Extended Rationality A Hinge Epistemology

by Coliva, Annalisa

• ISBN13: 9781137501882
• ISBN10: 113750188X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-06-03
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology provides a novel account of the structure of epistemic justification. Its central claim builds upon Wittgenstein's idea in On Certainty that epistemic justifications hinge on some basic assumptions and that epistemic rationality extends to these very hinges. It exploits these ideas to address major problems in epistemology, such as the nature of perceptual justifications, external world skepticism, epistemic relativism, the epistemic status of basic logical laws, of the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, of our belief in the existence of the past and of other minds, and the nature of testimonial justification. Along the way, further technical issues, such as the scope of the Principle of Closure of epistemic operators under known entailment, the notion of transmission failure, and the existence of entitlements are addressed in new and illuminating ways.

Author Biography

Annalisa Coliva is Associate Professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Deputy Director of COGITO Research Centre at Bologna University. A Fulbright and Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, she is the author of Moore and Wittgenstein: Scepticism, Certainty and Common Sense (2010) and the editor of The Self and Self-Knowledge (2012), Mind, Meaning and Knowledge: Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright (2012), and (with D. Moyal-Sharrock and V. Munz) Language, Mind and Action (2015).

Table of Contents

PART I: MODERATISM ABOUT PERCEPTUAL WARRANTS
1. The Architecture Of Perceptual Warrants 1: The Liberal View
2. The Architecture Of Perceptual Warrants 2: The Conservative View
3. The Architecture Of Perceptual Warrants 3: The Moderate View
4. Moderates Are Legion (While Liberals And Conservatives Are Not)
5. Moderatism And The Content Of Perception
6. Summary
PART II: FURTHER MOTIVATION FOR MODERATISM
1. Against Liberal Mooreanism
2. Against Entitlements
3. Against A Priori Warrants
3.1 Wedgwood And A Priori Bootstrapping
3.2 Peacocke's Rationalism
3.3 Sosa And Rational Intuitions
4. Summary
PART III: THE BEARING OF THE MODERATE VIEW. TRANSMISSION FAILURES, CLOSURE, EASY KNOWLEDGE AND BOOTSTRAPPING
1. Wright's And Davies's Original Failure
2. Davies's New Failure And Its Failure
3. Another Kind Of Failure
4. Moderates, Transmission Failure 2 And Moore
5. Transmission Failure 1&2. A Compatibilist Approach
6. Transmission Failure 1&2 And Closure
7. Transmission Failures, Easy Knowledge And Bootstrapping
8. A Possible Counterexample: Pryor's (?) Failure To See This Failure
9. Summary
PART IV: THE EXTENDED RATIONALITY VIEW
1. Naturalism, Pragmatism And Wittgenstein Vis-À-Vis Humean Skepticism
2. The Extended Rationality View And Humean Skepticism
3. The Extended Rationality View, Cartesian Skepticism, Closure And 'Abominable Conjunctions'
4. The Extended Rationality View And Epistemic Relativism
5. The Extended Rationality View And The Oblomovian Challenge
6. The Extended Rationality View And Truth
7. Summary
PART V: THE EXTENDED RATIONALITY VIEW EXTENDED
1. The Extended Rationality View And The Principle Of The Uniformity Of Nature
2. The Extended Rationality View And The Past
3. The Extended Rationality View, Testimony And Other Minds
4. The Extended Rationality View And Basic Logical Laws
5. Summary