Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities." Sponsor: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. We start by looking more closely at the idea that all mental Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On essays by Charles Sanders Peirce: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," both from 1868. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. Sponsor: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. Are Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities." We start by looking more closely at the idea that all mental causation is a form of reasoning, i.e. inference. Peirce sees these as valid deductive (or inductive or abductive) arguments even if they are not sound, i.e. if the premises are false. Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part One for Supporters)
On essays by Charles Sanders Peirce: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," both from 1868. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. Are there some instances of knowledge that are immediate and intuitive? These would be cognitions that are not caused by another cognition, but caused directly by the things that they Continue Reading …
Ep. 392: Early Hegel Elevates Reason (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on Faith and Knowledge (1802), Ch. 1 and 2. We start off by discussing how beauty might give us a window into things-in-themselves according to the Romantics, who were in part following Kant's lead. Also, what version of the ontological argument for the Continue Reading …
Ep. 392: Early Hegel Elevates Reason (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On Faith and Knowledge (1802), Ch. 1 and 2. Famously, Kant critiqued Reason to effectively forbid theology and metaphysics, and a young G.W.F. Hegel was not happy about that. In this self-published essay written five years before the Phenomenology of Spirit, he argues against the Continue Reading …
Ep. 392: Early Hegel Elevates Reason (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Faith and Knowledge (1802), Ch. 1 and 2. We start off by discussing how beauty might give us a window into things-in-themselves according to the Romantics, who were in part following Kant's lead. Also, what version of the ontological argument for the existence of God does Hegel believe, since he criticizes Kant for wrongly dismissing the Continue Reading …
Ep. 392: Early Hegel Elevates Reason (Part One for Supporters)
On Faith and Knowledge (1802), Ch. 1 and 2. Famously, Kant critiqued Reason to effectively forbid theology and metaphysics, and a young G.W.F. Hegel was not happy about that. In this self-published essay written five years before the Phenomenology of Spirit, he argues against the impoverishment of Reason to mere intellect (i.e. the Kantian Understanding), restricted to realm of Continue Reading …
Quasi-Moral Skepticism
Philosophy is littered with realisms and skepticisms. Meta-ethics is no different. Moral skepticisms abound and there are many moral realisms. It's a risk of excess to add one more to the pile, but hopefully the risk is worth it. This essay charts a middle course that could just as easily be called Quasi-realism, a more glass half-full name. That is, if Simon Blackburn hadn't Continue Reading …
Ep. 353: Reid on Visual Knowledge (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Concluding our treatment of "Of Seeing" in Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Start with ep. 352. Sponsor: Check out the Constant Wonder podcast. We continue to hammer at this idea of "resemblance." Given that there is some biological/physical encoding process Continue Reading …
Ep. 353: Thomas Reid on Visual Knowledge (Part Two for Supporters)
Concluding our treatment of "Of Seeing" in Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Start with ep. 352. We continue to hammer at this idea of "resemblance." Given that there is some biological/physical encoding process whereby some aspect of an object in the world is sensed, should we say that the signal, and the brain state it brings about, "resembles" Continue Reading …
Ep. 353: Reid on Visual Knowledge (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We're continuing from ep. 352 on Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), now discussing ch. 6: "Of Seeing." Sponsor: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL. The moral of Reid's previous treatment of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 353: Reid on Visual Knowledge (Part One for Supporters)
We're continuing from ep. 352 on Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), now discussing ch. 6: "Of Seeing." The moral of Reid's previous treatment of the other senses was that the sensations that a perceived object causes in us do not resemble that thing. The physical rose and its odor have very little in common, and it's only because they are Continue Reading …
Ep. 352: Thomas Reid on Smelling and Knowledge (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764): the introduction, conclusion, ch. 2 "Of Smelling" ch. 4 "Of Hearing," and some correspondence between Reid and Hume. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. Sponsors: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Continue Reading …
Ep. 352: Thomas Reid on Smelling and Knowledge (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Inquiry into the Human Mind, getting further into the chapter on smelling. We start with the question about what exactly our relation with objects in the world is. Do we "construct" them out of our various sensations? What does Reid's theory of memory contribute to this? Another point of contrast with past philosophy Reid makes is that we don't Continue Reading …
Ep. 352: Thomas Reid on Smelling and Knowledge (Part One for Supporters)
On Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764): the introduction, conclusion, ch. 2 "Of Smelling" ch. 4 "Of Hearing," and some correspondence between Reid and Hume. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. Reid was responding to so-called "modern philosophy" from Descartes through Hume and thought that something had gone terribly wrong. From Descartes' Continue Reading …
Ep. 350: Rorty on Justification and Essentialism (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On "Universality and Truth" and "Pan-Relationalism," which are lectures 3-5 in Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism, which we began discussing last episode. Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan continue to hash through Rorty's pragmatism, which in this book is given in relation to how Continue Reading …
Ep. 350: Rorty on Justification and Essentialism (Part One for Supporters)
On "Universality and Truth" and "Pan-Relationalism," which are lectures 3-5 in Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism, which we began discussing last episode. Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan continue to hash through Rorty's pragmatism, which in this book is given in relation to how to best promote democracy. Rorty thinks democracy can "stand on its own two feet"; it Continue Reading …
Ep. 348: Tim Williamson’s Knowledge-First Epistemology (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content, including a new, supporter-exclusive, PEL Nightcap. Continuing from part one, we finish up "Knowledge First Epistemology" (2011), and delve further into "Justifications, Excuses, and Sceptical Scenarios" (2015), and "Morally Loaded Cases in Philosophy" (2019), still with guests Russell Ming Continue Reading …
Ep. 348: Tim Williamson’s Knowledge-First Epistemology (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On "Knowledge First Epistemology" (2011), "Justifications, Excuses, and Sceptical Scenarios" (2015), and "Morally Loaded Cases in Philosophy" (2019). Does it really make sense to try to define knowledge in terms of belief and justification, as we did in ep. 344, or should we instead take Continue Reading …