Knowing, Knowledge and Beliefs: Epistemological Studies across
Diverse Cultures (review)
Thu, 5 Jun 2008 20:17:40 -0700 (PDT)
Despite their many internal differences, social epistemologists agree
on two points:
1. classical epistemology, philosophy of science and sociology of
knowledge have presupposed an idealized conception of scientific
inquiry that is unsupported by the social history of scientific
practices;
2. nevertheless, o ...
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Mirrors in the Brain: How our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and
Experience (review)
Thu, 5 Jun 2008 20:09:41 -0700 (PDT)
In the early 1990s Giacomo Rizzolatti and his co-workers at the
University of Parma discovered that some neurons had a surprising
property. They responded not only when a subject performed a given
action, but also when the subject observed someone else performing
that same action. These results have attracted much ...
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The Metaphysics of Science: An Account of Modern Science in Terms of
Principles, Laws and Theories (review)
Tue, 3 Jun 2008 10:23:58 -0700 (PDT)
Craig Dilworth's second edition of "The Metaphysics of Science"
contains the main text of an ambitious philosophical treatment
intended to resolve realist-empiricist debates about the nature of
science and a series of appendices. The appendices include an essay
entitled "the vicious circle principle of human devel ...
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Physical Realization (review)
Tue, 3 Jun 2008 10:18:45 -0700 (PDT)
In this book, Sydney Shoemaker discusses what must be true of mental
properties and their instances if non-reductive physicalism is true.
Physicalism is the view that all states and properties of things, of
whatever kind, are physical or physically realized. Non-reductive
physicalism is the view that some types of ...
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Skepticism: An Anthology (review)
Tue, 3 Jun 2008 10:14:19 -0700 (PDT)
The editors, Popkin's life having ceased a few years short of seeing
his work in print, remind us that Hegel considered skepticism the
driving force of philosophy. One practical insight holds that a
person, likely a professional philosopher, who sees himself within a
skeptical tradition also maintains an epistemol ...
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Linguistic feathers ruffled by high tech new school
Thu, 22 May 2008 20:26:50 -0700 (PDT)
This week's "Nature" has a feature article on how a new breed of
computational linguists are attempting to understand the evolution of
language by using high powered computer models. The traditionalists
are not impressed, and accuse the new school of reducing language to
numbers and oversimplifying to the point of ...
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Incommensurability and Interpretation
Thu, 22 May 2008 20:11:08 -0700 (PDT)
Link: http://www.sorites.org/Issue_19/baldino.htm
ABSTRACT: Although the central target of Donald Davidson's influential
essay 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' is the scheme/content
distinction, Davidson also maintains that his argument undermines the
thesis of incommensurability as advocated by Thomas ...
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The Concept 'Horse' Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual
Investigations (review)
Wed, 21 May 2008 19:43:48 -0700 (PDT)
Jolley's book is a deceptively thin volume, and a deceptively
unassuming one. For all that its contents may be intimidating to non-
philosophers, it's worth taking the time to read, and to read
carefully, for its target is nothing less than the nature of
structured thought itself. Link: http://metapsychology.menta ...
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Helmholtz's Kant
Tue, 20 May 2008 06:58:57 -0700 (PDT)
ABSTRACT: This essay review, originally presented an APA symposium on
Alberto Coffa's The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap, argues
that the logical tradition Coffa studied, while embedded in neo and
anti-Kantianism, entirely missed the more lasting developments in
psychology that Kant provoked. Link: http:// ...
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Kant and the Expression of Imperatives
Mon, 19 May 2008 07:43:18 -0700 (PDT)
ABSTRACT: According to a popular English translation of the
"Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals", Kant says that all
imperatives are expressed by an 'ought'. This, however, seems so
clearly to be wrong that it is hard to suppose Kant said it. In this
paper I discuss different senses in which imperatives can ...
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