What's the Point of Knowledge? PDF Download

Author: Michael Hannon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190914726
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This book is about knowledge and its value. At its heart is a straightforward idea: we can answer many interesting and difficult questions in epistemology by reflecting on the role of epistemic evaluation in human life. Michael Hannon calls this approach function-first epistemology. To Hannon, the concept of knowledge is used to identify reliable informants; this practice is necessary, or at least deeply important, because it plays a vital role in human survival, cooperation, and flourishing. Though a seemingly simple idea, function-first epistemology has wide-reaching implications. From this premise, Hannon casts new light on the very nature and value of knowledge, the differences between knowledge and understanding, the relationship between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning, and the semantics of knowledge claims. This book forges new paths into some classic philosophical puzzles, including the Gettier problem, epistemic relativism, and philosophical skepticism. What's the Point of Knowledge? shows that pivotal issues in epistemology can be resolved by taking a function-first approach, demonstrating the significant role that this method can play in contemporary philosophy.

Author: Ana-Maria Crețu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030270416
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This open access book – as the title suggests – explores some of the historical roots and epistemological ramifications of perspectivism. Perspectivism has recently emerged in philosophy of science as an interesting new position in the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism. But there is a lot more to perspectivism than discussions in philosophy of science so far have suggested. Perspectivism is a much broader view that emphasizes how our knowledge (in particular our scientific knowledge of nature) is situated; it is always from a human vantage point (as opposed to some Nagelian "view from nowhere"). This edited collection brings together a diverse team of established and early career scholars across a variety of fields (from the history of philosophy to epistemology and philosophy of science). The resulting nine essays trace some of the seminal ideas of perspectivism back to Kant, Nietzsche, the American Pragmatists, and Putnam, while the second part of the book tackles issues concerning the relation between perspectivism, relativism, and standpoint theories, and the implications of perspectivism for epistemological debates about veritism, epistemic normativity and the foundations of human knowledge.

Author: Seymour A Papert
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 154167510X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.

Author: Elizabeth Edenberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192893335
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
The first edited collection to explore one of the most rapidly growing area of philosophy: political epistemology. The volume brings together leading philosophers to explore ways in which the analytic and conceptual tools of epistemology bear on political philosophy--and vice versa.

Author: Michael Hannon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000371921
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
As political discourse had been saturated with the ideas of "post-truth", "fake news", "epistemic bubbles", and "truth decay", it was no surprise that in 2017 The New Scientist declared: "Philosophers of knowledge, your time has come." Political epistemology has old roots, but is now one of the most rapidly growing and important areas of philosophy. The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology is an outstanding reference source to this exciting field, and the first collection of its kind. Comprising 41 chapters by an international team of contributors, it is divided into seven parts: Politics and truth: historical and contemporary perspectives Political disagreement and polarization Fake news, propaganda, and misinformation Ignorance and irrationality in politics Epistemic virtues and vices in politics Democracy and epistemology Trust, expertise, and doubt. Within these sections crucial issues and debates are examined, including: post-truth, disagreement and relativism, epistemic networks, fake news, echo chambers, propaganda, ignorance, irrationality, political polarization, virtues and vices in public debate, epistocracy, expertise, misinformation, trust, and digital democracy, as well as the views of Plato, Aristotle, Mòzǐ, medieval Islamic philosophers, Mill, Arendt, and Rawls on truth and politics. The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology is essential reading for those studying political philosophy, applied and social epistemology, and politics. It is also a valuable resource for those in related disciplines such as international relations, law, political psychology, political science, communication studies, and journalism.

Author: Jonathan Rauch
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815738870
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on facts “In what could be the timeliest book of the year, Rauch aims to arm his readers to engage with reason in an age of illiberalism.” —Newsweek A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: “cancel culture.” At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony. In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”—our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do—and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.

Author: Daniel H. Pink
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101524383
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

Author: Michael Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472529545
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Written at a time of uncertainty about the implications of the English government's curriculum policies, Knowledge and the Future School engages with the debate between the government and large sections of the educational community. It provides a forward-looking framework for head teachers, their staff and those involved in training teachers to use when developing the curriculum of individual schools in the context of a national curriculum. While explaining recent ideas in the sociology of educational knowledge, the authors draw on Michael Young's earlier research with Johan Muller to distinguish three models of the curriculum in terms of their assumptions about knowledge, referred to in this book as Future 1, Future 2 and Future 3. They link Future 3 to the idea of 'powerful knowledge' for all pupils as a curriculum principle for any school, arguing that the question of knowledge is intimately linked to the issue of social justice and that access to 'powerful knowledge' is a necessary component of the education of all pupils. Knowledge and the Future School offers a new way of thinking about the problems that head teachers, their staff and curriculum designers face. In charting a course for schools that goes beyond current debates, it also provides a perspective that policy makers should not avoid.

Author: Edward Craig
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191519642
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
The standard philosophical project of analysing the concept of knowledge has radical defects in its arbitrary restriction of the subject matter, and its risky theoretical presuppositions. Edward Craig suggests a more illuminating approach, akin to the `state of nature' method found in political theory, which builds up the concept from a hypothesis about the social function of knowledge and the needs it fulfils. Light is thrown on much that philosophers have written about knowledge, about its analysis and the obstacles to its analysis (such as the counter-examples of Edmund Gettier), and on the debate over scepticism. It becomes apparent why many languages not only have such constructions as `knows whether' and `knows that', but also have equivalents of `knows how to' and `know' followed by a direct object. Thus the inquiry is both broadened in scope and made theoretically less fragile.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309131979
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methodsâ€"to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.