The Methodology of Epistemology (original) (raw)
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Epistemology and Empirical Investigation
Grazer Philosopische Studien 76, 2008
Recently, Hilary Kornblith has argued that epistemological investigation is substantially empirical. In the present paper, I will first show that his claim is not contingent upon the further and, admittedly, controversial assumption that all objects of epistemological investigation are natural kinds. Then, I will argue that, contrary to what Kornblith seems to assume, this methodological contention does not imply that there is no need for attending to our epistemic concepts in epistemology. Understanding the make-up of our concepts and, in particular, the purposes they fill, is necessary for a proper acknowledgement of epistemology's role in conceptual improvement.
The Epistemology of Thought Experiments: First Person versus Third Person Approaches
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2007
T here has been a movement recently to bring to bear on the conduct of philosophical thought experiments (henceforth "thought experiments") 1 the empirical techniques of the social sciences, that is, to treat their conduct as in the nature of an anthropological investigation into the application conditions of the concepts of a group of subjects. This is to take a third person, in contrast to the traditional first person, approach to conceptual analysis. This has taken the form of conducting surveys about scenarios used in thought experiments. 2 It has been called "experimental philosophy" by its practitioners and has been applied across a range of fields: the philosophy of language, the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. 3 The results of these surveys have been used to support conclusions about the application conditions of particular concepts of interest in philosophy. They have also been used to support (and been motivated by) skeptical claims about the traditional approach to conceptual analysis. The 1. I mean to distinguish philosophical thought experiments, which aim at the elucidation of concepts, in a sense to be further explained, from scientific thought experiments, whose aim is to draw out consequences of empirical theories of the world. 2. Many of the themes expressed by proponents of "experimental philosophy" are similar to those expressed by Arne Naess in his early work, especially in Interpretation and Preciseness (1953), which presents a wealth of empirical information about ordinary usage in the form of surveys, along with analysis.
Brief Essay on the Nature and Method of Epistemology
The Incarnate Word, 2024
These thirteen paragraphs portray epistemology as the study, not directly of knowing as a human action (which could be considered the object also of anthropology) but as the study of the mode of being of the object in the subject and, in this sense, of intentional being. Moreover, intentional being is not understood as the being of the cognitional species or representation, which is real and subjective, but as the being of the known, as the presence of the known to the knower (obviously, through the species but a being not reduced to the subjective being of the species): this kind of being is the proper object of epistemology. Other considerations regarding the distinction between metaphysics and epistemology take place as well. As regards the method, this essay attempts to apply Aquinas’ four steps of scientific reasoning to epistemology, in the following fashion and order: 1- Solution of the problem of the universals by recourse to the theory of the agent intellect (resolutio secundum rem); 2- Definition of knowledge as intentional possession of being (res. sec. rationem); 3- Judgment of value regarding the different instances of human knowledge or critique of knowledge (compositio secundum rem) and 4- Reinterpretation (in the light of the previous path) of common notions of epistemology, such as truth, certainty, evidence, and error (comp. sec. rationem).
Two Dogmas of Naturalized Epistemology1
Dialectica, 2005
This essay is not concerned exclusively with procedure. In addition to developing and promoting an alternative methodology, I will also be utilizing it to defend, systematically, an unfashionable proposition nowadays. This is the proposition that the question of how a particular judgment, on a particular occasion, is to be justified, is independent of the question of how that judgment comes to be formedby the individual who forms it. This thesis, which I shall call j-independence, is deplored in certain (self-styled as 'naturalized') schools of epistemology. Its denial is one of the two dogmas of t h~s essay's title. The other dogma is the metaphysical one on which it rests, which I shall call personalism.
Personal Epistemology and Philosophical Epistemology
Recently it has been suggested that there is a need for a conceptual clarification of the relation between personal epistemology (PE) and philosophical epistemology. I attempt to do this in this essay. First, I clarify the task of traditional epistemology as understood by philosophers and point out how it is different from epistemology as understood by PE researchers: epistemology is not post-modernist; it has a normative goal, which is different from empirical research; subfields of epistemology are briefly mentioned and implications for PE research suggested. Second, I point out the existence of several conceptual pitfalls that should be avoided by individuals working in this area: epistemic versus epistemological, 1 st person versus 3 rd person perspectives, and an important ambiguity in the concept of cognition. Thirdly, the concept of cognitive flexibility in relation to epistemology needs to be carefully discussed, especially in relation to the issue of domain-specificity and domain-generality. This is discussed in the context of an epistemology of pragmatism. Finally, I mentioned the recent revolution produced by naturalistic epistemology and the implications of this challenge for understanding the relation between PE and traditional epistemology One needs this, they claim, in order to have a sound theoretical foundation for the study of epistemological beliefs. This is because of the vague use of the term epistemology (2001, p. 415). Hence, if PE is going to be a well defined area of study, the central concept of that field -epistemology -must be clearly specified. Apparently, many individuals believe this has not yet been done. If the concept epistemology has not been specified in a clear way, conceptual confusion may result, with a variety of pitfalls awaiting the investigator of PE. In this paper I discuss the concept of epistemology in relation to PE and I advance the following theses: (I) Traditional philosophical epistemology is different from PE: historically epistemology is not post-modernist; its goal, which is normative, is different from task of studying PE, which is empirical; the subfields of epistemology are briefly described and suggestions are made concerning Personal Epistemology and Philosophical Epistemology implications for additional work in PE. (II) There are several conceptual pitfalls PE researchers are advised to avoid: the epistemic vs. the epistemological, the 1 st person from the 3 rd person point of view, and ambiguities of cognition. (III) The concept of cognitive flexibility needs careful delineation, especially in relation to the question of domain-specificity and domain-generality. If the function of cognition is biological usefulness (adaptation) as the pragmatists maintain, then one can argue there is both domain-specific methods of inquiry and domaingeneral ones, with the domain-general ones being the testing one's ideas.
The Empirical Study of Epistemology and Phenomenology
Review of General Pyschology, 2013
Though psychology is now fractured, it was not always so. Psychology formed as a distinct discipline when researchers tried to use empirical evidence to answer epistemological and phenomenological questions-questions about knowledge and experience. The current subdisciplines of psychology can be understood as putting emphasis on different parts of the answer to those very complicated questions. Even radical behaviorism, long treated as a pariah among approaches to psychology, can be understood as providing insights into nature of mundane, daily acts of knowing and experiencing. This can be seen in the tradition of descriptive mentalism that connects from Charles Sanders Peirce and William James through to the present. This line of thinking has the potential to unify the field, by allowing us to distinguish core from peripheral questions and to understand how the various interests of individual psychologists fit together, in service of an overarching goal.
An overview of the main areas of epistemological debate to which experimental philosophers have been contributing and the larger, philosophical challenges these contributions have raised.
Research in the field of epistemology is flourishing. Many researchers from different disciplines have taken an interest in the domain of personal epistemology. The interest from the field of educational psychology dates from the sixties of the previous century with Perry’s seminal work. Epistemology in general is concerned with questions like: What is the nature of knowledge? and: How does a person come to know? The main objective wepursue in this article is to facilitate and further this clarification process by presenting a dimensional framework that may be helpful in identifying and illuminating some of those paradigmatic differences. Discussion and awareness of those differences between underlying assumptions and constructs is the indispensable first step toward clarification and advancement of the contributions to education from the epistemological domain.
Epistemic Intuitions and Epistemic Contextualism
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2006
In this paper I examine the way appeals to pretheoretic intuition are used to support epistemological theses in general and the thesis of epistemic contextualism in particular. After outlining the sceptical puzzle and the contextualist's resolution of that puzzle, I explore the question of whether this solution fits better with our intuitive take on the puzzle than its invariantist rivals. I distinguish two kinds of fit a theory might have with pretheoretic intuitions–accommodation and explanation, and consider whether achieving either kind of fit would be a virtue for a theory. I then examine how contextualism could best claim to accommodate and explain our intuitions, building the best case that 1 can for contextualism, but concluding that there is no reason to accept contextualism either in the way it accommodates nor the way it explains our intuitions about the sceptical puzzle.