Knowledge by Acquaintance

The concept of the thing in itself in Kant's philosophy is the element which deprives us of knowing the thing as it is in itself. Hegel, who believed that knowledge is limited by nothing but itself, had to eliminate the thing in itself in his Absolute Idealism and in this way make his concept of Knowledge absolute. Many scholars believe that he did so in the first part of his Phenomenology of Spirit, titled 'Consciousness'. In this paper, in contrast to other studies which are concerned with Hegel's external critique of this concept and what he has said about it here or there in his System of philosophy, we'll examine his internal encounter with the Thing in Itself as it is occurred in the first chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. In doing so, we will try to show why he believed that, if we pursue the process of sublating the shapes of consciousness into one another, there won't be anything like the Thing in Itself.  Then We will attempt to explain why his efforts are futile and why, even in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the thing in itself exists exactly in the sense that Kant meant by the term.

What kind of knowledge does one have when one knows what it is like to, say, fall in love, eat vegemite, be a parent, or ride a bike? This Element addresses this question by exploring the tension between two plausible theses about this form of knowledge: (i) that to possess it one must have had the corresponding experience, and (ii) that to possess it one must know an answer to the 'what it is like' question. I show how the tension between these two theses helps to explain existing debates about this form of knowledge, as well as puzzling conflicts in our attitudes towards the possibility of sharing this knowledge through testimony, or other sources like literature, theories, and simulations. And I offer a view of 'what it is like' knowledge which can resolve both the tension between (i) and (ii), and these puzzles around testimony.

Early 1920s 1. Ossowska's Outline of the Trend in England in the Early 1920s • However, in the context of this article, there is a lack of presentation of the critique that Russell made of Bradley's idealism, among others, which he addressed in his book The Principles of Mathematics (1903), as well as in his book Our Knowledge of the External World (1914). • A key point in her paper is that during the early 1920s, Russell could be considered a philosopher influenced by American philosophy, particularly neo-realism, which evolved from pragmatism.

This paper is a response to Uriah Kriegel's "Consciousness, Permanent Self-Awareness, and Higher-Order Monitoring" (Kriegel 2002) interpreted with my knot models of consciousness. In his paper, Kriegel argues that permanent self-awareness accompanies every conscious state, which I present in a trefoil knot model that provides some features of consciousness which were not captured in the preexisting models of consciousness. By doing so, I will also show that the core of the consciousness discussion is related to the structure and the relationship between the observing and the observed self.

This paper will be concerned with the role acquaintance plays in contemporary theories of introspection. Traditionally, the relation of acquaintance has been conceived in analytic epistemology and philosophy of mind as being only epistemically relevant inasmuch as it causes, or enables, or justifies a peculiar kind of propositional knowledge, i.e., knowledge by acquaintance. However, in recent years a novel account of the role of acquaintance in our introspective knowledge has been offered. According to this novel constitutive approach, acquaintance is, in itself, a sui generisi.e., non-propositional-kind of knowledge. As we will suggest, a stalemate between David Chalmers' account of direct phenomenal concepts-as a prototypical example of a causal view-and Anna Giustina's account of primitive introspection-as a prototypical example of a constitutive view-is looming in the current controversy between the two families of theories. Towards the end of the essay, we will point to some possible ways for a constitutive theorist to break the stalemate.

Die vorliegende Untersuchung befasst sich mit dem ,unglücklichen Bewusstsein‘ als einer von mehreren Bewusstseinsgestalten in Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes. Sie unternimmt dies im Rahmen einer Struktur- wie auch einer Vollzugsanalyse. Die Figur des unglücklichen Bewusstseins stellt sich bekanntlich in einer Entzweiung dar: Es ist sowohl allgemeines als auch einzelnes Bewusstsein in einer Selbstbewusstseinseinheit. Die Relation dieser zwei entgegengesetzten Komponenten des Selbstbewusstseins konstituiert näherhin ein Herr-Knecht-Verhältnis, indem das eine – das Einzelne – dem anderen – dem Allgemeinen – unterjocht, die Entgegensetzung der beiden in dieser Ko- existenz jedoch nicht aufgehoben, sondern vielmehr befestigt wird. All diesen Merkmalen nach weist das unglückliche Bewusstsein, wie in dieser Abhandlung vertreten wird, auf zwei Konzeptionen in früheren Abhandlungen Hegels hin: zum einen auf den Mittelbegriff in Hegels Jenaer Logik aus den Jahren 1804/05, zum anderen auf das kantische Sittensubjekt, wie dieses in Hegels Frankfurter Religionsschriften behandelt worden ist.
Im Rahmen der Vollzugsanalyse gehe ich davon aus, dass das unglückliche Bewusstsein eine Art Reflexionssynthese darstellt, die den Satz vom Widerspruch als ihr höchstes Gesetz erkennt. In dieser – letzten und höchsten – Bildungsstufe erkennt sich das Selbstbewusstsein nicht als transzendentale Einheit, die seiner Entzweiung vorrangig und übergeordnet ist, das heißt, es nimmt das Selbst nicht als die unbedingte Vollzugsinstanz, die das erwähnte Gegensatzpaar generiert. Stattdessen lässt es sich auf das Niveau der selbstgenerierten Dichotomie herab und betrachtet das Selbst dadurch in einer bedingten Weise. Dass seine gedanklichen Schritte, um die innere Zerrissenheit zu überwinden, durch den Satz vom Widerspruch schlechthin bestimmt sind, zeigt sich insbesondere bei dem Vorgang, in dem das Unwandelbare hervortritt. Dies geschieht meines Erachtens wie folgt: Um zu einer inneren Versöhnung zu gelangen, versucht das unglückliche Bewusstsein an erster Stelle, eine der entgegengesetzten Komponenten – das Allgemeine – zu verabsolutieren und zugleich die andere, nämlich das Einzelne, zu vernichten. Die verabsolutierte Komponente wird nun für das Bewusstsein zu einem unwandelbaren Wesen, welches das Bewusstsein als etwas bewusstseinsunabhängiges und -transzendentes auffasst und somit erneut ein Herr-Knecht-Verhältnis etabliert, diesmal jedoch zwischen sich selbst und dem Unwandelbaren.
Die vorliegende Arbeit besteht aus fünf Abschnitten und hat zum Ziel, die oben erwähnten Thesen in einem weiteren Umfang zu begründen.

https://www.grin.com/document/539046?lang=en

It is usually, and without much disagreement, regarded that 'knowing one's own consciousness' is strikingly and fundamentally different from 'knowing other things'. The peculiar way in which conscious subjects introspectively know their own consciousness in their immediate awareness is of immense importance with regard to the understanding of consciousness insofar as it has a direct bearing upon consciousness' fundamental existence. However, when it comes to the understanding of consciousness, the role of consciousness' introspective knowledge is rather downplayed or not given much importance with regard to its ontology. With this in the background, the whole purpose of this paper is, first, to make the rather obvious point that the very existence of consciousness in its most fundamental form is constituted by this introspective knowledge of it or its epistemic dimension, whereby its ontology gets its epistemological or epistemic nature. Second, it aims to strengthen the explanatory gap argument by appealing to our enhanced understanding of consciousness in terms of its epistemic ontology.

The aim of this paper is to give an account of Wittgenstein’s epistemological view in Philosophical Investigations (PI) in the context of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (PoS). PoS serves as a model structure through which the conception in PI of cognition is being gradually outlined. After the sketch of Wittgenstein’s account of knowledge in On Certainty compared to Kant’s epistemological conception and Hume’s skeptical doubts, the sole examination of Hegel’s PoS commences. First, I intend to deal with the problem of sense-certainty. It is argued that pure sensory experience without an intrusion of concept cannot grasp any particular object in apprehension. Second, I observe that Hegel’s account of force and understanding introduces the theme of conceptuality. Wittgenstein is being examined simultaneously, on the background of the analysis of Hegel’s dialectical course. It is concluded that both Hegelian and Wittgensteinian conception implies that any kind of knowledge requires som...

Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one-viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory-is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. The purpose of this essay is to argue that attempts to characterize the mental encounter a similar dilemma: currentism with respect to the mental is likely to be inadequate or contain falsehoods and futurism leaves too many significant questions about the nature of mentality unanswered. This new dilemma, we show, threatens both sides of the current debate surrounding the metaphysical status of the mind.

Recently, there has been a renaissance of study on knowledge by acquaintance. One reason for this is that many writers believe acquaintance holds the key to understanding consciousness and our conscious experience of the world. For this reason, research on acquaintance has been primarily focused on perception and self-knowledge. While these questions are undoubtedly important, I believe being overly focused on these issues has prevented a defensible theory of knowledge by acquaintance from being developed. In particular, two questions have largely been ignored in the literature. First, what kind of knowledge is knowledge by acquaintance? If knowledge by acquaintance is supposed to give us special epistemic access to its objects, what are the central epistemic features of it and how do they differ from other kinds of knowledge? Second, can we have knowledge by acquaintance beyond cases of perception and self-knowledge, and if so, how?

In this dissertation, I answer both of these questions. In response to the first question, I argue that knowledge by acquaintance is a form of non-propositional discriminatory knowledge. Roughly, discriminatory knowledge is the exercise of a discriminatory capacity to single out a particular object from other objects of its kind. It is non-propositional because the object of the mental act of discriminating is not a proposition or truth. It is important that we understand knowledge by acquaintance in terms of discriminatory knowledge because it allows us to move beyond perceptual knowledge and self-knowledge. In this dissertation, I show how this is possible by showing that we can be acquainted with the natural numbers. This provides an answer to the second question. There is, in principle, no reason why acquaintance should only exist in sensory perception, provided we understand it in terms of discriminatory knowledge. The upshot of this is that my account of knowledge by acquaintance has a breadth and unity not often found in the acquaintance literature.

Hegel, in a well-known passage, wrote that “the investigation of knowledge can only happen as a knowing; in the case of this so-called instrument, to investigate it is the same as to know it. Wanting to know before one knows, however, is just as absurd as the wise resolution of Scholasticus, to learn to swim before he ventures into the water.” Most of Hegel’s expositors have taken these remarks to indicate that Hegel dismissed epistemology altogether. The notion that Hegel repudiated epistemology has had dire consequences for our understanding of Hegel. By disregarding epistemology, Hegel’s expositors also disregarded the general issue central to epistemology as to how one can justify a philosophical view. If Hegel did, after all, address epistemological issues and if he tried to justify (not simply expound) “absolute knowledge,” then that tendency would ineluctably produce skewed interpretations of Hegel. The time is opportune to re-examine Hegel with open epistemological minds. (Open access via ProQuest; search item title.)

Curiosity has rightly received much attention in epistemology and educational research. Although, through the centuries, it has been regarded with a degree of ambivalence, the trend now is towards its championing as an intellectual or epistemic virtue. The present discussion juxtaposes it against a contrasting way of knowing, which I refer to as knowledge by acquaintance. The notion of acquaintance pursued here parts company with Bertrand Russell's adoption of the expression, taking up instead a more ordinary use of the term. It is suggested that both curiosity and knowledge by acquaintance can present problems. Working through an example drawn from Stephen Poliakoff's film Close My Eyes, the paper seeks to reappraise the value of knowing by acquaintance for epistemology and for educational practice and research.

Anyone familiar with Russell's work on the multiple-relation theory of judgment will at some point have puzzled over the map of the five-term understanding complex at the end of Chapter 1, Part ii of his Theory of Knowledge (1913). Russell presents the map with the intention of clarifying what goes on when a subject S understands the "proposition" that A and B are similar. But the map raises more questions than it answers. In this paper I present and develop some of the central issues that arise from Russell's map, and I offer an interpretation of it that reflects his evolving views in the manuscript. I argue that multiple lines in the map are not meant to represent many relations, but rather one comprehensive multiple relation of understanding. And I argue that such a relation relates in a complex way due to the distinctive nature of its relata.

The aim of this article is to consider Hegel's unity, which is "the Unity of Identity
and Difference" Or to examine and explain the "unity of seemingly contradictory
features in a single coherent whole" in the light of the main problem of Hegel's
philosophy, that is, the overcoming of divisions or dualities, as the solution of her
philosophy. Unity (Einheit) is an important ideal, goal and end for Hegel's
philosophical system. Hence, in his entire philosophical system and in different
periods of his intellectual life, the traces of the search for unity are always obvious,
from the beautiful artistic unity in Greece to his desired unity, which is a rational,
speculative, philosophical, absolute and Mediated unity. For him, the whole of
philosophy is nothing but the study of the definition of unity and its realization in
society. A unity that, instead of eliminating or absorbing another, tries to preserve
and eliminate pluralities and differences by accepting and recognizing another in a
single coherent whole. A unity in which differences and dualities do not disappear
but are preserved as necessary and inevitable moments. Unity that is not the result
of direct intuition but the product and result of passing through different stages and
an intersubjective matter. For Hegel, it is not atomism and excessive individualism
in the modern world that led to rupture, not mere mystical and abstract unions that
wipe out all differences, but the unity of the whole in which All distinctions are
preserved.

The aim of this paper is to give an account of Wittgenstein's epistemological view in Philosophical Investigations (PI) in the context of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (PoS). PoS serves as a model structure through which the conception in PI of cognition is being gradually outlined. After the sketch of Wittgenstein's account of knowledge in On Certainty compared to Kant's epistemological conception and Hume's skeptical doubts, the sole examination of Hegel's PoS commences. First, I intend to deal with the problem of sense-certainty. It is argued that pure sensory experience without an intrusion of concept cannot grasp any particular object in apprehension. Second, I observe that Hegel's account of force and understanding introduces the theme of conceptuality. Wittgenstein is being examined simultaneously, on the background of the analysis of Hegel's dialectical course. It is concluded that both Hegelian and Wittgensteinian conception implies that any kind of knowledge requires some social basis, i.e. that cognition is possible only when language, or conceptuality and propositionality respectively, intervenes. The thesis is shorty compared to John McDowell's concept of how a human mind approaches the world.

Praca powstała w wyniku realizacji projektu badawczego Preludium 20 "Paradoks Moore'a w myśli i języku: ku jednolitej strategii wyjaśnienia", nr 2021/41/N/HS1/01586, finansowanego ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki. Artykuł udostępniony na licencji CC BY 4.0.

A turn is taking place in analytic philosophy of mind. This article attempts to flesh out this claim by providing an overview of what may be called ‘analytic phenomenology’. The first section gives some reasons why this overview may be useful. The overview itself takes up the second section, which is divided into five sub-sections that address some of the central themes of analytic phenomenology. The third section draws a ‘family portrait’ of the movement, and assesses its general cultural significance. A brief appendix distinguishes analytic phenomenology from ‘4E-phenomenology’.

Um nome próprio não é mais do que uma marca sem significação que juntamos em nossas mentes à idéia do objeto, a fim de que sempre que a marca encontrar nossos olhos ou ocorra aos nossos pensamentos, possamos pensar naquele objeto individual.

This article recovers a submerged philosophical debate between Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions and T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Russell's concern with immediate experience ("acquaintance") underscores a dilemma troubling literary modernism generally and modernist abstraction in particular. In "Prufrock," acquaintance with reality marks an epistemic failure whose social form is the "etherization" gripping the city and everything in it. The conversation between Russell's philosophy and Eliot's poetry is grounded in but exceeds the men's real-life acquaintance. Rather than influence, at stake is a circulation of ideas between philosophy and modernist poetry and the questions of knowledge raised by both.

With the exception of Stace's view, all of these opinions have appeared since the publication of My Philosophical Development in 1959, renewing the poignancy of Russell's complaint there that his philosophical theory has been "almost universally misunderstood"

SC asserts about whatever object it takes up that it is~, let us call that its being thesis. 2. SC asserts about .whatever it counts as the essential, that it is something absolutely singular about which nothing general can be expressed, and which also in no way participates in anything general or universal; let us call that its singularity thesis.

The thesis of experiential revelation-Rev for brevity-in the philosophy of mind claims that to have an experience-i.e., to be acquainted with it-is to know its nature. It is widely agreed that although at least moderate versions of Rev might strike one as plausible and perhaps even appealing, at least up to a certain extent, most of them are nonetheless inconsistent with almost any coherent form of physicalism about the mind. Thus far, the issue of the alleged tension between Rev and physicalism has mostly been put in the relevant literature in terms of phenomenal concepts-those concepts which refer to phenomenal properties, or qualia, and characterize them in terms of the peculiar quality(ies) they exhibit-and some kind of "special feature" those concepts allegedly possess. I call this version of Rev C-Rev. This paper aims to suggest that while it is true that phenomenal concepts reveal the nature of their referent(s)-i.e., it is a priori, for a subject possessing the concept and just in virtue of possessing it, what it is for the referent(s) of the concept to be part of reality-this feature of them, in turn, rests on a nonconceptual non-propositional kind of knowledge, namely, sui generis introspective knowledge by acquaintance of one's own phenomenally conscious states. I call this version of Rev A-Rev. §1 provides some introductory material. In §2 I discuss two arguments that have recently been put forth to undermine the cogency of C-Rev against physicalism. §3 elaborates on the historical roots of C-Rev. §4 presents some of the major arguments which have been offered for A-Rev. A few concluding remarks close the paper.

The knowledge problem is based on the questions of what people can know, how they can know, and how they can reach the all-encompassing knowledge of the object. These problems have had an important place in the history of thought from the classical period to the contemporary period. In the history of Islamic thought, the problem of knowledge has been discussed as a fundamental issue. In this article, we will examine how Shihāb ad-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191), an Islamic philosopher who lived in the 12th century, handled the problem of know- ledge. Suhrawardī deals with and criticizes the conceptual knowledge, which is the knowing as the philosophers called Peripatetic. The conceptual knowledge, which is defined as the occurrence of an image of something in the mind, suggests that in order to know something, it is necessary to have an image of that thing. Such type of knowledge, according to Suhrawardī, is far from giving the essence of the object because it is a type of knowledge which realized through an image or sense data. Rather, he proposes knowledge by presence, a type of knowledge that is acquired through direct cognition of reality. In knowledge by presence, one knows something directly without any prior knowledge and any mediation such as form or representation. Self-knowledge is a type of information obtained through knowledge by presence. With the thesis of knowledge by presence, Suhrawardī tries to show that Aristotle’s epistemology cannot give exact knowledge and aims to show that certain knowledge can only be obtained through knowledge by pre- sence.

The Christian faith views love as its primary moral feature. It is not only the greatest commandment but in some way key to obeying God in all other respects. John Wesley attempted to clarify the relationship between loving and obeying God using logic and epistemology. In doing so he claimed that serving God is logically built upon loving God and that loving God is epistemically built upon knowing God. In what follows I argue that not only is Wesley’s theo-logical formulation compelling, but also that the knowledge that empowers it stands a necessary condition. This is important for analyzing recent shifts toward experiences of faith that are less focused on epistemological certainty and more upon the process of reasonable probability. My purpose is not to defend a Wesleyan theology per se but to analyze possibilities for understanding how love and obedience might interact within the realm of religious epistemology.

Commentary on P. W. Ross (1999). Color science and spectrum inversion: A reply to Nida-Rümelin. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 566-570. 1 More precisely my aim was to show that certain versions of functionalism violate the prima facie constraint cited in Ross's paper. But, for simplicity, it will be sufficient to think of a conflict in the sense of logical incompatability. The argument can also be formulated in this way if one restricts the attack to those versions of functionalism that deny that pseudonormal people would be red-green inverted (the externalist versions of functionalism Ross has in mind are an example thereof). Contrary to this, the accepted theory about the physiological basis of color vision implies that they would be red-green inverted. (For this way to put the point see my more recent paper (Nida-Rümelin, 1999).

In this chapter I reconsider Hegel's attempt during the Jena period to overcome dogmatism and form his own philosophical alternative through critically deploying skepticism. Through this re-examination I clarify the formation of Hegel's basic methodological tool, the concept of determinate negation. In the two first parts of the chapter I refer to the introduction of the Phenomenology of Spirit to clarify the notion of skepticism Hegel had in mind. In the third part I consider how Hegel understands the relation between skepticism and philosophy in the relevant article of the Jena period. Then I draw on Plato's Parmenides to examine dialectics as a philosophical method which incorporates the skeptical attitude. After a short presentation of Hegel's critique of the philosophy of subjectivity, I return to Hegel's endeavor to ground a new form of philosophical theory that does not exclude but integrates negation as an essential part of it.

A subject S's belief that Q is well-founded if and only if it is based on a reason of S that gives S propositional justification for Q. Depending on the nature of S's reason, the process whereby S bases her belief that Q on it can vary. If S's reason is non-doxastic-like an experience that Q-S will need to form the belief that Q as a spontaneous and immediate response to that reason. If S's reason is doxastic-like a belief that P-S will need to infer her belief that Q from it. The distinction between these two ways in which S's beliefs can be based on S's reasons is widely presupposed in current epistemology but-we argue in this paper-is not exhaustive. We give examples of quite ordinary situations in which a well-founded belief of S appears to be based on S's reasons in neither of the ways described above. To accommodate these recalcitrant cases, we introduce the notion of enthymematic inference and defend the thesis that S can base a belief that Q on doxastic reasons P1, P2, …, Pn via inferring enthymematically Q from P1, P2, …, Pn.

Aesthetic experience seems superior to aesthetic testimony. Why? I argue that it is due to differences in their epistemic value; in what epistemic goods each one provides. Aesthetic experience, or the experience of art or other aesthetic objects, affords multiple, distinctive epistemic goods whereas aesthetic testimony affords less. In particular, it provides aesthetic knowledge of truths, a kind of propositional knowledge, as well as aesthetic knowledge of things, a kind of non-propositional knowledge. Although aesthetic experience is superior because it has more epistemic value, this doesn’t mean that it provides weaker justification for aesthetic belief than aesthetic testimony; the difference is evaluative, not normative. In this way, we can explain a key pessimistic intuition about aesthetic testimony—that it is inferior to aesthetic experience—whilst preserving the optimistic view that aesthetic testimony makes aesthetic knowledge available to others. The superior epistemic value of first-hand aesthetic experience is compatible with a number of important observations about aesthetic testimony, including the importance of aesthetic trust.

In his Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell distinguished knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge of truths. This paper argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between these two species of knowledge. I argue that knowledge by acquaintance of an object neither suffices for knowledge that one is acquainted with the object, nor puts a subject in a position to know that she is acquainted with the object. These conclusions emerge from a thorough examination of the central role played by attention in Russell's theory of knowledge. Attention bridges the gap between knowledge by acquaintance and our capacity to form judgements about the objects of acquaintance.

In this paper I examine Russell’s account of memory in both the acquaintance and the neutral monist periods, more specifically, the years from 1910 until 1927, with emphasis on The Problems of Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, and The Analysis of Mind. I argue that memory is central for understanding how knowledge works, which is the main reason it remained in the focus of Russell’s analysis even after the gradual shift to neutral monism. I propose that memory played a not insignificant role in that shift. While this paper aims to show that Russell’s theory of memory in the acquaintance period faced serious difficulties—mainly related to the commitment to direct realism—I argue that there is a consistent similarity and continuity between the theory of memory in the acquaintance period and that in the neutral monist period. Russell considered a similar type of memory to be paradigmatic and epistemically primary in both periods—a consideration, dictated, no doubt, by his commitment to ...

In this paper I examine Russell’s account of memory in both the acquaintance and the neutral monist periods, more specifically, the years from 1910 until 1927, with emphasis on The Problems of Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, and The Analysis of Mind. I argue that memory is central for understanding how knowledge works, which is the main reason it remained in the focus of Russell’s analysis even after the gradual shift to neutral monism. I propose that memory played a not insignificant role in that shift. While this paper aims to show that Russell’s theory of memory in the acquaintance period faced serious difficulties—mainly related to the commitment to direct realism—I argue that there is a consistent similarity and continuity between the theory of memory in the acquaintance period and that in the neutral monist period. Russell considered a similar type of memory to be paradigmatic and epistemically primary in both periods—a consideration, dictated, no doubt, by his commitment to ...

In this paper I examine Russell’s account of memory in both the acquaintance and the neutral monist periods, more specifically, the years from 1910 until 1927, with emphasis on The Problems of Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, and The Analysis of Mind. I argue that memory is central for understanding how knowledge works, which is the main reason it remained in the focus of Russell’s analysis even after the gradual shift to neutral monism. I propose that memory played a not insignificant role in that shift. While this paper aims to show that Russell’s theory of memory in the acquaintance period faced serious difficulties—mainly related to the commitment to direct realism—I argue that there is a consistent similarity and continuity between the theory of memory in the acquaintance period and that in the neutral monist period. Russell considered a similar type of memory to be paradigmatic and epistemically primary in both periods—a consideration, dictated, no doubt, by his commitment to ...

This paper argues that reading is a source of knowledge. Epistemologists have virtually ignored reading as a source of knowledge. This paper argues, first, that reading is not to be equated with attending to testimony, and second that it cannot be reduced to perception. Next an analysis of reading is offered and the source of knowledge that reading is further delineated. Finally it is argued that the source that reading is, can be both transmissive and generative, is non-basic, once was a non-essential but has become essential for many people, and can be unique.

The work of Castaneda, Lewis and Perry convinced many philosophers that so-called de se attitudes (and the first-person perspective in particular) are the source of deep and widereaching philosophical insights. The de se, it is claimed, plays an essential role in giving an account of thought and agency. Others claim that the de se is essential to understanding morality, perception, or epistemic phenomena such as immunity to error through misidentification. 1 The de se deflationists, 2 on the other hand, have argued that the phenomena Lewis and Perry described tell us nothing of philosophical significance. According to the deflationist, Lewis and Perry used new and confusing terminology to describe old and familiar phenomena. This paper is a new defence of the deflationary view. Our focus is on the connections between the de se and agency. We have two central goals:

My dissertation concerns the problem of induction, or rather, two related problems of induction. The first is what I call the negative problem of induction. This is the problem of rebutting the skeptical argument, first articulated by Hume, which purports to show that inductive inferences cannot in principle result in epistemically justified beliefs. A solution to this problem, i.e., a negative justification of induction, merely shows that the skeptical conclusion can be plausibly denied, specifically, that it is possible that induction results in epistemically justified beliefs. It does not show that this is probable, or that it is reasonable to rely on induction as a source of epistemically justified beliefs. This is the second or positive problem of induction. In this dissertation I develop solutions to both of these problems. In what follows, I briefly summarize each chapter and then say a few words about the philosophical significance of my results. Chapter 1: The Problem of Induction A successful response to the negative problem of induction must show either (a) that the skeptical argument is invalid, or (b) that it is unsound, i.e., that it relies on some premise that we can plausibly reject. In chapter one I outline the skeptical argument in such a way that it is both valid and, apparently at least, sound. I do not think it is sound, but it is important to pose a problem as forcefully as possible before attempting to solve it, lest one succeed only in knocking down a straw man. Indeed, if the skeptical argument did not seem at least prima facie sound to a great many people, including many of the learned, then there wouldn't be a philosophical problem of induction, for if any of the premises were obviously false then we could avoid the

My dissertation concerns the problem of induction, or rather, two related problems of induction. The first is what I call the negative problem of induction. This is the problem of rebutting the skeptical argument, first articulated by Hume, which purports to show that inductive inferences cannot in principle result in epistemically justified beliefs. A solution to this problem, i.e., a negative justification of induction, merely shows that the skeptical conclusion can be plausibly denied, specifically, that it is possible that induction results in epistemically justified beliefs. It does not show that this is probable, or that it is reasonable to rely on induction as a source of epistemically justified beliefs. This is the second or positive problem of induction. In this dissertation I develop solutions to both of these problems. In what follows, I briefly summarize each chapter and then say a few words about the philosophical significance of my results. Chapter 1: The Problem of Induction A successful response to the negative problem of induction must show either (a) that the skeptical argument is invalid, or (b) that it is unsound, i.e., that it relies on some premise that we can plausibly reject. In chapter one I outline the skeptical argument in such a way that it is both valid and, apparently at least, sound. I do not think it is sound, but it is important to pose a problem as forcefully as possible before attempting to solve it, lest one succeed only in knocking down a straw man. Indeed, if the skeptical argument did not seem at least prima facie sound to a great many people, including many of the learned, then there wouldn't be a philosophical problem of induction, for if any of the premises were obviously false then we could avoid the

My dissertation concerns the problem of induction, or rather, two related problems of induction. The first is what I call the negative problem of induction. This is the problem of rebutting the skeptical argument, first articulated by Hume, which purports to show that inductive inferences cannot in principle result in epistemically justified beliefs. A solution to this problem, i.e., a negative justification of induction, merely shows that the skeptical conclusion can be plausibly denied, specifically, that it is possible that induction results in epistemically justified beliefs. It does not show that this is probable, or that it is reasonable to rely on induction as a source of epistemically justified beliefs. This is the second or positive problem of induction. In this dissertation I develop solutions to both of these problems. In what follows, I briefly summarize each chapter and then say a few words about the philosophical significance of my results. Chapter 1: The Problem of Induction A successful response to the negative problem of induction must show either (a) that the skeptical argument is invalid, or (b) that it is unsound, i.e., that it relies on some premise that we can plausibly reject. In chapter one I outline the skeptical argument in such a way that it is both valid and, apparently at least, sound. I do not think it is sound, but it is important to pose a problem as forcefully as possible before attempting to solve it, lest one succeed only in knocking down a straw man. Indeed, if the skeptical argument did not seem at least prima facie sound to a great many people, including many of the learned, then there wouldn't be a philosophical problem of induction, for if any of the premises were obviously false then we could avoid the

Russell argued that we can’t know what brains are really like behind our perceptions of them, so minds can conceivably reside in brains. Physicalist-leaning Russellians from Feigl to Strawson try to avoid physicalist and dualist issues with this Russellian idea. Strawson also tries to avoid emergentist issues through panpsychism. Yet critics feel that these Russellians don’t really avoid these issues, but just recast them in new forms. For example, dualist issues arguably remain because it’s hard to see how private pains or colours can reside in solid, grainy, publicly observable brains. Emergence issues arguably remain because panpsychism seems equally unclear as emergentism about how minds arise from brains. This paper revises Strawson and Feigl, while building on recent progress in defusing panpsychism’s emergence issues. It tries to intelligibly formulate Russell’s idea so as to avoid the perennial issues in Russellian and non-Russellian theories, without raising new issues of i...