Intuitively, the knowledge of one’s own intentional actions is different from the knowledge of actions of other sorts, including those of other people and unintentional actions of one's own. But how are we to understand this phenomenon? Does it pertain to all actions, under every description under which they are known? If so, then how is this possible? If not, then how should we think about cases that are exceptions to this principle? This paper is a critical survey (...) of recent attempts to answer these questions. I consider views under three headings: "special source" views, which hold that the knowledge of one's intentional actions has a non-perceptual source; "special domain" views, which hold that some but not all aspects of one's intentional actions are known in a special way; and "special character" views, which hold that the knowledge of intentional actions is special not because of where it comes from, but because of some other respect in which it is different in kind from the knowledge of other things. (shrink)

The Energy-Time Uncertainty (ETU) has always been a problem-ridden relation, its problems stemming uniquely from the perplexing question of how to understand this mysterious Δ t . On the face of it (and, indeed, far deeper than that), we always know what time it is. Few theorists were ignorant of the fact that time in quantum mechanics is exogenously defined, in no ways intrinsically related to the system. Time in quantum theory is an independent parameter, which simply means independently known (...) . In the early 1960s Aharonov (1961-64) and Bohm (1961-64) mounted a spirited attack against the ETU, which sealed its fate to the present date. By emphasising that time is always “well-defined” in quantum theory, they were led to the conclusion that no ETU should exist, a view shared by many in the 1990s, if Busch (1990) is to be believed. In a similar vein, I emphasize that (a) physical systems occupy a particular energy state at a particular instant of time, if at all; (b) even in absence of all time-measuring instruments, it is still trivially warranted that one can measure a system's energy as accurately as one pleases, and simply announce “The system's energy is exactly E NOW!”, a possibility which no quantum mechanics of any sort, or any physical theory whatsoever, can afford to tamper with or change, except circularly. One never loses one's own perception of time, when one measures the energy, a fact which no measurement conceivable can interfere with or affect. Both (a) and (b) uniquely entail that energy and time are compatible, if not indeed intimately interconnected, contrary to what the relevant uncertainty seems to affirm. In response to Aharonov's and Bohm's initial problem, I reinterpret ΔEΔt ≥ h , as directly derived from authentic quantum principles, without however having to assume a direct incompatibility between its related concepts, attributing their complementarity to conditions other than ordinarily assumed. (shrink)

Intention is at the heart of criminal law. If it is not the mens rea requirement found most often in offences, it is still the standard against which other grades of fault tend relatively to be judged. It has generated much controversy, as the crucial question, “Did the defendant intend X?” is resistant to clear answers. This paper argues that intention-questions are difficult because intention is not the thing law takes it to be: Importantly, contrary to law's assumptions, it is (...) neither a state of mind nor is it connected in an exclusive manner to the reasons for which we act. (shrink)

I discuss the issue whether the kind of nonobservational knowledge about our intentional actions that can be detected in ideal, paradigmatic cases can also be present when the agent is not confident enough to believe she will succeed in fulfilling her intention. It might be tempting to assume that if the agent’s confidence about what she is doing is relevantly increased after some observation, then the acquired practical knowledge has to be observational. I argue that this is (...) a wrong reaction. On the one hand, I defend that practical knowledge is non-perceptual even in those cases. On the other hand, I insist that the rejection of certain common assumptions about the difference between those cases and the more ideal ones gives us a better understanding of what is going on in the latter. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to provide a comparative account of the manner in which Moritz Schlick and Wilfrid Sellars treat certain aspects surrounding the topic of observational knowledge. By considering Sellars’s allusions to Schlick’s epistemological undertaking within the context of his rejection of givenness, I evaluate the extent to which Schlick can be characterized as a traditional foundationalist. By emphasizing that this is not the case and that Schlick adheres to a non-standard version of epistemological (...) foundationalism, I shed some light on those theoretical elements that allow for a convergence of opinions between the two authors to transpire. (shrink)

That the present day society profits from research in many areas is evident. This has stimulated a keen desire to emulate similarly advantageous contributions in other areas. It appears to imply not only a need to know how to (better) support action in general or any action, but also how to support the act of making "better" itself (better businesses, better houses, better emotions, better objectives, etc.). Developing the latter type of knowledge has proved to pose a major challenge, (...) however. Although the challenge has been taken up in areas such as social policy, economics, therapy, management, architecture, design, and others, leading to a number of responses, a complete characterisation seems still to be lacking. Such a characterisation is attempted in this article. Typical characteristics are the inclusion of non-observational experiences and a simultaneous striving for individual and collective high quality. (shrink)

According to G.E.M. Anscombe, an agent’s knowledge of his own intentional actions differs from his knowledge of his unintended behaviors as well as the knowledge others can have of what he intentionally does, in being secured “without observation”. I begin by posing a problem for any conception of this theory according to which non-observational knowledge must be independent of sense-perception, and criticize several recent attempts to get around the problem. Having done this, I develop an (...) alternative account of non-observational knowledge according to which its special character consists in the particular causal role of an agent’s self-awareness in bringing his intentional actions about. (shrink)

According to one influential philosophical view of human agency, for an agent to perform an action intentionally is essentially for her to manifest a kind of self-knowledge: An agent is intentionally φ-ing if and only if she has a special kind of practical and non-observational knowledge that this is what she is doing. I here argue that this self-knowledge view faces serious problems when extended to account for intentional actions performed by several agents together as a (...) result of a joint decision. This suggests that practical and non-observational knowledge is not essential to intentional action as such, since a theory of intentional action ought to be able to make sense of such paradigm cases of joint intentional action as well as cases of singular intentional action. Existing attempts to extend the self-knowledge view to joint intentional action face an unfortunate trilemma. These attempts must (i) require that participants have non-observational knowledge of each other’s non-observational knowledge, which in turn requires that the participants are either really one and the same agent, or that they are, for all relevant purposes, clones of each other; (ii) limit their explanatory scope to intentional actions performed by groups with a single decision maker at the top of an organisational hierarchy, which arguably are not really shared or jointly performed; or (iii) require that the intention of the group is the result of a public representational act that the group members will have observational knowledge of in a way that is incompatible with a core commitment of the self-knowledge view. I argue that each of these options is unacceptable given a self-knowledge view of intentional action. (shrink)

This paper looks at statements I am in a position to make ‘straight off’: observational judgements, perceptual and memory statements, statements about my posture, my intentions, and so on. These kinds of statement pose a problem: what is the nature of my entitlement to them? I focus on observational judgements and on two contrasting approaches to them. The first, which I reject, provides an account of my warrant for them; the second, which I defend, disconnects my entitlement from (...) possession of a justification. I consider what light the second approach sheds on the other kinds of statements I am in a position to make straight off. (shrink)

Using examples of observations of primates in the wild, I will focus in this chapter on the ways in which some of the main feminist critiques are applicable to the observation of non-human animals. In particular, I will focus on the relationship between primatology and various conceptions of human nature and on the fact that primatology has often been described as a “feminist science.” I argue that in primatology there is an openness to a diversity of approaches and to feminist (...) values that has made it possible for researchers to understand primates in new, more complex ways. Finally, I include a brief discussion of an avenue of future research that will show that even the feminist perspectives explored in this chapter are situated within a specific western background and that it is important to remember that this feminist perspective is just one among many different perspectives. To illustrate variations in the roles that feminist critiques can play in animal observation, I will use examples from my own personal experience of Latinx identity while conducting research in Gombe National Park (Tanzania, Africa). (shrink)

The concept of practical knowledge is central to G.E.M. Anscombe's argument in Intention, yet its meaning is little understood. There are several reasons for this, including a lack of attention to Anscombe's ancient and medieval sources for the concept, and an emphasis on the more straightforward concept of knowledge "without observation" in the interpretation of Anscombe's position. This paper remedies the situation, first by appealing to the writings of Thomas Aquinas to develop an account of practical knowledge (...) as a distinctive form of thought that "aims at production" of things that lie within an agent's power; and then by showing how this Thomistic understanding of practical cognition seems to have been Anscombe's, too. Having done this, I question whether the thesis that agential knowledge is practical knowledge entails that an agent always has non-observational knowledge of what she is intentionally doing. I answer "Not": Anscombe's claims to the contrary rest on a misleading assimilation of human beings' finite agency to that of an infinite agent like God. (shrink)

The value problem -- Unpacking the value problem -- The swamping problem -- fundamental and non-fundamental epistemic goods -- The relevance of epistemic value monism -- Responding to the swamping problem I : the practical response -- Responding to the swamping problem II : the monistic response -- Responding to the swamping problem III : the pluralist response -- Robust virtue epistemology -- Knowledge and achievement -- Interlude : is robust virtue epistemology a reductive theory of knowledge? -- (...) Achievement without achievement -- Back to the value problem -- Contra virtue epistemology -- Two master intuitions about knowledge -- Anti-luck virtue epistemology -- Interlude : is anti-luck virtue epistemology a reductive theory of knowledge? -- Diagnosing the structure of knowledge -- Back to the value problem -- The final value of achievements -- Understanding -- Understanding and epistemic luck -- Understanding and cognitive achievement -- Back to the value problem -- Two potential implications of the distinctive value of understanding thesis -- The traditional analytical project and the central tension -- Knowledge, evidence, and reasons -- Concepts versus phenomena -- The way ahead -- Perceptual-recognitional abilities -- Broad and narrow competence -- Avoiding reduction -- Perpetual-recognitional abilities -- Broad and narrow competence -- Avoiding reduction -- Perceptual knowledge and justified belief -- Closure and doxastic responsibility -- Knowledge from indicators -- Recognitional abilities again -- Detached standing knowledge -- Back to knowledge from indicators -- Taking stock -- Why knowledge matters -- Approaching the epistemology of testimony -- Telling and informing -- Acquiring true beliefs and acquiring knowledge through being told -- Access to facts about knowledge -- The modest route -- Fool's knowledge -- The distinctive value of knowledge -- Fool's justification -- Arguing from illusion -- The regress of justifications -- Transparency and knowledge -- Transparency and entitlement -- On trying to do without transparency -- Transparency and luminosity -- Non-sensible knowledge -- Self-knowledge -- Non-sensible knowledge of action -- The two dimensions -- The distinctive value of knowledge of action -- Non-observational knowledge -- Practical knowledge and intention -- Practical knowledge and direction of fit. (shrink)

In Values and the Reflective Point of View (2006), Robert Dunn defends a certain expressivist view about evaluative beliefs from which some implications about self-knowledge are explicitly derived. He thus distinguishes between an observational and a deliberative attitude towards oneself, so that the latter involves a purely first-person point of view that gives rise to an especially authoritative, but wholly non-observational, kind of self-knowledge. Even though I sympathize with many aspects of Dunn's approach to evaluative beliefs (...) and also with his stress on the practical significance of self-knowledge, I argue that his proposal seriously misinterprets the role of observation and evidence within the first-person point of view and, derivatively, in the formation of evaluative beliefs. (shrink)

According to one interpretation of Aristotle’s famous thesis, to say that action is the conclusion of practical reasoning is to say that action is itself a judgment about what to do. A central motivation for the thesis is that it suggests a path for understanding the non-observational character of practical knowledge. If actions are judgments, then whatever explains an agent’s knowledge of the relevant judgment can explain her knowledge of the action. I call the approach to (...) action that accepts Aristotle’s thesis so understood Normativism. There are many reasons to doubt Normativism. My aim in this paper is to defend Normativism from a pair of arguments that purport to show that a normative judgment could not constitute an event in material reality and also the knowledge of such a happening. Both highlight a putative mismatch between the natures of, on the one hand, an agent’s knowledge of her normative judgment and, on the other, her knowledge of her own action. According to these objections, knowledge of action includes (a) perceptual knowledge and (b) knowledge of what one has already done. But knowledge of a normative judgment includes neither. Hence knowledge of action cannot simply be knowledge of a normative judgment. (shrink)

Among the legacies of Elizabeth Anscombe's 1957 monograph Intention are the introduction of the notion of 'practical knowledge' into contemporary philosophical discussion of action, and her claim, pursued throughout the book, that an agent's knowledge of what he is doing is characteristically not based on observation.' Each idea by itself has its own obscurities, of course, but my focus here will be on the relation between the two ideas, how it is that the discussion of action may lead (...) us to speak of non-observational knowledge at all, and how this notion can be part of the understanding of a kind of ordinary knowledge that we have reason to consider practical rather than speculative. Anscombe mentions several quite different things under the heading of 'non-observational knowledge', and she first introduces the notion of the nonobservational for purely dialectical purposes, associated with the task of setting out the field she wants to investigate, in a way that ... (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that aesthetic testimony can provide aesthetic knowledge. This leaves us with the question: why does getting aesthetic knowledge by experience – by seeing a painting up close, or witnessing a performance first-hand – nevertheless seem superior to aesthetic testimony? I argue that it is due to differences in their epistemic value; in the diversity of 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 aesthetic testimony provides weaker justification for aesthetic belief than aesthetic experience; 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. (shrink)

Intentional action is often accompanied by knowledge of what one is doing—knowledge which appears non-observational and non-inferential. G.E.M. Anscombe defends the stronger claim that intentional action always comes with such knowledge. Among those who follow Anscombe, some have altered the features, content, or species of the knowledge claimed to necessarily accompany intentional action. In this paper, I argue that there is no knowledge condition on intentional action, no matter the assumed features, content, or species (...) of the knowledge. Further, rather than follow the usual methodology in this debate of arguing by counterexample, I present an argument that explains why we continue to find counterexamples: intentional action and knowledge are regulated by thresholds under distinct pressures; in particular, the threshold of control regulating intentional action is disparately influenced by the role of intentional action in practical normativity. (shrink)

We argue that honesty in assertion requires non-empirical knowledge that what one asserts is what one believes. Our argument proceeds from the thought that to assert honestly, one must follow and not merely conform to the norm ‘Assert that p only if you believe that p’. Furthermore, careful consideration of cases shows that the sort of doxastic self-knowledge required for following this norm cannot be acquired on the basis of observation, inference, or any other form of detection of (...) one’s own doxastic states. It is, as we put it, transparent rather than empirical self-knowledge. (shrink)

Knowledge before belief ascription? Yes and no (depending on the type of “knowledge” under consideration). In an influential paper, Jonathan Phillips and colleagues have recently presented a fascinating and provocative big picture that challenges foundational assumptions of traditional Theory of Mind research (Phillips et al., 2020). Conceptually, this big picture is built around the main claim that ascription of knowledge is primary relative to ascription of belief. The primary form of Theory of Mind (ToM) thus is so-called (...) factive ToM that centres around knowledge-related mental states that are true rather than meta-representational ToM that centres around subjective epistemic states like belief that may or may not be true (Nagel, 2017; Phillips & Norby, 2019). Empirically, Phillips and colleagues build on converging findings from different areas: Ample research in developmental psychology shows that children track who has had informational access to events (and thus knows about the events) before they keep track of others’ potentially false beliefs (e.g., Perner & Roessler, 2012). Many studies from comparative psychology have found evidence that non-human great apes keep track of others’ perceptual and informational access while there is no convincing evidence that they keep track of others’ beliefs (Horschler et al., 2020; Martin & Santos, 2016; Call & Tomasello, 2008). And, work from cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy suggests that adults are faster, for example, to judge what others know than to judge what they believe (Phillips et al., 2018).In this commentary, we would like to critically evaluate and friendly amend the claims put forward by Phillips and colleagues. Conceptually, while we agree that some form of factive Theory of Mind is primary, we would like to raise doubts whether this primary factive ToM already involves full-fledged knowledge ascription. Empirically, we will point to potential test cases that are suitable to test Phillips and colleagues’ account against the friendly amendment proposed here. Is knowledge ascription really primary relative to belief ascription?We agree that the empirical findings reviewed by Phillips and colleagues do make a strong case for the conjecture that some form of factive ToM is indeed (phylogenetically, ontogenetically, and cognitively) primary. But we suspect that this claim, in unqualified form, may be somewhat incomplete and misleading. There is not necessarily one unitary form of factive ToM, and one notion of “knowledge“ in play across development and evolution, and perhaps not even in adults‘ Theory of Mind. This suspicion builds on several foundations: First, from an empirical point of view there have been, as highlighted by the authors, characteristic U-shaped developmental curves in some tasks of factive ToM – often a reliable indicator that different underlying processes are in play (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Second, from a theoretical point of view, conceptual change and dual process approaches to ToM and other forms of social cognition have highlighted the possibility of more complex developmental trajectories such that earlier and more basic forms of a conceptual competence may be supplemented and superseded by later and more sophisticated refinements (e.g. Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Perner, 1991). For the case of factive ToM, it may be that there is a basic and primitive notion of “knowledge“ in place early in ontogeny (and perhaps phylogenetically more ancient) that shares some of the essential features of our mature “knowledge” concept: “knowledge” in this broad sense, as emphasized by the authors, is factive, not modality-specific, and allows for representations of egocentric ignorance. For this basic concept, the slogan “knowledge before belief“ may well be true. However, this basic concept need not yet be our mature notion of knowledge proper and thus this basic form of factive ToM may fall crucially short of our adult form of factive ToM. Why? Because essential elements of our mature concept of knowledge are still missing: First of all, while so-called Gettier cases and other considerations make clear that knowledge does not reduce to justified true belief (one can have justified true beliefs that still do not amount to knowledge; Gettier, 1963), according to many accounts knowledge at least presupposes justified true belief. Correspondingly, ascription of knowledge would thus presuppose ascription of belief. Now, we understand that this is one of the very traditional assumptions that Phillips and colleagues challenge, and given space restrictions we will not focus on it here any further (see, e.g, Rose & Schaffer, 2013). But there is a second crucial aspect of knowledge proper that is missing from the basic notion: knowledge proper is aspectual, and consequently reports of knowledge proper are intensional, while neither seems to be the case of basic knowledge and reports of it. Knowledge proper is aspectual in the following sense: whether or not someone knows something depends on how, under which aspects, she has had informational access to a given scene. Suppose Eve has seen Clark Kent enter the house. Does she know that Superman is in the house? It depends. If she knows about the identity Clark Kent = Superman, she does, otherwise she does not. Consequently, knowledge ascription is intensional in the sense that the substitution of co-referential terms is not necessarily truth-value preserving: “Eve knows that Clark Kent is in the house“ does not imply “Eve knows that Superman is in the house”.Now, from the point of view of cognitive development, much research suggests that children’s appreciation of the aspectuality of propositional attitudes (and the intensionality of propositional attitude reports) develops in protracted ways not before the age of four (e.g., Apperly & Robinson, 1998; Rakoczy et al., 2015; Proft et al., 2019). In fact, recent studies suggest that around age four children undergo a fundamental and coherent cognitive revolution: they acquire a solid meta-representational notion of propositional attitudes that allows them to ascribe subjective aspectual representations that may or may not be accurate: Children come to solve false belief tasks that require belief ascription at the same time as tasks that require an understanding of aspectuality, and there is strong convergence/correlation between these different tasks (Rakoczy, 2017; Rakoczy et al., 2015). These considerations thus evoke a somewhat modified picture of the developmental course of factive Theory of Mind: Some form of factive ToM, indeed, comes first (developmentally and phylogenetically). In this primary stage, subjects track agents‘ cognitive relations to the world that display some of the essential signatures of knowledge proper (factive; not modality-specific; allow for representations of egocentric ignorance). Various approaches in ToM research over the last years have aimed at describing this basic form of knowledge-like relations, for example in terms of “cognitive connections“ (Flavell, 1988), “registration“ (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009), “experiential records“ (Perner & Roessler, 2012) or “awareness relations“ (Martin & Santos, 2016). While differing in focus and details, all these accounts converge in stressing one crucial point: this early form of factive ToM allows observer to keep track of what others have or have not witnessed and, in this sense, what they do or do not know. It allows, in other words, so-called “Level I” perspective-taking (Flavell, 1977): understanding what others see. But this early form of factive ToM still falls short of knowledge ascription proper because it lacks an appreciation of the essential aspectuality of propositional attitudes in general and of knowledge in particular. In other words, it does not yet allow for “Level II” perspective-taking: understanding how different agents may represent a given scene (Fizke et al., 2017; Low & Watts, 2013; Oktay-Gür et al., 2018). Only later, around age 4, do children then develop the new meta-representational framework of propositional attitudes that goes beyond basic factive ToM. Once they have this framework and thus an understanding of aspectuality at hand, they can extend their initial and primary factive ToM to acquire the mature concept of knowledge (as at least presupposing true, justified belief, where belief is necessarily aspectual). So, while basic knowledge ascription indeed precedes belief ascription, full-blown attribution of aspectual knowledge develops in tandem with belief attribution. Or in other words: basic factive ToM precedes full-blown meta-representational ToM but full-blown factive ToM does not (since it is itself a part of full-blown meta-representational ToM). Empirical outlookThis slightly modified picture raises many interesting new empirical questions, and makes competing predictions relative to the picture put forward by Phillips and colleagues: From developmental and comparative perspectives, the modified picture would predict that “knowledge before belief” only applies for a circumscribed set of knowledge-related situations: those in which knowledge ascription does not require sensitivity to the aspectuality of knowledge (does not require distinguishing, for example, “Does she know that Clark Kent is in the house?” vs. “Does she know that Superman is in the house?”) and is limited to Level I perspective-taking. Young children before the age of four and non-human primates should be able to solve such non-aspectual knowledge ascription problems. But only older children from around age four, once they have acquired the full-fledged conceptual apparatus of meta-representation, should be able to handle aspectual knowledge ascription. Regarding adult functioning, the most fundamental question is: Do adults operate with one unitary factive ToM, as Phillips and colleagues assume? Or are there two kinds of factive ToM throughout the lifespan, as our modified picture suggests? In particular, does the more basic version remain in operation in adulthood, perhaps even as the default mode, that reveals itself under conditions of speeded responses, limited cognitive resources etc.? If the latter were true, specific performance patterns should be found. First, results such that adults are faster at knowledge ascription than at belief ascription (as found in Phillips et al., 2018) should be restricted to designs where knowledge ascription does not require any considerations of aspectuality. In such designs (as they were used in Phillips et al., 2018), subjects can make use of their primordial (non-aspectual) factive ToM in knowledge ascription, but have to use their full-fledged (aspectual) ToM in belief ascription. However, in new cases in which knowledge ascription is potentially aspectual (“Does Eve know that Superman is in the house?”), the speed difference between knowledge and belief ascription should vanish since both now require full-fledged (aspectual) ToM. Second, and relatedly, fast factive ToM should have characteristic signature limits to do with the lacking appreciation of aspectuality (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Low et al., 2016): Subjects under speeded conditions (or in dual task formats in which their central cognitive resources are taxed) should be unable to systematically distinguish between “Eve knows that Clark Kent is the house” (true) and “Eve knows that Superman is in the house” (possibly true). No such signature limits should be expected, in contrast, under reflective conditions in which subjects can use their full-fledged and mature factive ToM. Interestingly, these hypothetical developmental and adult performance patterns would correspond to similar patterns found in the domain of modal judgments. Adults, it seems, have two notions of modality at their disposal: a more primitive (ontogenetically old) default notion that does not differentiate between descriptive and normative modals and thus yield characteristic signature limits; and more differentiated and nuanced notions (ontogenetically more recent) that do sharply distinguish between different forms of modality. What works fast and gets addressed in speeded tasks is the primitive default notion (in speeded tasks, adults tend to confuse what is possible with what is permitted, for example, in the way very young children do) whereas the more nuanced notions reveal themselves in reflective task settings in which adults are not subject to such confusions (Phillips & Cushman, 2017). Modality judgments and factive ToM may thus reveal striking analogies. Just like in the area of modality, then, there may be basic and default factive ToM, present from early on and in operation throughout the lifespan in speeded responses (and under other conditions of limited cognitive resources), and more sophisticated factive Theory of Mind that develops later on the basis of full-fledged meta-representation and that reveals itself in more reflective judgements. (shrink)

The thesis is intended to contribute to the growing understanding of the indispensable role played by phenomenal consciousness in human cognition, and specifically in making our concepts of the external world available. The focus falls on so called observational concepts, a type of rudimentary, perceptually-based objective concepts in our repertoire — picking out manifest properties such as colors and shapes. A theory of such concepts gets provided, and, consequently, the exact role that perceptual consciousness plays in making concepts of (...) this sort available gets settled. In the first half of the thesis, observational concepts get construed as a special type of recognitional concepts. On an analogy with perceptual demonstratives, having such concepts would involve having non-trivial knowledge of their reference. The experiential basis of such concepts would, among other things, provide for such constitutive knowledge. The theoretical background relevant to the hypothesis gets provided in the first chapter. A defence of the hypothesis follows in the second. In the second half of the thesis, care is taken to distinguish among two ways in which the constitutive knowledge of the reference of an observational concept could be fleshed out. In the third chapter, perceptual experience is shown to provide the basis both for knowledge of observational properties by acquaintance, and for knowledge of the essence of such properties — provided that knowledge of essence gets construed in the right, modest way. It might be natural to take knowledge by acquaintance to be the sort relevant to observational concept possession, especially given that in the case of perceptual demonstratives this is the role likely played by experience. However, this initial impression proves to be mistaken. The constitutive knowledge of the referent of an observational concept turns out to consist in the capacity to determine a priori the essence of the respective property. To show this, an argument gets provided in the penultimate fourth chapter, based on the key role played by experiences of instances of observational properties in optimal viewing conditions in enabling the possession of the respective observational concept. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;There is a traditional conception of perception as the passive reception of information about the external world. This thesis pursues one line of development of an alternative view. The suggestion will be that fleeting subjective perceptual experience attains its status as genuinely representational of how things independently are in an objective world partly in virtue of its role as input into a system of practical thought and intentional interaction. (...) Thus objective perceivers are agents in the world of their perception. ;Part I opens with an account of what the capacity for objective perception might amount to. And I continue by exploring various lines of argument from here to the necessity of some kind of interplay between objective perception and practical thought. ;The focus of Part II shifts onto the notion of agency itself. After a brief outline of the metaphysical place of actions in the world of events, I go on to consider the question of our awareness of our intentional behavior. The resultant conception of our peculiarly immediate, non-observational, non-inferential knowledge of what we are doing, and of the bodily sensational origin of our practical know-how, tentatively suggests two further constraints upon the possibility of objective perception. Firstly, in the normal case, an objective perceiver must actually be an agent in the perceived world. And secondly, simple bodily feeling is an essential component in the psychological make-up of any subject of objective perception. (shrink)

Robert Dunn and Richard Moran have emphasized the importance of deliberation to account for the privileged authority of self-ascriptions. They oppose a theoretical attitude toward oneself to a deliberative attitude that they regard as more intimate, as purely first-personal. In this paper, I intend to challenge Dunn’s and Moran’s understanding of how the deliberative attitude is to be conceived of and, in particular, I will call into question their claim that this attitude is wholly non-observational. More positively, I will (...) elaborate on the sort of self-observation that must play a central role in an agent’s deliberation if she is to recognize a certain belief, decision, or intention as genuinely her own and, therefore, as expressing a purely first-person point of view. In the elaboration of my argument, I will rely on a number of situations as they are described in Peter Carey’s novel Oscar and Lucinda. (shrink)

Few scholars of Intention remark upon the role that verbs of sensation play in Anscombe’s philosophy of action. I outline one reason for this neglect: an overemphasis on the Aristotelian practical syllogism. I then reflect on the role that dialogue plays in Anscombe’s treatment of human action and I show that this shift in emphasis unlocks a number of key concepts in Anscombe's account: those of ‘circumstance’, ‘distance’, the notion of a ‘picked-out’ set of movements, as well as that of (...) ‘non-observational’ knowledge. I argue that the fact that our unmediated perception of the world is spatiotemporally limited shows up in Anscombe’s implicit descriptive phenomenology, something which brings Anscombe into conversation with Kant. More boldly, I suggest that that the way that human action and perception is structured in space and time explains, in part, the existence and form of the description of intentional action. (shrink)

This paper argues that new light may be shed on mathematical reasoning in its non-pathological forms by careful observation of its pathologies. The first section explores the application to mathematics of recent work on fallacy theory, specifically the concept of an ‘argumentation scheme’: a characteristic pattern under which many similar inferential steps may be subsumed. Fallacies may then be understood as argumentation schemes used inappropriately. The next section demonstrates how some specific mathematical fallacies may be characterized in terms of argumentation (...) schemes. The third section considers the phenomenon of correct answers which result from incorrect methods. This turns out to pose some deep questions concerning the nature of mathematical knowledge. In particular, it is argued that a satisfactory epistemology for mathematical practice must address the role of luck. (shrink)

The traditional conception of knowledge is justified, true belief. If one looks at a modern textbook on epistemology, the great bulk of questions with which it deals are to do with personal knowledge, as embodied in beliefs and the proper experiences that someone ought to have had in order to have the right (or justification) to know. I intend to argue that due to the explosive growth of knowledge whose domain is “outside the head”, this conception has (...) outlived its relevance. -/- On the other hand, Karl Popper’s (1934) Falsificationism, with its emphasis on the objective character of knowledge, is not only a sounder, but also a more appropriate theory of knowledge for understanding the nature and growth of civilization. Later, Popper (1945) generalized this approach to obtain critical rationalism, in which all claims to knowledge, whether scientific or otherwise, are understood as objective solutions to objective problems and can be evaluated by other non-observational - types of criticism. I will first argue that Popper’s methodology is quite suited to the view that knowledge is an objective autonomous product and then adduce his theory of world 3, an ontology that neatly wraps up various considerations. World 3 is the domain of abstract products of the human mind that now have a life of their own, outside of human heads: theories, arguments, problems, plans, etc. I then adduce some other arguments for the autonomous quality of knowledge. (shrink)

Attentional bias to threat has been almost exclusively examined after participants experienced repeated pairings between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). This study aimed to determine whether threat-related attentional capture can result from observational learning, when participants acquire knowledge of the aversive qualities of a stimulus without themselves experiencing aversive outcomes. Non-clinical young-adult participants (N = 38) first watched a video of an individual (the demonstrator) performing a Pavlovian conditioning task in which one colour (...) was paired with shock (CS+) and another colour was neutral (CS−). They then carried out visual search for a shape-defined target. Oculomotor measures evidenced an attentional bias toward the CS+ colour, suggesting that threat-related attentional capture can ensue from observational learning. Exploratory analyses also revealed that this effect was positively correlated with empathy for the demonstrator. Our findings extend empirical and theoretical knowledge about threat-driven attention and provide valuable insights to better understand the formation of anxiety disorders. (shrink)

In intensive European agricultural areas, the control of weeds and wildlife within plots is of great importance. Yet, we can observe in many farming systems a renewal of farmers’ relationships with nature. Using the theoretical framework of care ethics, this paper aims to answer the following question: how observing plots allows farmers to develop more cooperation with nature in field crops? We base our results on an ethnographic survey conducted in Wallonia (Belgium) in 2019 among farm advisors and farmers in (...) conventional, organic and conservation agriculture. The 19 in-depth interviews crossed partly with micro phenomenological interviews and participant observation sessions revealed that: (1) Observing plots increase farmers’ attentiveness to plots and plants, and favor care and knowledge based on direct contact with nature ; (2) Such observations renew how farmers take care of their plots and plants, towards adaptation, limitation and reduction of pesticides; (3) They also allow farmers to cooperate with specific species. In conclusion, we underline the importance of direct knowledge on agrosystems based on attentiveness to enable farmers to diversify how they relate to non-humans and especially how they care for their plots and plants. The attentiveness developed through plot observations thus enables farmers to establish more complex relationships with nature, made up of ecological care, based in particular on cooperation with non-humans. This emphasizes the value of the ethic of care in order to build communities. Declaration of competing interest. (shrink)

Plausibly perceptual knowledge satisfies the following: It is knowledge about things from the way they appear. It can embrace more than the way things appear. It is phenomenologically immediate and thus, in one sense, non-inferential. and place a significant constraint on adequate elucidations of . Knowledge about an object, from the way it looks, which embraces more than the way it looks, should not turn out to be inferential in the relevant sense. The paper shows how this (...) constraint can be met, drawing upon a conception of a discriminative capacity. The discussion touches on literature dealing with observation in science, knowledge of other minds, and the possibility of moral knowledge. (shrink)

The paper aims to give an account of practical knowledge by outlining a hylomorphic and conceptualist account of intentional action in analogy to McDowell's conceptualist account of experience. On this view, practical concepts provide the ideal or formal structure that unifies a manifold of bodily movements into a single intentional action, and hence intentional actions are structured conceptually. -/- - §1 sets out the basic features of this view in contrast to a common dualistic or two-component view of practical (...) knowledge, as an "inner" mental state with propositional content that functions as the efficient cause of some bodily movement in the "external" world, and introduces the claim that practical knowledge is the constitutive form of intentional action. - §2 illustrates the hylomorphic unity of concept and movement in action, and thus (contra Dreyfus) the corporeality of practical reason, by means of an account of practical concept formation, on which both the formation and tradition of practical concepts take place in bodily movement iself. - §3 elucidates the concept of a self-conscious disposition or rational capacity for action, actualizations of which are characterized by a syllogistic structure that accounts for both the explanation and the justification of action and thereby renders intelligible in what sense practical judgment is internal to acting itself. - Skillful exercises of such capacities express a knowledge-how that manifests itself in practical representations. §4 characterizes representations of this kind as a perceptually situated recognition of a practical pattern that amounts to the imaginative anticipation of a movement form by which the agent determines their next steps; a practical perception of the agent's particular situation that is both normative and motivational for them. - §5 starts by developing an identity theory of practical truth, on which the conceptual content of a (true) practical judgment is numerically identical with the formal structure of a (good) action, and concludes with explaining the unity of four features commonly attributed to practical knowledge, viz. that it is at the same time descriptive, normative, causally productive, and non-observational (or self-conscious). (shrink)

In this thesis I consider the problem of the distinctiveness of knowledge of our own mental states and attitudes. I consider four influential approaches to this problem: the epistemic approach, the "no reasons view," the neo-expressivist approach and the rational agency approach. I argue that all of them face serious problems. I further argue that many of these problems are connected with the lack of fine-grained enough classification of the entities with respect to which we have self-knowledge. I (...) suggest such a classification, distinguishing passive occurrent mental states, mental actions and standing attitudes, and argue that we should treat each of these categories separately for the purpose of explaining self-knowledge of them. I discuss in detail self-knowledge we have with respect to two of these categories: standing attitudes and mental actions. On my account self-knowledge of standing attitudes stands in a derivative relation to self-knowledge of other kinds. In my discussion of self-knowledge of mental actions I establish that we have a distinctive non-observational kind of self-knowledge and show some specific characteristics of this kind of self-knowledge. In the end I attempt to relate self-knowledge of mental actions to practical knowledge in the ordinary sense of skill. (shrink)

Cumulative cultural knowledge [CCK], the knowledge we acquire via social learning and has been refined by previous generations, is of central importance to our species’ flourishing. Considering its importance, we should expect that our best epistemological theories can account for how this happens. Perhaps surprisingly, CCK and how we acquire it via cultural learning has only received little attention from social epistemologists. Here, I focus on how we should epistemically evaluate how agents acquire CCK. After sampling some reasons (...) why extant theories cannot account for CCK, I suggest that things aren’t as bleak as they might look. I explain how agents deserve epistemic credit for how CCK is transmitted in cultural learning by promoting a central need of their social group: The efficient and safe transmission of CCK. A good initial fit exists between this observation and Greco’s knowledge-economy framework. Ultimately, however, Greco’s account doesn’t straightforwardly account for CCK because of its strict focus on testimony. I point out two issues in the framework due to this focus. The resulting view advocates giving epistemic credit to agents when they act to promote their communities’ epistemic needs in the right way and highlights the various ways in which agents come to do this. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anscombe introduced the notion of “practical knowledge” into contemporary philosophy. Philosophers of action have criticized Anscombe’s negative characterization of such knowledge as “non-observational,” but have recently come to pay more attention to her positive characterization of practical knowledge as “the cause of what it understands.” I argue that two recent Anscombean accounts of practical knowledge, “Formalism” and “Normativism,” each fail to explain the productive character of practical knowledge in a way that secures its (...) status as non-observational. I argue that to do this, we must appreciate the role of know-how or skill in practical knowledge. (shrink)

Our objective is to test an optimality model of human fertility that specifies the behavioral requirements for fitness maximization in order (a) to determine whether current behavior does maximize fitness and, if not, (b) to use the specific nature of the behavioral deviations from fitness maximization towards the development of models of evolved proximate mechanisms that may have maximized fitness in the past but lead to deviations under present conditions. To test the model we use data from a representative sample (...) of 7,107 men living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 1990 and 1993. The model we test proposes that low fertility in modern settings maximizes number of grandchildren as a result of a trade-off between parental fertility and next generation fertility. Results do not show the optimization, although the data do reveal a trade-off between parental fertility and offspring education and income.We propose that two characteristics of modern economies have led to a period of sustained fertility reduction and to a corresponding lack of association between income and fertility. The first is the direct link between costs of investment and wage rates due to the forces of supply and demand for labor in competitive economies. The second is the increasing emphasis on cumulative knowledge, skills, and technologies in the production of resources. Together they produce historically novel conditions. These two features of modern economies may interact with evolved psychological and physiological mechanisms governing fertility and parental investment to produce behavior that maximizes the economic productivity of lineages at the expense of fitness. If cognitive processes evolved to track diminishing returns to parental investment and if physiological processes evolved to regulate fertility in response to nutritional state and patterns of breast feeding, we might expect non-adaptive responses when returns from parental investment do not diminish until extremely high levels are reached. With high economic payoffs from parental investment, people have begun to exercise cognitive regulation of fertility through contraception and family planning practices. Those cognitive processes maynot have evolved to handle fitness trade-offs between fertility and parental investment. (shrink)

The validity of three premises, set as foundational pillars of modern sociological approach to science, is contested, namely: (i) the postulate, stating that science is devoid of whatever generis specifical; (ii) it is liable to the usual empirical study; (iii) the practicing scientist's self-reflexive judgements must be disbelieved and rejected. Contrariwise, the ignored so far quaint nature of knowledge, escaping even from the elementary empirical treating - discernment and observation - is revealed and demonstrated. This peculiar nature requires, accordingly, (...) a specific meta-cognitive dealing for positing it as 'empirical object', unfortunately missed still by the Strong Programme. The inadequate approach adopted led to a substitution of 'scientific' for common knowledge. The tacit thus far alternative, setting the foundations of meta-science, is suggested. (shrink)

This thesis addresses two questions. One concerns the metaphysics of emotions and asks what kinds of mental states emotions are. The other asks how the metaphysics of emotions bears on first and third-personal knowledge of emotions. There are two prevailing views on the nature of emotions. They are the perception and cognitive views. The perception view argues that emotions are bodily feelings. The cognitive view, by contrast, contends that emotions are some sorts of evaluative judgments. I show that both (...) views provide inadequate accounts of the nature of emotions. The perception view fails to do justice to the fact that emotions may not involve any bodily feeling. The cognitive view, by contrast, cannot account for the fact that emotions are states that adult humans have in common with infants and animals. On the basis of these criticisms, I put forward an alternative account of emotions. This involves five main arguments. The first is that emotions are enduring non-episodic dispositions that may or may not manifest themselves in experiential episodes such as emotional feelings and behaviour episodes such as expressions. The second argument is that emotional feelings are perceptions of specific bodily changes brought about by emotions. These feelings serve as clues as to what kinds of emotions the subject has. The third argument is that expressions are observable manifestations of emotions in virtue of which emotions can be perceived and subsequently known, directly and non-inferentially, by other people. The fourth argument is that when someone has an emotion without feeling it, she can still come to know it by believing true ascriptions that other people make about the emotion they perceive in her expression. The fifth argument is that full knowledge of emotions requires knowledge of the emotion objects. (shrink)

This paper defends a qualified observational model of authoritative self‐knowledge, which centres on two features of ordinarily observable characteristics that help explain a subject's direct awareness of them. The first is that they are basic, in that one does not have to know of any underlying fact in virtue of which they apply when they do; and the second is that it is generally necessary and sufficient for the application of such a characteristic that it seems to a (...) normal observer, in normal circumstances, that it does apply. The view is defended against two well‐known misgivings about modelling such knowledge on observation: first, that there is a telling structural disanalogy, since observation normally involves three components, namely, the item perceived, an intermediary, non‐conceptual sensation state, and a judgement grounded in that sensation state, whereas self‐knowledge of an intentional state apparently involves analogues of the first and third components only, namely, a first‐order content‐bearing state and the second‐order state that it validates; and second that, whereas the relations between a perceptual state and the item perceived are causal and contingent, those between first‐ and corresponding second‐order intentional states are in general non‐contingent, and so not merely causal. (shrink)

The starting point of this work is the gap between two distinct traditions in information engineering: knowledge representation and data - driven modelling. The first tradition emphasizes logic as a tool for representing beliefs held by an agent. The second tradition claims that the main source of knowledge is made of observed data, and generally does not use logic as a modelling tool. However, the emergence of fuzzy logic has blurred the boundaries between these two traditions by putting (...) forward fuzzy rules as a Janus-faced tool that may represent knowledge, as well as approximate non-linear functions representing data. This paper lays bare logical foundations of data - driven reasoning whereby a set of formulas is understood as a set of observed facts rather than a set of beliefs. Several representation frameworks are considered from this point of view: classical logic, possibility theory, belief functions, epistemic logic, fuzzy rule-based systems. Mamdani's fuzzy rules are recovered as belonging to the data - driven view. In possibility theory a third set-function, different from possibility and necessity plays a key role in the data - driven view, and corresponds to a particular modality in epistemic logic. A bi-modal logic system is presented which handles both beliefs and observations, and for which a completeness theorem is given. Lastly, our results may shed new light in deontic logic and allow for a distinction between explicit and implicit permission that standard deontic modal logics do not often emphasize. (shrink)

This paper argues that you have non-observational warrant for beliefs about the body in action. For example, if you mean to be drinking a cup of water, you can know independently of observation that you are moving your body in a way that is effective in enabling you to drink. The case I make centers on the claim that you have default warrant to trust your agency. You do well to trust your agency just in virtue of your status (...) as an agent, and are not required to earn permission to trust your agency through making use of evidence about how well your agency works. You have non-observational warrant for beliefs about the functioning of your agency, including beliefs about your body in action, inasmuch as those beliefs reflect trust in your agency. (shrink)

Introduction The discussion of “self-knowledge” as a philosophical issue begins with an intuition. This intuition is based on the fact that our knowledge of our mental states or our knowledge in relation to statements like: “I know that I am happy,” is a particular knowledge that is distinct from the rest of our knowledge. It seems that in order to gain knowledge of ourselves, we do not need to go through those processes that we (...) go through in order to gain knowledge about the external world or knowledge of other minds. We feel that we directly know our own mental states. The role of self-knowledge philosophers is to explain this type of particular knowledge. Theories such as the Inner Sense Theory, the Acquaintance Theory, inferentialism, or theories with a rationalist approach are presented in response to this issue. Considering theories such as the Inner Sense Theory and the Acquaintance Theory, we will find that a common aspect of these theories is that self- knowledge has been defined as a product of an internal observation of our mental states. Such an approach is a kind of Empiricism in self-knowledge. The Rationalist approach has been raised against this approach. This approach, by linking self-knowledge with rationality, has opened a new chapter in the discussion of self-knowledge. The foundation of this approach is based on the principle that our situation as a rational agent plays a fundamental role in self-knowledge. Rationalists believed that this ignorance of the fundamental role of rationality in self-knowledge has caused Empiricists to ignore the most important kind of self-knowledge that is associated with rationality. Tyler Burge, Richard Moran, and Matthew Boyle are some of the important philosophers who theorize about this kind of self-knowledge. Goal In this paper, we will first introduce the main components of Rationalist approaches because we want to review the theoretical literature of this approach. Then, we will bring up a summary of the Tyler Burge view, a famous and important philosopher of the rationalist approach. This is an introduction to introduce Moran’s Theory of Transparency which is the focal point of our discussion. We will then refer to one of the most important challenges facing the Transparency Theory and bring up a significant solution that is presented by Matthew Boyle. We will also show that despite the advantages of this solution, there are ambiguities and other challenges. Finally, we will try to set up two proposals as a way to advance Boyle’s solution. Conclusion The perspective of rationalist philosophers about the existence of a kind of self-knowledge in rational creatures seems to be a powerful idea that is difficult to oppose. Tyler Burge presented interesting arguments about this issue. But it is not easy replying to the question of how this kind of self-knowledge occurs. The theory of Transparency and Reflectivism were proposed to respond to this question. Although they have been considered as efficient theories; however, the mentioned problem still remains ambiguous and complex. Transparency denied the introspective self-knowledge, but couldn’t explain how transparent self-knowledge occurs and therefore, it does not provide a complete explanation for self-knowledge. Some vagueness and some important challenges still continue to exist in this theory. Finally, we propose two proposals as a complement to Boyle’s theory. Maybe they could advance this theory. We suggest that we can use the concept of non-conceptual belief and dispositional belief. These debates have the potential for solving some of the challenges of Transparency and Reflectivism. These are profound topics and need great reflection. We know that our proposals are very elementary and crude ideas. But perhaps they can be a way toward developing the Transparency and Reflectivism theories. (shrink)

We investigated motor resonance in children using a priming paradigm. Participants were asked to judge the weight of an object shortly primed by a hand in an action-related posture or a non action-related one . The hand prime could belong to a child or to an adult. We found faster response times when the object was preceded by a grasp hand posture . More crucially, participants were faster when the prime was a child’s hand, suggesting that it could belong to (...) their body schema, particularly when the child’s hand was followed by a light object . A control experiment helped us to clarify the role of the hand prime. To our knowledge this is the first behavioral evidence of motor simulation and motor resonance in children. Implications of the results for the development of the sense of body ownership and for conceptual development are discussed. (shrink)

An ambitious new model of experimentation that will reorient our understanding of the key features of experimental practice. What is experimental knowledge, and how do we get it? While there is general agreement that experiment is a crucial source of scientific knowledge, how experiment generates that knowledge is far more contentious. In this book, philosopher of science James Mattingly explains how experiments function. Specifically, he discusses what it is about experimental practice that transforms observations of what may (...) be very localized, particular, isolated systems into what may be global, general, integrated empirical knowledge. Mattingly argues that the purpose of experimentation is the same as the purpose of any other knowledge-generating enterprise—to change the state of information of the knower. This trivial-seeming point has a non-trivial consequence: to understand a knowledge-generating enterprise, we should follow the flow of information. Therefore, the account of experimental knowledge Mattingly provides is based on understanding how information flows in experiments: what facilitates that flow, what hinders it, and what characteristics allow it to flow from system to system, into the heads of researchers, and finally into our store of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The traditional epistemological problem of other minds seeks to answer the following question: how can we know someone else's mental states? The problem is often taken to be generated by a fundamental asymmetry in the means of knowledge. In my own case, I can know directly what I think and feel. This sort of self-knowledge is epistemically direct in the sense of being non-inferential and non-observational. My knowledge of other minds, however, is thought to lack these (...) epistemic features. So what is the basic source of my knowledge of other minds if I know my mind in such a way that I cannot know the minds of others? The aim of this paper is to clarify and assess the pivotal role that the asymmetry in respect of knowledge plays within a broadly inferentialist approach to the epistemological problem of other minds. The received dogma has always been to endorse the asymmetry for conceptual reasons and to insist that the idea of knowing someone else's mental life in the same way as one knows one's own mind is a complete non-starter. Against this, I aim to show that it is at best a contingent matter that creatures such as us cannot know other minds just as we know a good deal of our own minds and also that the idea of having someone else's mind in one's own introspective reach is not obviously self-contradictory. So the dogma needs to be revisited. As a result, the dialectical position of those inferentialists who believe that we know about someone else's mentality in virtue of an analogical inference will be reinforced. (shrink)

Dorit Bar-On develops and defends a novel view of avowals and self-knowledge. Drawing on resources from the philosophy of language, the theory of action, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, she offers original and systematic answers to many long-standing questions concerning our ability to know our own minds. We are all very good at telling what states of mind we are in at a given moment. When it comes to our own present states of mind, what we say goes; (...) an avowal such as "I'm feeling so anxious" or "I'm thinking about my next trip to Paris," it is typically supposed, tells it like it is. But why is that? Why should what I say about my present mental states carry so much more weight than what others say about them? Why should avowals be more immune to criticism and correction than other claims we make? And if avowals are not based on any evidence or observation, how could they possibly express our knowledge of our own present mental states? Bar-On proposes a Neo-Expressivist view according to which an avowal is an act through which a person directly expresses, rather than merely reports, the very mental condition that the avowal ascribes. She argues that this expressivist idea, coupled with an adequate characterization of expression and a proper separation of the semantics of avowals from their pragmatics and epistemology, explains the special status we assign to avowals. As against many expressivists and their critics, she maintains that such an expressivist explanation is consistent with a non-deflationary view of self-knowledge and a robust realism about mental states. The view that emerges preserves many insights of the most prominent contributors to the subject, while offering a new perspective on our special relationship to our own minds. (shrink)

A bstract This study investigates nineteenth century natural history practices through the lens of the Actor-Network Theory, which posits that scientific practice is shaped by an intricate network of interactions between human and non-human actors. At the core of this research is the analysis of correspondence between Charles Darwin and his collaborators during the _Cirripedia Project,_ which unveils a complex landscape of negotiations with illustrators, funders, specimen owners, and translators, among other stakeholders and interested parties. The study goes beyond the (...) final outcomes of scientific research, delving into behind-the-scenes interactions, and hidden constructions, shedding light on the complex dynamics and actors that conventional scientific narratives often overlook. In general, this approach provides a detailed and insightful view of the underlying processes of nineteenth-century scientific practice, underscoring the importance of epistolary correspondence as a central element in producing scientific knowledge at the time, and in particular it reveals to us how much Darwin was himself involved in the production of his famous work on barnacles. By emphasizing the intricacies of research, this study enriches our understanding of Darwin’s work as well as natural history practices in the 19th century, highlighting the complexity and diversity of actors and agents involved in shaping scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In their recent book, Is Inequality Bad for Our Health?, Daniels, Kennedy, and Kawachi claim that to “act justly in health policy, we must have knowledge about the causal pathways through which socioeconomic (and other) inequalities work to produce differential health outcomes.” One of the central problems with this approach is its dependency on “knowledge about the causal pathways.” A widely held belief is that the randomized clinical trial (RCT) is, and ought to be the “gold standard” of (...) evaluating the causal efficacy of interventions. However, often the only data available are non-experimental, observational data. For such data, the necessary randomization is missing. Because the randomization is missing, it seems to follow that it is not possible to make epistemically warranted claims about the causal pathways. Although we are not sanguine about the difficulty in using observational data to make warranted causal claims, we are not as pessimistic as those who believe that the only warranted causal claims are claims based on data from (idealized) RCTs. We argue that careful, thoughtful study design, informed by expert knowledge, that incorporates propensity score matching methods in conjunction with instrumental variable analyses, provides the possibility of warranted causal claims using observational data. (shrink)

I provide a novel, non-reductive, action-first skill-based account of active imagining. I call it the Skillful Action Account of Imagining (the skillful action account for short). According to this account, to actively imagine something is to form a representation of that thing, where the agent’s forming that representation and selecting its content together constitute a means to the completion of some imaginative project. Completing imaginative projects stands to the active formation of the relevant representations as an end. The account thus (...) bakes in the means-end order that some in action theory take to be definitional of intentional action. Moreover, in the spirit of this conception of intentional action, I hold that a central feature of the means-end order exhibited in active imagining is the agent’s direct non-observational knowledge both of her act of imagining and of its having this order. The agent knows that she’s actively imagining (that-)p and knows why she actively imagines this–to carry on the pretense, engage in the fiction, predict another’s behavior, reason about possibility or necessity, reason about contingent matters of fact, just imagine for its own sake, and so on. I show that the account accounts for the possibility of misimagining while holding onto the idea that we imagine what we intend to imagine. I likewise show that the account unifies imagining across types of imaginative project like those just listed in a way that tolerates conflict in the roles that imagining plays in the mental economy across those projects. Finally, I show that the account can accommodate passive imagining like involuntary and automatic imagining as well as mind wandering. -/- Acknowledgments: I'd like to thank Amy Kind, Robert Brandom, Colin Allen, Peter Langland-Hassan, Alison Springle, Daniel Munro, Nick Wiltsher, and Andrew Rubner for excellent comments on earlier drafts from which this paper greatly benefited. I'd also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for extremely helpful comments. And I'd like to thank participants of the 2022 Simulationism Conference hosted by the Centre for Philosophy of Memory and the 4th Annual Conference [Online/Virtual] for Imagination Domination (COVID) hosted by Amy Kind for excellent feedback on earlier versions of the paper. (shrink)

Higher education institutes both foster the advancement of knowledge and address society's socioeconomic and environmental challenges. To fulfil these multiple missions requires significant changes to how the role of a researcher is perceived e.g. a researcher identity that is congruent with the objective of contributing to fundamental knowledge while also engaging with non-academic actors, broadly, and entrepreneurship, in particular. We argue that the early stages of an academic career—namely the PhD training trajectory—and the knowledge networks formed during (...) this period have a major influence on the scientist’s future capacity to develop an appropriate researcher role identity. We draw on knowledge network and identity theories to investigate how the knowledge networks (i.e. business, scientific and career knowledge networks) of PhD students promote changes to, reinforce or conflict with the perception of a researcher role identity. Our longitudinal qualitative network study includes PhD students and their supervisors funded by the H2020 FINESSE project. At the network level, we show that scientific knowledge is distributed equally throughout young academics’ networks but that entrepreneurial (business) and career knowledge tend to be concentrated around certain individuals in these networks. On the PhD student level, we observe different pronunciations of the researcher role identity linked to students’ interactions with their knowledge networks. We distinguish identity conflicts due to misalignment between ego and alters which leads to withdrawal from the network. Our findings have practical implications and suggest that universities and PhD student supervisors should support PhD students to develop a researcher identity which is in line with the individual PhD student’s expectations. (shrink)

Contemporary scholarship concerning science diplomacy is increasingly taking a historical approach. In our introduction to this special issue, we argue that this approach promises insight into science diplomacy because of the tools historians of science bring to their work. In particular, we observe that not only are historians of science currently poised to chart the diplomatic aspects involved in the transnational circulation of technoscientific knowledge, materials, and expertise. They are ready to bring critical global analysis to an important phenomenon (...) that has too often been treated as a benign diplomacy device deployed by the Global North without equal reference to the Global South. Through cases discussed in the articles of the special issue, however, we see that historically, in the Global South as well as the Global North, science diplomacy has often functioned to mediate the circulation of technoscientific knowledge and materials, and its historical study helps to better illuminate the resulting knowledge-power nexus. (shrink)

This article explores some of the most significant questions in feminist epistemology: how do academics demarcate what constitutes ‘proper’ academic knowledge? And to what extent is feminist theory and research recognised as such? I draw on material from an ethnographic study of academia in Portugal to examine the claims that non-feminist scholars make in classrooms and conferences about the epistemic status of feminist scholarship. I observed that feminist work was very commonly described as capable of generating credible and valuable (...) knowledge, but only in some instances and in limited ways. I present examples of these adversative claims (i.e. propositions that express opposition or discrepancy through a ‘but’ or equivalent adversative conjunction) and analyse their structure, content and uses of caricature and humour, showing how epistemic boundaries are drawn in them and how feminist scholarship is positioned in relation to those boundaries. I argue that this boundary-work produces a representation of feminist scholarship as being located partly within, and partly outside, the realm of proper knowledge, a move which I designate as an epistemic splitting of that scholarship. I suggest that this splitting enables and legitimates a selective engagement with feminist work, because it provides non-feminist scholars with a recognised epistemological rationale for taking into account the feminist insights which broadly fit mainstream frameworks, while simultaneously rejecting as epistemologically unsound the feminist critiques of those frameworks. (shrink)