Perception, Knowledge and Belief

Perception, Knowledge and Belief PDF

Author: Fred I. Dretske

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-02-28

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780521777421

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Part I. Knowledge: 1. Conclusive reasons 2. Epistemic operators 3. The pragmatic dimension of knowledge 4. The epistemology of belief 5. Two conceptions of knowledge: rational vs. reliable belief Part II. Perception and Experience: 6. Simple seeing 7. Conscious experience 8. Differences that make no difference 9. The mind's awareness of itself 10. What good is consciousness Part III. Thought and Intentionality: 11. Putting information to work 12. If you can't make one, you don't know how it works 13. The nature of thought 14. Norms and the constitution of the mental 15. Minds, machines, and money: what really explains behavior.

Perception, Knowledge and Belief

Perception, Knowledge and Belief PDF

Author: Fred Dretske

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-02-28

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780521771818

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This collection of essays by eminent philosopher Fred Dretske brings together work on the theory of knowledge and philosophy of mind spanning thirty years. The two areas combine to lay the groundwork for a naturalistic philosophy of mind. The essays focus on perception, knowledge, and consciousness. Together, they show the interconnectedness of Dretske's work in epistemology and his more contemporary ideas on philosophy of mind, shedding light on the links that can be made between the two. This collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students, and will also be of interest to cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers of biology.

Knowledge and the Flow of Information

Knowledge and the Flow of Information PDF

Author: Fred I. Dretske

Publisher: Mit Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780262540384

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What distinguishes clever computers from stupid people (besides their components)? The author of Seeing and Knowing presents in his new book a beautifully and persuasively written interdisciplinary approach to traditional problems--a clearsighted interpretation of information theory.Psychologists, biologists, computer scientists, and those seeking a general unified picture of perceptual-cognitive activity will find this provocative reading.The problems Dretske addresses in Knowledge and the Flow of Information--What is knowledge? How are the sensory and cognitive processes related? What makes mental activities mental?--appeal to a wide audience. The conceptual tools used to deal with these questions (information, noise, analog versus digital coding, etc.) are designed to make contact with, and exploit the findings of, empirical work in the cognitive sciences. A concept of information is developed, one deriving from (but not identical with) the Shannon idea familiar to communication theorists, in terms of which the analyses of knowledge, perception, learning, and meaning are expressed.The book is materialistic in spirit--that is, spiritedly materialistic--devoted to the view that mental states and processes are merely special ways physical systems have of processing, coding, and using information.

Perception as a Capacity for Knowledge

Perception as a Capacity for Knowledge PDF

Author: John Henry McDowell

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780874621792

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This is the 2011 Aquinas Lecture delivered by John McDowell on February 27, 2011 at Marquette University. A central theme in much of Professor McDowell's work is the harmful effect, in modern philosophy and in the modern reception of pre-modern philosophy, of a conception of nature that reflects an understanding, in itself perfectly correct, of the proper goals of the natural sciences. He has argued that we can free ourselves from the characteristic sorts of philosophical anxiety by recalling the possibility of a less restrictive conception of what it takes for something to be natural.

Knowledge, Perception and Memory

Knowledge, Perception and Memory PDF

Author: C. Ginet

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1975-06-30

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9789027705747

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In this book I present what seem to me (at the moment) to be right an swers to some of the main philosophical questions about the topics men tioned in the title, and I argue for them where I can. I hope that what I say may be of interest both to those who have already studied these ques tions a lot and to those who haven't. There are several important topics in epistemology to which I give little or no attention here - such as the nature of a proposition, the major classifications of propositions (neces sary and contingent, a priori and a posteriori, analytic and synthetic, general and particular), the nature of understanding a proposition, the nature of truth, the nature and justification of the various kinds of in ference (deductive, inductive, and probably others) -but enough is cover ed, to one degree or another, that the book might be of use in a course in epistemology. Earlier versions of some of the material in Chapters II, III, and IV were some of the material in Ginet (1970). An earlier version of the part of Chapter VII on memory-connection was a paper that I profited from reading and discussing in philosophy discussion groups at Cornell Uni versity, SUNY at Albany, and Syracuse University in 1972-73. I do not like to admit how long I have been working on this book.

Russell's Theory of Perception

Russell's Theory of Perception PDF

Author: Sajahan Miah

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2006-05-30

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1847142842

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In Russell's Theory of Perception, Sajahan Miah re-examines and evaluates the development of Russell's concept of perception and the relation of perception to our knowledge of the external world. With the introduction of logical construction (in which physical objects are constructed from actual and possible sense-data) Russell's theory of perception seems to become a causal theory with phenomenalist overtones. The book argues that there is a consistency of purpose and direction which motivated Russell to introduce logical construction. The purpose was to strike a compromise between his empiricism and his realism and to establish a bridge between the objects of perception and the objects of physics and common sense.

The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception

The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception PDF

Author: Berit Brogaard

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0190648910

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"Most of the research on the epistemology of perception has focused on visual perception. This is hardly surprising given that most of our knowledge about the world is largely attributable to our visual experiences. The present volume is the first to instead focus on the epistemology of non-visual perception - hearing, touch, taste, and cross-sensory experiences. Drawing on recent empirical studies of emotion, perception, and decision-making, it breaks new ground on discussions of whether or not perceptual experience can yield justified beliefs and how to characterize those beliefs. The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception explores questions not only related to traditional sensory perception, but also to proprioceptive, interoceptive, multisensory, and event perception, expanding traditional notions of the influence that conscious non-visual experience has on human behavior and rationality. Contributors investigate the role that emotions play in decision-making and agential perception and what this means for justifications of belief and knowledge. They analyze the notion that some sensory experiences, like touch, have epistemic privilege over others, as well as perception's relationship to introspection, and the relationship between action perception and belief. Other essays engage with topics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, exploring the role that artworks can play in providing us with perceptional knowledge of emotions. The essays collected here, written by top researchers in their respective fields, offer perspectives from a wide range of philosophical disciplines and will appeal to scholars interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophical psychology, among others."--Publisher description.

Understanding Beliefs

Understanding Beliefs PDF

Author: Nils J. Nilsson

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 0262321130

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What beliefs are, what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain. Some of our beliefs we call theories, and we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them. Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples. But so are theories about astrology, alien abduction, guardian angels, and reincarnation. All are products (with varying degrees of credibility) of fertile minds trying to find explanations for observed phenomena. In this book, Nils Nilsson examines beliefs: what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. We should evaluate our beliefs carefully, Nilsson points out, because they influence so many of our actions and decisions. Some of our beliefs are more strongly held than others, but all should be considered tentative and changeable. Nilsson shows that beliefs can be quantified by probability, and he describes networks of beliefs in which the probabilities of some beliefs affect the probabilities of others. He argues that we can evaluate our beliefs by adapting some of the practices of the scientific method and by consulting expert opinion. And he warns us about “belief traps”—holding onto beliefs that wouldn't survive critical evaluation. The best way to escape belief traps, he writes, is to expose our beliefs to the reasoned criticism of others.

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