Metaphysics and Epistemology E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1179

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Metaphysics and Epistemology: A Guided Anthology presents a comprehensive introductory overview of key themes, thinkers, and texts in metaphysics and epistemology.

• Presents a wide-ranging collection of carefully excerpted readings on metaphysics and epistemology
• Blends classic and contemporary works to reveal the historical development and present directions in the fields of metaphysics and epistemology
• Provides succinct, insightful commentary to introduce the essence of each selection at the beginning of chapters which also serve to inter-link the selected writings

Leseprobe

Contents

Source Acknowledgments

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: The Philosophical Image

1 Life and the Search for Philosophical Knowledge

Book V

Book VII

2 Philosophical Questioning

The Value of Philosophy

3 Philosophy and Fundamental Images

I. The Philosophical Quest

II. The Manifest Image

III. Classical Philosophy and the Manifest Image

IV. The Scientific Image

V. The Clash of the Images

VII. Putting Man into the Scientific Image

4 Philosophy as the Analyzing of Key Concepts

Analytical Philosophy

Note

5 Philosophy as Explaining Underlying Possibilities

Coercive Philosophy

Philosophical Explanations

Explanation versus Proof

Philosophical Pluralism

Part II: Metaphysics Philosophical Images of Being

How Is the World at all Physical?

6 How Real Are Physical Objects?

Appearance and Reality

7 Are Physical Objects Never Quite as They Appear To Be?

8 Are Physical Objects Really Only Objects of Thought?

Note

9 Is Even the Mind Physical?

The Concept of a Mental State

The Problem of the Secondary Qualities

Note

10 Is the Physical World All There Is?

I. The Knowledge Argument for Qualia

II. The Modal Argument

III. The “What is it like to be” Argument

IV. The Bogey of Epiphenomenalism

Notes

How Does the World Function?

11 Is Causation Only a Kind of Regularity?

Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion

Note

12 Is Causation Something Singular and Unanalyzable?

Notes

How Do Things Ever Have Qualities?

13 How Can Individual Things Have Repeatable Qualities?

14 How Can Individual Things Not Have Repeatable Qualities?

I. Nominalism versus Realism

II. Varieties of Nominalism

III. Can Predicates Determine Properties?

IV. Predicate Nominalism and Two Infinite Regresses

V. Predicates and Possible Predicates

VI. Predicate Nominalism and Causality

Note

References

How Are There Any Truths?

15 Do Facts Make True Whatever Is True?

16 Are There Social Facts?

Social and Institutional Reality

Observer-Dependency and the Building Blocks of Social Reality

A Simple Model of the Construction of Institutional Reality

The Example of Money

How Institutional Reality Can Be So Powerful

17 Is There Only Personally Decided Truth?

How Is There a World At All?

18 Has the World Been Designed by God?

19 Is God’s Existence Knowable Purely Conceptually?

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter XV

Chapter XX

Chapter XXII

A Reply to the Foregoing by a Certain Writer On Behalf of the Fool

A Reply to the Foregoing by the Author of the Book in Question

20 Has This World Been Actualized by God from Among All Possible Worlds?

21 Does This World Exist Because It Has Value Independently of God?

The Riddle of Existence

Optimalism and Evaluative Metaphysics

Axiological Explanation: How Optimalism Works

The Problem of How Value can have Explanatory Efficacy: Overcoming Some Objections

The Value Efficacy Objection and the Theological Aspect

Value Naturalism

Sidestepping Theology

Notes

22 Can Something Have Value in Itself?

How Are Persons Persons?

23 Is Each Person a Union of Mind and Body?

Of the Existence of Material Things, and of the Real Distinction between the Soul and Body of Man

24 Is Self-Consciousness what Constitutes a Person?

Of Identity and Diversity

25 How Strictly Does Self-Consciousness Constitute a Person?

Notes

26 Are Persons Constituted with Strict Identity At All?

What We Believe Ourselves To Be

Simple Teletransportation and the Branch-Line Case

Why Our Identity Is Not What Matters

Divided Minds

What Happens When I Divide?

What Matters When I Divide?

Notes

27 Are We Animals?

What Animalism Says

Why Animalism is Unpopular

The Thinking-Animal Argument

Alternative One: There Are No Human Animals

Alternative Two: Human Animals Can’t Think

Alternative Three: You Are Not Alone

Hard Choices

What it would Mean if we were Animals

How Do People Ever Have Free Will and Moral Responsibility?

28 Is There No Possibility of Acting Differently To How One Will in Fact Act?

29 Could Our Being Entirely Caused Coexist with Our Acting Freely?

Of Liberty and Necessity

30 Would Being Entirely Caused Undermine Our Personally Constitutive Emotions?

Note

31 Is a Person Morally Responsible Only for Actions Performed Freely?

Note

32 Is Moral Responsibility for a Good Action Different to Moral Responsibility for a Bad Action?

How Could a Person Be Harmed by Being Dead?

33 Is It Impossible To Be Harmed by Being Dead?

34 Is It Impossible To Be Harmed by Being Dead at a Particular Time?

Note

35 Would Immortality Be Humanly Possible and Desirable?

Notes

36 Can a Person be Deprived of Benefits by Being Dead?

Epicurus’s Argument Against the Evil of Death

The Fallacy in the New Version

How Death Can Be Bad for the One Who Dies

Further Readings for Part II

How Is the World at all Physical?

How Does the World Function?

How Do Things Ever Have Qualities?

How Are There Any Truths?

How Is There a World At All?

How Are Persons Persons?

How Do People Ever Have Free Will and Moral Responsibility?

How Could a Person Be Harmed by Being Dead?

More Generally …

Part III: Epistemology Philosophical Images of Knowing

Can We Understand What It Is to Know?

37 Is Knowledge a Supported True Belief?

38 When Should a Belief be Supported by Evidence?

I. The Duty of Inquiry

39 Is Knowledge a Kind of Objective Certainty?

Knowing as Having the Right to be Sure

40 Are All Fallibly Supported True Beliefs Instances of Knowledge?

Notes

41 Must a True Belief Arise Aptly, if it is to be Knowledge?

Notes

42 Must a True Belief Arise Reliably, if it is to be Knowledge?

I

Notes

43 Where is the Value in Knowing?

Knowledge from Outside

Knowledge from Inside

Notes

44 Is Knowledge Always a Virtuously Derived True Belief?

High-grade and low-grade knowledge

Notes

Can We Ever Know Just through Observation?

45 Is All Knowledge Ultimately Observational?

Of The Origin of Ideas

46 Is There a Problem of Not Knowing that One Is Not Dreaming?

47 What Is It Really to be Seeing Something?

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

X

Notes

48 Is There a Possibility of Being a Mere and Unknowing Brain in a Vat?

Brains in a Vat

Magical Theories of Reference

The Case of the Brains in a Vat

Brains in a Vat (Again)

The Premisses of the Argument

Note

49 Is It Possible to Observe Directly the Objective World?

Notes

References

Can We Ever Know Innately?

50 Is It Possible to Know Innately Some Geometrical or Mathematical Truths?

51 Is There No Innate Knowledge At All?

No Innate Principles in the Mind

No Innate Practical Principles

Other Considerations Concerning Innate Principles, Both Speculative and Practical

Of Ideas in General, and their Original

Can We Ever Know Just through Reflection?

52 Is All Knowledge Ultimately Reflective?

53 Can Reflective Knowledge Be Substantive and Informative?

I. The Distinction between Pure and Empirical Knowledge

II. We are in Possession of Certain Modes of a prioriKnowledge, and even the Common Understandingis never without them

III. Philosophy Stands in Need of a Science which shallDetermine the Possibility, the Principles, and the Extent ofall a priori Knowledge

IV. The Distinction between Analytic and SyntheticJudgments

V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason Synthetic a prioriJudgments are contained as Principles

VI. The General Problem of Pure Reason

VII. The Idea and Division of a Special Science,under the Title “Critique of Pure Reason”

Note

54 Is All Apparently Reflective Knowledge Ultimately Observational?

Of Demonstration, and Necessary Truths

The Same Subject Continued

55 Is Scientific Reflection Our Best Model for Understanding Reflection?

Some Consequences of Four Incapacities

How to Make Our Ideas Clear

I

II

IV

Note

56 Are Some Necessities Known through Observation, Not Reflection?

Notes

Can We Know in Other Fundamental Ways?

57 Is Knowing-How a Distinct Way of Knowing?

58 Is Knowing One’s Intention-in-Action a Distinct Way of Knowing?

Notes

59 Is Knowing via What Others Say or Write a Distinct Way ofKnowing?

1. Testimony and Testimony-Based Belief

2. Transmission of Epistemic Properties

3. Non-Reductionism and Reductionism

60 Is Knowing through Memory a Distinct Way of Knowing?

Memory

Can We Fundamentally Fail Ever To Know?

61 Are None of our Beliefs More Justifiable than Others?

What Scepticism Is

Of the Sceptic

Of the Principles of Scepticism

Does the Sceptic dogmatize?

Do the Sceptics abolish Appearances?

Of the Criterion of Scepticism

What is the End of Scepticism?

Of the general Modes leading to Suspension of Judgement

Concerning the Ten Modes

62 Are None of Our Beliefs Immune from Doubt?

63 Are We Unable Ever To Extrapolate Justifiedly Beyond Our Observations?

Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding

Can Skeptical Arguments Be Escaped?

64 Can We Know at Least Our Conscious Mental Lives?

Of the Nature of the Human Mind; and that it is more easily known than the Body

65 Can We Know Some Fundamental Principles by Common Sense?

Principles Taken for Granted

Of Common Sense

Of first Principles in General

The first Principles of contingent Truths

Notes

66 Do We Know a Lot, but Always Fallibly?

III

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XVI

67 Is It Possible to have Knowledge even when Not Knowing that One Is Not a Brain in a Vat?

Conditions for Knowledge

Skepticism

Skeptical Results

Nonclosure

Notes

Further Readings for Part III

Can We Understand What It Is To Know?

Can We Ever Know Just through Observation?

Can We Ever Know Innately?

Can We Ever Know Just through Reflection?

Can We Know in Other Fundamental Ways?

Can We Fundamentally Fail Ever To Know?

Can Skeptical Arguments Be Escaped?

More Generally …

BLACKWELL PHILOSOPHY ANTHOLOGIES

Each volume in this outstanding series provides an authoritative and comprehensive collection of the essential primary readings from philosophy’s main fields of study. Designed to complement the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, each volume represents an unparalleled resource in its own right, and will provide the ideal platform for course use.

1 Cottingham: Western Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)

2 Cahoone: From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (expanded second edition)

3 LaFollette: Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (third edition)

4 Goodin and Pettit: Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)

5 Eze: African Philosophy: An Anthology

6 McNeill and Feldman: Continental Philosophy: An Anthology

7 Lycan and Prinz: Mind and Cognition: An Anthology (third edition)

8 Kuhse and Singer: Bioethics: An Anthology (second edition)

9 Cummins and Cummins: Minds, Brains, and Computers – The Foundations of Cognitive Science: An Anthology

10 Sosa, Kim, Fantl, and McGrath Epistemology: An Anthology (second edition)

11 Kearney and Rasmussen: Continental Aesthetics – Romanticism to Postmodernism: An Anthology

12 Jacquette: Philosophy of Logic: An Anthology

13 Jacquette: Philosophy of Mathematics: An Anthology

14 Harris, Pratt, and Waters: American Philosophies: An Anthology

15 Emmanuel and Goold: Modern Philosophy – From Descartes to Nietzsche: An Anthology

16 Scharff and Dusek: Philosophy of Technology – The Technological Condition:An Anthology

17 Light and Rolston: Environmental Ethics: An Anthology

18 Taliaferro and Griffiths: Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology

19 Lamarque and Olsen: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art – The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology

20 John and Lopes: Philosophy of Literature – Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology

21 Cudd and Andreasen: Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology

22 Carroll and Choi: Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology

23 Lange: Philosophy of Science: An Anthology

24 Shafer-Landau and Cuneo: Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology

25 Curren: Philosophy of Education: An Anthology

26 Cahn and Meskin: Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology

27 McGrew, Alspector-Kelly and Allhoff: The Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology

28 May: Philosophy of Law: Classic and Contemporary Readings

29 Rosenberg and Arp: Philosophy of Biology: An Anthology

30 Kim, Korman, and Sosa: Metaphysics: An Anthology (second edition)

31 Martinich and Sosa: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)

32 Shafer-Landau: Ethical Theory: An Anthology (second edition)

33 Hetherington: Metaphysics and Epistemology:A Guided Anthology

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51. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Book I, chs. II–IV (excerpts), Book II, ch. I (excerpts). Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press.

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61. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Loeb Classical Library vol. 273, trans. R.G. Bury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), Book I (excerpts). Copyright © 1933 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Loeb Classical Library (R) is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library.

62. René Descartes, “Meditation I” (excerpt), in Meditations on First Philosophy [1641]. From The Philosophical Works of Descartes, vol. 1, trans. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911). Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

63. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), sect. IV (excerpts).

64. René Descartes, “Meditation II” (excerpt), in Meditations on First Philosophy [1641]. From The Philosophical Works of Descartes, vol. 1, trans. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911). Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

65. Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man [1785], Essay I, ch. II, and Essay VI, chs. 2, 4, 5 (excerpts), ed. D.R. Brookes (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002).

66. Karl R. Popper, “On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance” (excerpts), in his Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963). Reprinted with permission of the Karl Popper Library.

67. Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981), ch. 3, “Knowledge and Skepticism” (excerpts). Copyright © 1981 by Robert Nozick. Reprinted with permission of Harvard University Press.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list, and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Preface and Acknowledgments

What is real?

(a) Everything.

(b) Nothing.

(c) Some – but only some – stuff.

(d) Hmm. What does that question mean?

Who really has knowledge?

(a) Everyone.

(b) No one.

(c) Some – but only some – people.

(d) Hmm. What does that question mean?

… and so to this book. Welcome.

Prepare to immerse yourself in provocative and powerful philosophical thoughts about reality and knowledge. Your thinking will take you back and forth, up and down, hither and thither. You will contemplate lots of ideas – competing ones; complementary ones. The book is designed to be used in some university and college courses – beginning philosophy courses on reality and knowledge, on metaphysics and epistemology. Within these pages, you will encounter thematically focused instances of philosophical writing on those topics, from some of philosophy’s most justly famous thinkers.

Prepare also for manifest struggle and potential triumph. I have introduced each reading (­usually an excerpt) with remarks explaining its historical setting and/or philosophical point. Nevertheless, at times you will be puzzled, even exasperated, by the challenges in these readings – challenges to your senses of yourself, others, and the world at large. Much will seem new: “I hadn’t thought of that.” Your mission will then be to question and to evaluate: “Should I accept that? Why? Why not?” But such challenges are also precious opportunities. Intellects and characters – mine; yours – do not improve without effort and focus. So, here is a book intended precisely to assist you in that respect. I hope you will come to appreciate some of the vitality and depth that philosophy can bring to your life.

The idea for this book was suggested to me in 2009 by Nick Bellorini, who was then the philosophy editor at Blackwell in the UK. His proposal was for an introductory ­metaphysics-and-epistemology anthology, blending classic with contemporary writings, ­offering editorial guidance for each of the book’s many readings. Nick’s model for some of this was John Cottingham’s more general – and terrific – anthology, Western Philosophy (2nd edn. Blackwell, 2008). A little later, Nick moved to a new position with another ­publisher. But Jeff Dean (at Wiley-Blackwell in the USA) continued to be extremely supportive of this project. He gathered many excellent referees’ suggestions for me when I was mulling over the book’s possible contents and organization. (“Thank you,” after all this time, to those referees.) I have appreciated Jeff’s clear-headed and friendly editorial guidance. Jennifer Bray and Janet Moth at Wiley-Blackwell have been very helpful with the production process. Brent Madison provided good feedback on the contents (as did Michaelis Michael and Markos Valaris), as well as on my own writing for the book. Lindsay Yeates was an invaluable proofreader.

Introduction

You know – excitedly, I hope – that this is a book of philosophy. Yet how well do you know this? After all, do you know what philosophy really is? Remarkably, even experienced ­philosophers can disagree as to philosophy’s identity or nature. So it would be rash for me to insist at the outset on what could be a needlessly limited characterization of philosophy. Instead of picking out one or two possible proposals as to what philosophy is, I will allow this book’s first few readings – those in Part I – to begin telling the story.

From among philosophy’s many specific areas or topics, the book introduces you, in Parts II and III, to two of the historically central ones – respectively, metaphysics and epistemology. Metaphysics is the philosophical study of being, of reality, of existence. Fundamentally, what is real? Fundamentally, what is it to be real? And epistemology is philosophy’s focus upon knowing, upon inquiry, upon rational belief. Fundamentally, what is knowledge, and in what ways do we attain it? Fundamentally, do we ever attain it?

Here is a cautionary note: It is very possible to reflect non-philosophically upon those two topics – upon reality and upon knowing. There can be something quite artless and simple about philosophical questions; there can also be an art and sophistication to them. How does some thinking become ­philosophical, about these or any other topics? At any time, philosophy is what has been done in its name – and so its history remains part of it – along with what is still being done in its name and ­possibly what could then be done in its name. We tend to identify philosophy, too, by its best exemplars – what has been, plus what is being, done well in its name. All of that leads us into this book, which gives you an opportunity to examine exemplary exemplars – both historical and contemporary – of ­philosophical thinking about being and about knowing.

In calling those exemplars exemplary, I do not mean to presume that either you or I will accept all of them as correct in what they conclude. Presumably, it is possible for some philosophy to be good yet mistaken. In fact, there are many ways in which, it seems, that is possible. Sometimes, a piece of philosophy is good because it raises good questions. Sometimes, a piece of philosophy is good because it develops an imaginative answer to someone else’s good question. Sometimes, a piece of philosophy is good because it finds surprising and instructive flaws in an otherwise tempting answer to a good question. Sometimes, a piece of philosophy is good in one respect, yet not so good in another respect. And on it goes, for the many possible respects in which a piece of philosophy may deserve respect.

Please be alert, then, when reading this book’s extracts from some excellent instances of ­philosophy, each of which is good in at least one notable respect. Look for each reading’s insight, and/or its unusual question, and/or its bold idea, and/or the clever reasoning, and/or etc. Then start forming your potential morals about what philosophy can, or what it cannot, accomplish. Once you reach the end of the book, hopefully you will have witnessed for ­yourself a representative sample of what philosophy can achieve. You could even have taken a step or two yourself, maybe three or four, toward that achievement.

Part I

The Philosophical Image

1

Life and the Search for Philosophical Knowledge

Plato, Republic

Systematic Western philosophy began in Greece, most influentially with the engagingly profound dialogues written by Plato (c.428–c.348 BC). They are ­centered upon his teacher Socrates (469–399 BC) being constructively puzzled by … well, almost anything about which others within his hearing claim not to be puzzled. When Socrates wanders around Athens, he meets many people who are eager to share with him their confidently held views as to what is ethically right, what is religiously proper, what is natural, what is socially just, what is beauty, what is knowledge, what is real, etc. Socrates listens – before asking for more details, requesting help in understanding, suggesting alternative formulations and ideas. Time and again, he enters into other people’s thoughts, earnestly wondering, ­seeking clarity on one point after another as he professes slowness of wit and paucity of comprehension. (He was inquiring with what philosophers now call the Socratic method of inquiry used by many teachers: questions guiding gently and adaptively, sometimes professing a lack of understanding even when the questioner understands better than the audience does.)

    What happens as a result of Socrates’ questioning? Subtle thinking occurs; new possibilities emerge; and Socrates’ companions tend to acquire feelings of ­uncertainty and frustration. Thanks to Plato’s writing, we are privileged to be able to immerse ourselves in this fascinating process, this way of improving our powers of reflection. That Socratic form of thinking has contributed powerfully to the subsequent centuries of philosophy.

But philosophy has also been influenced by some of Socrates’ themes. We see this in our extract from the Republic, one of Plato’s most famous dialogues. Two themes are especially important in this reading. (1) Philosophy seeks . (2) Not just any knowledge, though; it should be knowledge of a reality worth knowing, indeed a reality deeply worth knowing. With philosophy spurring on our hearts and minds, we should strive to know the true nature of (“the Good,” Socrates names it). We should settle for nothing less than that ultimate prize. And we should hold in mind that what good and ultimately valuable might not be. We must learn the difference between settling for an appearance of something ultimately good (e.g. something really only ­transiently or superficially valuable) and finding something that really is fundamentally good.