to exemplify interconnected uses of the expressions “language-game,”“recurrent procedure,”“world-picture,”“formal procedure,”“agreement in judgment,”“genre picture” and “form of life.” The discussion is related to sense perception, our knowledge of time and space, and the picture-theory. These topics connect with Wittgenstein's earlier treatment of the will – which changed markedly later. The subtext (in footnotes) confronts (i) the sceptical methods of Descartes and Hume with the grammatical methods of Leibniz, Kant and Wittgenstein, and (ii) the realism of Leibniz and the Tractatus with the transcendental idealism of Kant. My conclusion is that, although the method of Wittgenstein's later work remains in a sense grammatical, (i) in its new form it can free us from the conviction that the intellect can and must resolve one way or the other the conflicts that arise in the course of the latter confrontation, and that (ii), although release from such a conviction is to be seen as the aim of philosophical discourse in general, it allows philosophy to retain its overriding significance. A positive element in that lies in the respect the method demands for that in a human life which is transcendental to the activity of scientific theorising: respect, therefore, for the unique perspective of the individual historical agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The value problem for knowledge is the problem of explaining why knowledge is cognitively more valuable than mere true belief. If an account of the nature of knowledge is unable to solve the value problem for knowledge, this provides a pro tanto reason to reject that account. Recent literature argues that process reliabilism is unable to solve the value problem because it succumbs to an objection known as the swamping objection. Virtue reliabilism (i.e., agent reliabilism), on the other hand, is able to solve the value problem because it can avoid the swamping objection. I argue that virtue reliabilism escapes the swamping objection only by employing what I call an entailment strategy. Furthermore, since an entailment strategy is open to the process reliabilist (in two different forms), I argue that the process reliabilist is also able to escape the swamping objection and thereby solve the value problem for knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In almost all epistemologies, intuition is one of the most discussed issues with regard to its value. Intuition, in its most general meaning, is a 'direct comprehension'. What brings intuition to that disputatious point is this statement of 'direct'. Statement of 'direct' is while sometimes used as a contrary to the rational and empirical knowledge, sometimes used -as if in Avicenna- in the meaning of velocity and reliability of rational and empirical knowledge. In the former, because either rational knowledge or empirical knowledge is not relied, intuition is put forward or it's advocated that those which are difficult to obtain by means of reason and senses can be obtain only by means of intuition that is thought as a new source of knowledge. In the latter, intuition is not a source of knowledge and takes place in the group of empirical knowledge. The artical is about the analysis of these subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of language variation and change in a socially stratified corpus of Glaswegian collected in 1997. Eight consonantal variables in read and spontaneous speech from 32 speakers were analysed separately and then together using multivariate analysis. Our results show that middle-class speakers, with weaker network ties and more opportunities for mobility and contact with English English speakers, are maintaining traditional Scottish features. Working-class adolescents, with more limited mobility and belonging to close-knit networks, are changing their vernacular by using ‘non-local’ features such as TH-fronting and reducing expected Scottish features such as postvocalic /r/. We argue that local context is the key to understanding the findings. Mobility and network structures are involved, but must be taken in conjunction with the recent history of structural changes to Glasgow and the resulting construction of local class-based language ideologies which continue to be relevant in the city today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

The author presents case illustrations or phenomenological renderings of conscious and unconscious memory phenomena that corroborate findings in modern neuroscience. She contends that the literary presentation is a heightening of actual brain processes. She examines examples that show ways in which literature and art capture the human memory process in contexts of a modernist understanding of time.

What explanation can be given for the relevance of literature to Bourdieu's theoretical work? In order to explain this choice of object, in the first part of this article I consider the national and international context within which Bourdieu's theory has been built. In the French intellectual space literature was a central theoretical object. In the international context, the attention paid to literature was justified by the importance given to the symbolic phenomena in the main contemporary theoretical traditions. In order to appreciate the singularity and difficulty of Bourdieu's theoretical acquisition, I try to reconstruct the problems that he attempted to resolve, the theoretical possibilities with regard to which his hypotheses were defined, and the position that he held in his field of production at the time in which they were formulated. In Bourdieu's thought, this conjunctural dimension does not imply that a theory is particularized or relativized. So he presented his theoretical frameworks on literature as a model applying to any kind of cultural products. In the second part of my paper I intend to test these claims by examining under what conditions and to what extent his ‘Principles of a science of works’ have been considered transposable to other national contexts and/or to new objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the theory of virtue in epistemology. The theory of virtue in epistemology is examined through the presentation of cases, whose core idea is that the nature of knowledge is best understood by reflecting on its role in intellectual practice. The intellectual practice is defined as any normatively structured way of finding things, resolving problems and answering questions.

The author presents an analysis of historicism versus positivism in the realm of the social universe. The issue is whether to present the operative dynamics of the social universe scientifically or historically. It is posited that there can be no middle ground between historicism and positivism. There can be no easy answers and the philosophical issue can be debated endlessly. Instead of attempting to resolve the issue, it is suggested that attention be directed instead to epistemology for answers.

This article discusses the role of knowledge in people's lives. Knowledge is simply a normal true belief, a belief that can be explained. The normal way of explaining knowledge is based on the concept of how familiar the person can justify it. The author further suggests that a person must explore his attitudes towards explanation and its explanatory value thereon.

This paper examines problems of development in the light of two opposed concepts identified in John Protevi's examination of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. It is argued that much development practice is informed by the concept of hylomorphism, which is ‘the doctrine that production is the imposition of formal order on chaotic or passive matter’. This approach is contrasted with accounts premised on the concept of complexity, which asserts that complex systems are self-organising. It is argued that top-down development interventions (inclusive of those guided by the Washington Consensus) are informed by the hylomorphic principle, while a complexity-orientated approach is more evident in participatory strategies of development. The paper suggests that these two opposing principles must be combined in a creative tension to maximise the possibilities for developmental effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction presents an overview of the articles in this special issue, within the framework of an argument for the conclusion that there are various roads leading from imagination to knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important trend in contemporary epistemology centers on elaborating an old idea of pragmatist pedigree: theory selection (and in general the process of changing view and fixing beliefs) presupposes epistemic values. This article focuses on analyzing the case where epistemic values are indeterminate or when the sources of valuation are multiple (epistemic values like coherence and simplicity need not order options in compatible ways). According to the theory that thus arises epistemic alternatives need not be fully ordered by an underlying notion of information-value and therefore the usual economic techniques of optimization cannot be applied in order to compute optimal contractions. But in cases of this sort it is still rational to maximize, i.e. to deem an option as choosable when it is not known to be worse that any other. We present here basic results about a notion of liberal contraction based on maximizing quasi-orderings. This requires the previous solution of some open problems in the theory of rational choice functions, namely a full characterization of choice functions rationalizable in terms of maximization of quasi-transitive relations. We conclude by discussing the problem of what is the adequate feasible set for calculating maximizing solutions for contraction problems and by considering the epistemological roots of some counterexamples against the most fundamental axioms on choice functions (like α). While the first part of the paper shows how economic insights can be used to improve our understanding of the principles of belief formation and change, this final section reverses this strategy by showing the utility of epistemological insights and techniques for providing invariance conditions capable of regulating the applicability of the pure principles of choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the evidence available today, we know that the later Middle Ages knew strong forms of idealism. However, Plato alone will not do to explain some of its features. Aristotle was the most important philosophical authority in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but until now no one dared explore in his thought the roots of this idealism because of the dogma of realism surrounding him. I challenge this dogma, showing that the Stagirite contained in his thought the roots of idealist aspects that will be developed, namely by Dietrich of Freiberg and Eckhart of Hochheim, into a fully idealist epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With respect to the specificity and structure of epistemological beliefs, we contend that beliefs about knowledge are reflective of the multidimensional, multilayered, and interactive nature of knowledge. Here we present a model of the nested and reciprocal relations between domain-general and domain-specific epistemological beliefs. Additionally, we present evidence in support of three claims related to that model. Those claims are that domain-specific beliefs: (a) emerge when beliefs are assessed at a more precise level; (b) are differentially related to motivation; and (c) develop from more general beliefs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Research on epistemological beliefs has clearly increased in the last decade. Even though the construct is clearer and relevant data are being collected, there are important theoretical and methodological issues that need further clarification. One of them is the debate about the domain generality–specificity of epistemological beliefs. I argue that there are both theoretical and methodological difficulties that hinder a more fruitful approach of the domain generality–specificity debate. Differences in goals and scope of the diverse conceptualizations about epistemological beliefs and how they devise the role of content-domain and context are a major source of difficulties. Methodological problems such as whether such epistemological beliefs can be measured “in isolation”—free of content and context influence—or the impossibility of collecting direct measures of epistemological beliefs may influence how the domain generality–specificity question is approached. Some suggestions about how these difficulties may be overcome are developed. The relevance of exploring epistemological beliefs across domains and across contexts is emphasized. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Estudios Filosóficos is the property of Estudios Filosoficos 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.)

The article discusses the philosophical concept of possibilism and reflection of total systems. It focuses on the author's discussion which centres to the unqualified, question of truth or likelihood of very special, very complicated, most often many-dimensional sets of sentences, known as texts expressing philosophical systems. Moreover, the author concludes that semantic or ordinary language considerations cannot furnish valid arguments for an answer of impossible to the unqualified question, because one can rightly argue that the word impossible very often and especially in loose talk, is used for what is rather unlikely to believe in.

The article examines the merits of the debate linking knowledge and education. The approach makes it possible to revisit common thinking on the difficulties of acquiring knowledge at school is stemming from a stream of research developed in France. The unique relationship a student has with knowledge and the educational institutions is demonstrated by two conducted Swiss studies.

The article recommends a theory of belief which provided that epistemic concepts are pragmatically sensitive. It discusses a connection between degrees of belief and belief based on probabilistic coherence. It shows that a coherent agent has beliefs that are deductively cogent with respect to propositions. It endorses the conclusions similar to Gilbert Harman in Change View.

The article presents a less permissive account of rationality. It argues against the Uniqueness thesis-- that there is a unique rational doxastic attitude that can be taken to by proposition. It also objects to Extreme Permissiveness, which believed that there are cases in with their can be a rational belief in permissiveness. What it offers is a moderate level of permissiveness without reaching Uniqueness.

This article examines Gibson's concept of perceptual system and Reed's concept of action system. After discussing several assumptions underlying these concepts, the ontological status of these systems is considered. It is argued that perceptual systems and action systems should be conceptualized neither as parts of an animal's body nor as softly (temporarily) assembled devices; rather, they are best understood as animals' abilities to achieve functional relationships, that is, as dispositional properties. This conceptualization entails that these systems are relatively permanent properties of the animal that are causally supported by, though not identical to, anatomical substrates. Further, it entails that it is the animal that perceives and acts, not its perceptual and action systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although political values guide people who take advice from standpoint epistemologies in deciding whether to reveal secrets used to resist oppression, these decisions can also be understood and evaluated in purely cognitive or epistemological terms. When political considerations direct us to preserve a secret, the cognitive value progressively diminishes because the view of the world projected by the secret is increasingly vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central claim is that Hornsby's argument that semantic knowledge is practical knowledge is based upon a false premise. I argue, contra Hornsby, that speakers do not voice their thoughts directly. Rather, our actions of voicing our thoughts are justified by decisions we make (albeit rapidly) about what words to use. Along the way, I raise doubts about other aspects of the thesis that semantic knowledge is practical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central claim is that the semantic knowledge exercised by people when they speak is practical knowledge. The relevant idea of practical knowledge is explicated, applied to the case of speaking, and connected with an idea of agents' knowledge. Some defence of the claim is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We propose a concept of intellectual values as (a) shared within a group and defined by the extent to which intellectual engagement is regarded as worthwhile to the group''s interests, (b) supported by an epistemological belief system, and (c) an important dimension of sociocultural practice and learning. A series of studies is described in which assessments of intellectual values and epistemological beliefs were found to show similar patterns of variation across cultural and subcultural groups of parents and children. Such groups may play a role in highlighting to their youth the intrinsic value of intellectual engagement (versus its instrumental value in achieving individual recognition and status). Intrinsically valued intellectual engagement, we suggest, provides the firmest basis for sustaining intellectual motivation through adolescence and into adulthood. Developing mature epistemological understanding, moreover, is key to this enterprise. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper I will discuss Kim’s powerful explanatory exclusion argument against the causal efficacy of mental properties. Baker and Burge misconstrue Kim’s challenge if they understand it as being based on a purely metaphysical understanding of causation that has no grounding in an epistemological analysis of our successful scientific practices. As I will show, the emphasis on explanatory practices can only be effective in answering Kim if it is understood as being part of the dual-explanandum strategy. Furthermore, a fundamental problem of the contemporary debate about mental causation consists in the fact that all sides take very different examples to be paradigmatic for the relation between psychological and neurobiological explanations. Even if we should expect some alignment in the explanatory scope of neurobiology and psychology/folk-psychology, there is no reason to expect that all mental explanations are exempted by physical explanations, since they do not in general explain the same phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is damagingly irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violated. A revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry is needed so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom, conceived of as the capacity to realize what is of value, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This urgently needed revolution would affect every branch and aspect of the academic enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophia means love of wisdom. If the way of access to wisdom is love, then the quest for wisdom does not appear as a purely cognitive enterprise but also and primarily as an affective one. Rather than reducing the one who searches for wisdom to a pure contemplative mind, it engages the entire person in the inquiry; the affective, and correlatively, sensitive and corporeal being of the self are put into play. Put simply and naively, one needs to be implicated in the philo-sophical quest with one's heart and one's body. Still, does not such implication prevent this quest from being ‘scientific’? Should not the inquiry be dispassionate if it is to remain ‘objective’, for otherwise it may obscure the hypotheses we formulate and the experiments we perform with subjective, personal input and cloud them with a halo of affective indeterminacy? After all, the thesis of objectivism stipulates that we should efface not only all preconceptions and presuppositions in order to have an unprejudiced view of the matter in hand, but also dispose of the entire affective baggage of the individual engaged in a scientific enterprise. This procedure of bracketing of affectivity allows one to scrutinize the object of study from the standpoint of an external observer who adds nothing to the object in order to let its inherent character manifest itself. Hence the supposed detachment and disinterest typical of the strategies employed by contemporary science, living and inanimate beings alike being all ranked amongst possible objects for study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common to assume that if Locke is to be regarded as a consistant epistemologist he must be read as holding that either ideas are the objects of perception or that [physical] objects are. He must either be a direct realist or a representationalist. But perhaps, paradoxical as it at first sounds, there is no reason to suppose that he could not hold both to be true. We see physical objects and when we do so we have ideas. We see or hear birds and bells but we also have visual and auditory ideas of birds and bells. This suggestion is explored through examination of what Locke says about perception in his Elements of Natural Philosophy and the accounts offered both by Locke in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and by some of Locke's successors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the causal role of the divine ideas by focusing on their relation to natural agents in Thomas Aquinas. View of Aquinas that the ideas in the mind of God serve two distinct although interrelated roles; Epistemological principles accounting for God's knowledge of things other than himself; Ontological or causal principles involved in God's creative activity; Aquinas' observation that God's intellect "forms flow forth into all creatures"; Consideration of whether the causality of the divine ideas exclude that of natural agents, or whether both modes of causality can somehow produce one and same effect.

Discusses the intellectual synthesis and figurative synthesis of Immanuel Kant based on his book "Critique of Pure Reason." Relationship between intellectual synthesis and the a priori form of intuition; Distinct features of productive imagination; Role of figurative synthesis and forms of intuition in Kant's answer to his main question in the transcendental deduction.

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]

Explores the significance of Aristotle's account of induction to bridge the gap of empiricist outlook towards concept formation. Virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial; Point of Aristotle that philosophic wisdom is the excellence of the entirety of theoretical knowledge; Relevance of Aristotle's theory of perception to provide intuitions about sensory awareness.

This paper pursues the double task of (a) presenting Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms as a systematic critique of culture and (b) assessing this systematic approach with regards to the question of reason vs. relativism. First, it reconstructs the development of his theory to its mature presentation in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Cassirer here presents a critique of culture as fulfilling Kant's critical work by insisting on the plurality of reason as spirit, manifesting itself in symbolic forms. In the second part, the consequences of this approach will be drawn by considering the systematics Cassirer intended with this theory. As can be reconstructed from his metaphilosophical reflections, the strength of Cassirer's philosophy is that it accounts for the plurality of rational- spiritual activity while at the same time not succumbing to a relativism. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms steers a middle course between a rational fundamentalism and a postmodern relativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of combined expectancies have shown that spatial cueing effects are reduced on trials on which participants have to respond with an unexpected motor response. In the first two experiments the range of reduced expectancy effects is examined. Advance knowledge of the likely response was combined in a trial-by-trial procedure with modality cueing, object cueing, and task cueing. Effects of modality cueing were reduced on trials on which the target requested an unexpected response. However, effects of object cueing as well as effects of task cueing were unaffected by response cueing. Comparing experiments revealed that different types of cues were used in different experiments. To test the effect of type of cue on the interaction of expectancies the third experiment combined spatial cueing with response cueing. When integrated cues were used that cued the likely target location by an arrow and the likely response by an arrow too, spatial cueing effects were reduced on trials with unexpected responses. However, spatial cueing effects remained unaffected by response cueing when separated cues were used consisting in a word cueing the response and an arrow cueing target location. An account for the modulation of combined expectancies by the relation between cues is suggested in terms of the adjusted expectancy model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal epistemology has typically been conceptualized in one of two primary ways: as a cognitive developmental process or as a system of beliefs. The approach that is elaborated here is to conceive of epistemological understanding as a metacognitive process that activates epistemic theories, a multidimensional set of interrelated beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Building on the work of Flavell (1979), K. S. Kitchener (1983), and Kuhn (1999b), this article describes the rationale for conceptualizing epistemological awareness at the metacognitive level, delineates the nature of this construct, and describes how this directs methodological choices for research. This is discussed in light of a recent study of students' online searching for a simulated science assignment, investigated through the use of think-aloud protocols. Exploring students' thought processes during online searching allows examination of personal epistemology not as a decontextualized set of beliefs, but as an activated, situated aspect of cognition that influences the knowledge construction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his book "Mind and World," John McDowell grapples with the problem that the world must and yet seemingly cannot constrain our empirical thought. I first argue that McDowell's proposed solution to the problem throws him onto the horns of his own, intractable dilemma, and thus fails to solve the problem of rational constraint by the world. Next, I will argue that Wilfrid Sellars, in a series of articles written in the 1950s and 1960s, provides the tools to solve the dilemma McDowell sets before us. We will see how, borrowing from Sellars and certain neo-Sellarsians, we can solve the problem of rational constraint by perception without resorting to a McDowellian quasi-enchantment of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]