Tag: Justification
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Philosophical Questions and their Answers
By Daniel A. Kaufman ___ It seems that many – most? – philosophers think that what philosophy is about is arriving at true positions on subjects ranging from morality, to knowledge, to reality, and the like. They think there is a determinate answer as to whether moral realism or anti-realism is true or whether the […]
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From Passion to Belief
by Daniel Tippens David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher and empiricist, did not believe that there are any self-evident truths (beyond the trivial “relations of ideas”), nor did he believe that reason is what makes us confident in our beliefs. For him, all knowledge is acquired and justified by experience — observation of the […]
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Course Notes: Three Lectures on Knowledge
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ As readers of Course Notes will know, I created an entirely new Introduction to Philosophy course this year. Profound changes in the student population over the last several years, including an apparent inability to understand or even just read classics from the history of philosophy, as well as a troubling […]
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Belief and Knowledge Reconsidered
E. John Winner How did we ever come to use such an expression as “I believe . . . “? Did we at some time become aware of a phenomenon (of belief)? Did we observe ourselves and other people and so discover belief? — Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1) §1. Recently, while reading Section 10 […]