The Aim of Belief PDF Download

Author: Timothy Hoo Wai Chan
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 019967213X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The Aim of Belief is the first book devoted to the question: 'what is belief?' Eleven newly commissioned essays by leading authors reflect the state of the art and further advance the current debate. The book will be key reading for researchers working on philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, and meta-ethics.

Author: Christiana M. M. Olfert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190281006
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In Aristotle on Practical Truth, C.M.M. Olfert gives the first book-length treatment of Aristotle's notion of practical truth. The book covers the origins of practical truth in Plato's philosophy; practical truth's role in practical reasoning; its contributions to motivation and action; and its implications for ethical development.

Author: Ryan Andrew Newson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625649940
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Beginning with her award-winning book Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (1990), Nancey Murphy has used philosophy of science as a way into, and catalyst for, fresh thinking in cosmology, divine action, epistemology, cognitive neuroscience, theological anthropology, philosophy of mind, and Christian virtue ethics. The essays in this book, written by her students and colleagues, creatively honor Murphy by extending a number of her core insights within their respective disciplines. An introduction provides both an account of Murphy's unique location (an Anabaptist teaching at an evangelical graduate institution) and a summary of her contributions to theology as a philosopher of science whose corpus more than any other epitomizes the paradigm shift in philosophy sometimes called "Anglo-American postmodernity." Subsequently, fourteen essays provide unique engagements with Murphy on subjects including divine action, the interaction between science and theology, epistemology, the nature of humanity, and political theology. In its entirety, Practicing to Aim at Truth provides the first in-depth interaction with and extension of Nancey Murphy's unique school of thought, providing a resource both for those wishing to extend her research program as well as those wishing to understand it charitably in order to critique it.

Author: Robert T. Pennock
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262042584
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
An exploration of the scientific mindset—such character virtues as curiosity, veracity, attentiveness, and humility to evidence—and its importance for science, democracy, and human flourishing. Exemplary scientists have a characteristic way of viewing the world and their work: their mindset and methods all aim at discovering truths about nature. In An Instinct for Truth, Robert Pennock explores this scientific mindset and argues that what Charles Darwin called “an instinct for truth, knowledge, and discovery” has a tacit moral structure—that it is important not only for scientific excellence and integrity but also for democracy and human flourishing. In an era of “post-truth,” the scientific drive to discover empirical truths has a special value. Taking a virtue-theoretic perspective, Pennock explores curiosity, veracity, skepticism, humility to evidence, and other scientific virtues and vices. He explains that curiosity is the most distinctive element of the scientific character, by which other norms are shaped; discusses the passionate nature of scientific attentiveness; and calls for science education not only to teach scientific findings and methods but also to nurture the scientific mindset and its core values. Drawing on historical sources as well as a sociological study of more than a thousand scientists, Pennock's philosophical account is grounded in values that scientists themselves recognize they should aspire to. Pennock argues that epistemic and ethical values are normatively interconnected, and that for science and society to flourish, we need not just a philosophy of science, but a philosophy of the scientist.

Author: Clayton Littlejohn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107016126
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Presents and defends a bold new approach to the ethics of belief and to resolving the internalism-externalism debate in epistemology.

Author: Terence Cuneo
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191614815
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Antirealist views about morality claim that moral facts or truths do not exist. Do these views imply that other types of normative facts, such as epistemic ones, do not exist? The Normative Web develops a positive answer to this question. Terence Cuneo argues that the similarities between moral and epistemic facts provide excellent reason to believe that, if moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not exist. But epistemic facts, it is argued, do exist: to deny their existence would commit us to an extreme version of epistemological skepticism. Therefore, Cuneo concludes, moral facts exist. And if moral facts exist, then moral realism is true. In so arguing, Cuneo provides not simply a defense of moral realism, but a positive argument for it. Moreover, this argument engages with a wide range of antirealist positions in epistemology such as error theories, expressivist views, and reductionist views of epistemic reasons. If the central argument of The Normative Web is correct, antirealist positions of these varieties come at a very high cost. Given their cost, Cuneo contends, we should find realism about both epistemic and moral facts highly attractive.

Author: Angela Potochnik
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022675944X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela Potochnik moves on to explain how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration.

Author: Katja Maria Vogt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199916810
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato explores a Socratic intuition about belief, doxa — belief is "shameful." In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Vogt shows how deeply this proposal differs from contemporary views, but that it nevertheless speaks to intuitions we are likely to share with Plato, ancient skeptics, and Stoic epistemologists.

Author: Douglas Edwards
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474213316
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
For the first time Truth: A Contemporary Reader brings together essays that have shaped two aspects of a fundamental philosophical topic: the nature of truth and the value of truth. Featuring 22 essays, this up-to-date reader includes seminal work by leading figures in contemporary analytic philosophy. It charts the development of the central 'grand proposals' about the nature of truth, and subsequently how their influence gradually diminished in face of new theories developed in the 20th and 21st-centuries. The reader also demonstrates how truth is often taken to be valuable in various ways, in particular as the norm of correctness for belief and assertion, and the relationship between truth and other epistemic values. With introductory overviews to each group of related papers complemented by guides to further reading, this reader introduces the central debates, familiarizes students with the most important work in the field and covers pivotal theories of truth including: - correspondence theories - coherentism, pragmatism, verificationism - deflationary, primitivist, and pluralist theories Moreover, by showing how thoughts about truth and value bear heavily on one another, Truth: A Contemporary Reader provides new opportunities for understanding and advancing the link between these central topics. This is an essential collection for anyone studying or working in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language today.

Author: Michael Glanzberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191502650
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 833

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Book Description
Truth is one of the central concepts in philosophy, and has been a perennial subject of study. Michael Glanzberg has brought together 36 leading experts from around the world to produce the definitive guide to philosophical issues to do with truth. They consider how the concept of truth has been understood from antiquity to the present day, surveying major debates about truth during the emergence of analytic philosophy. They offer critical assessments of the standard theories of truth, including the coherence, correspondence, identity, and pragmatist theories. They explore the role of truth in metaphysics, with lively discussion of truthmakers, proposition, determinacy, objectivity, deflationism, fictionalism, relativism, and pluralism. Finally the handbook explores broader applications of truth in philosophy, including ethics, science, and mathematics, and reviews formal work on truth and its application to semantic paradox. This Oxford Handbook will be an invaluable resource across all areas of philosophy.