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The most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology."

With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.

Customer Reviews (5)

a difficult read, not recommendable to every philosophy student
The review is just on Sellars' essay. Rorty as usual hasn't said much about things. So if you know Sellars via Rorty, drop this one and read Derrida instead. Brandom is still quite interesting, but there are many others who want to talk about him.

From the first time I read the essay, I was wondering why Sellars's text is so ambiguous and incomprehensible. He studied mathematics before he came to study philosophy. But unlike Quine, you saw not even a vestige of mathematical elegance in his clumsy writing. His way of reasoning is just way too un-analytical. Soon I came to the conclusion that he knew very little of contemporary logic. Philosophy is a very funny discipline. Sometimes, the difficulty in understanding a philosophical argument points to the difficulty at the heart of the real philosophical problems and sometimes, it results from a confused way of thinking about matters. It takes time for readers to be able to determine from which the difficulty originates. Initially, I thought the difficulty in reading Sellars is a genuine one, but I found later that most of the time it wasn't.

In many cases, as one reviewer below says, he simply mis-reasons and in an awkward way. The way he construes regress argument in memory judgment is one such example.

Other times, he simply confuses himself or omits argument all together. In SS20 for example, after a long discussion on conceptual priority of the "is" over the "looks" , he proposes and defends conceptual holism against adverbial theory; which is a variant of epistemological foundationalism. Adverbialists such as Chisholm characteristically endorse the foundationalist thesis that there are some basic beliefs which justify all other non-basic empirical beliefs. They think perceptual beliefs of the kind "x looks R to me", "x appears R to me" are candidates for such basic beliefs. This thesis, problematic as it may sound too Cartesian, by itself doesn't lead them to commit to conceptual atomism. It only tells us that the belief statements of the form " x looks R" are justificatory prior to belief statement of the form " x is R". The thesis about epistemic justification doesn't tell us anything about the conceptual priority of one term over the other, so defending conceptual holism can be perfectly compatible with the position Sellars argues against. Sellars seems to conflate epistemological question with conceptual question here. There are mistakes of this kind here and there in this essay. In another place, he simply didn't argue well enough. He commits to a semantic thesis that a word's meaning is its functional role to defend his "psychological nominalism". This thesis which is now called "functional semantic theory" is itself a very controversial thesis and you need a book-length argument to just defend the view.( btw, which is what Brandom was trying to do in recent years) But Sellars simply sketched out the basic idea and did no defense on his claim.

Even though Sellars' original presentation is far from clear, the idea of "myth of the given" is quite interesting nontheless. The idea is roughly that any mental items (propositional or non-propositional) that play epistemically justificational role in justifying empirically significant statements couldn't be independently given. It depends for its justification on other propositions. No candidate of the given could serve the role it was meant to serve. So on this construal, not only sense-data can't be given, but judgments such as "it looks red to me" or "I have a pain in my stomach" can't be given as well. So his critique on the myth of the given is clearly broader than any arguments against sense-data theory and probably broader than private language argument. The problem is that it may be too broad. If you endorse Sellars' critique of MOG along with his psychological nominalism which states that any kind of awareness (conscious or unconscious) is linguistic affair, then you need to deny any awareness of pain on the part of creatures who don't use language-like systems like us. Not only that he also had to expel sensations all together from the realm of reasons, hence from objects of awareness. (he prefers to use the term "sense impression" or "direct experience" instead of sensation in this text) and thinks of it as "postulated" instead of "directly experienced". According to this view, then, phenomenal quality such as pain has obviously no place in our realm of reasons because it contains no propositional content, let alone linguistic content, but can we seriously claim that we are not even aware of them because all awareness is propositional in form?

Warning: The text doesn't include the footnotes Sellars added in 1960's. The added footnotes are significant enough for undertanding subsequent debates between Sellars and his critiques (Chisholm, Firth etc). If you want a full text of this essay with added footnotes, get "Science, Perception and Reality" instead.

Brilliant and rewarding
I have come back to this essay by Sellars again and again for over thirty years, and have never failed to impressed and inspired. Sellars can always get me to think at a deeper level than I'm used to. Second only perhaps to Wittgenstein in influence, Sellars is a philosopher's philosopher: understanding him requires a thorough grounding in the history of philosophy, and this essay in particular takes it for granted that you understand 20th century empricism and "sense data" theories pretty well. Even so, the writing style can be both dense and difficult, but reading it aloud can untangle any number of tricky passages. If you're not quite so well versed in history of philosophy, a similar critique can be found in J.L. Austin's "Sense and Sensibilia," which is more accessible but not nearly as profound. In the course of showing the futility of finding incorrigibile foundations for empirical knowledge in sense experience, Sellars simultaneously develops a strictly behavioristic psychology that legitimizes all the goodies, all the mental vocabulary, that folks like Skinner forbade. A tour de force unequalled in 80 years. Bob Brandom's explicatory essay is very helpful, and untwists several tricky knots in the text.

Cave!
I do not understand why it is always said that Sellars' language was sodifficult. I found his philosophical style quite straight-on.Unfortunately, Sellars' main work is punctuated by some passages ofsuperficial and/or incorrect reasoning, at which passages some may assumethat they do not understand Sellars' argumentation - though it "has tobe profound" (because of Sellars' reputation). The most importantissue in this essay is the impossibility of reporting sense impressionswithout using language (with all implications that come along with that),and the repercussions of this circumstance on the philosophy of logicalempiricism in its early stage (though Sellars obviously thinks his ideasimpact on all forms of empiricism, which is not true). Along that line,Sellars has many good points that should be considered in the philosophy ofscience and in common sense reasoning, yet his reputed final dismantling ofthe "myth" of the given never takes place; in Sellars intentions,maybe, but his arguments are a far cry from being a stringent refutation.They are simply too superficial and too colloquial for that. (Cf. Putnam'smodel-theoretic arguments against realism, for a contrast.) What is reallyunfortunate for Sellars' essay is that, in this edition, it is framed byRorty and Brandom. The philosophical humorist Rorty has contributed aforeword in an attempt to assimilate Sellars serious philosophical projectinto his radical-relativist historicizing outlook of philosophy, thuscompletely misleading the unknowing reader. The bright, but misguided,Brandom offers a study guide, which is no study guide, but an attempt todirect the reader at those aspects of Sellars' essay, which Brandom's owninferentialist philosophy is supposed to stem from. Unfortunately, theseaspects are exactly the most questionable. So, while Sellars' essay is aprofitable classic of analytic philosophy, the reader should be warned toread Rorty's foreword and Brandom's study guide cautiously and criticallyand to thoroughly consider, if these really reflect Sellars' essaycorrectly.

deep, difficult, essential
"Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" is an essential epistemological text of the twentieth century. It is difficult: each sentence is difficult. Sellars is said to have shown the existence of a private language by writing in one. The guide by Brandom does not much clarify and simplify the argument of Sellars for two reasons. It is impossible to do this. And Brandom wants to and does contribute significantly to Sellars scholarship. Sellars writes for the professional philosopher. If you plan to be such, or if you want to encounter philosophy at its most profound, you should study the book.

A difficult, controversial work in philosophy
There are two areas to comment on with regards to this printing of "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (EPM).The first is the presentation style and the second is the content.On the presentation:Rorty's introduction is very helpful in preparing one to read the book.The large print will be a welcome relief to anyone who has squinted at the pages of *Science, Perception and Reality* which also includes EPM.However, the omission of the footnotes Sellars added in 1963 is very odd.Also, the endnote markers are not superscripted but merely placed in parentheses which can be confusing since at other times a number in () is not referring to an endnote but rather to a numbered paragraph.Be forewarned that Brandom's study guide is not exegetical as one might hope.It is an interpretation of the work.On the content:This book is definitely not for beginners, and one can become quickly annoyed at Sellars' use of cliches as references to philosophical systems.Also, Sellars will make reference to specific philosophers without actually naming them, making it difficult to figure out just what specific advocation of a view he is rejecting (See for example Section 30).Other times, he will specifically mention who he has in mind, such as in Sections 8-9 when he brings up the name of A.J. Ayer.It should go without saying that the claims Sellars makes are by no means easy to grasp and they are even less easy to accept.A note on my low ranking of this book:I gave it a 4 mostly because of Sellars' difficult writing style, and not because of the shortcomings in presentation mentioned above. ... Read more

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As well as including the classic papers from the history of epistemology, this distinctive, wide-ranging anthology provides essential coverage of key contemporary challenges to that tradition. ... Read more

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Ok, But, Too Much Contemporary Western Feminism
This text edited by Linda Alcoff is an instalment in The Big Question series. I offer the following thoughts for potential readers.

I am a fan of philosophical collections and have enjoyed other instalments in the Big Questions series (Metaphysics and Philosophy of Religion).These types of anthologies can provide a valuable service by making a range of diverse articles readily accessible to the student and general reader.

From my perspective, these types of collections are most effective when they provide an overview of key issues and questions in the words of leading thinkers.This anthology contains some excellent works in the area of epistemology (the essays by Chrisholm, Alston, Sosa and Quinine come to mind).From an overall perspective, however, the text was a bit disappointing.It is disjointed and contains too many medicore contributions. The addition of an opening historic overview of epistemological questions and approaches would be helpful to situate the reader.While with regard to the choice of material some of the articles were of marginal quality.Tanesini' piece is a prime example, it reads like a student paper - laden with excessive jargon and heavily influenced by contemporary socio-political correctness.I do not mean to imply that her article is without merit; rather, to note that it is out of place in this type of collection.

Even more disappointing, however, is the excessive focus on contemporary western feminism.The Big Questions series has been criticised for being too politically correct in the past.I have not always agreed with this criticism - at times a broad introductory collection can benefit from the addition of a non-mainstream view.In this case, however, it was overdone.

Overall, this is a disappointing addition to The Big Questions series.There are some good essays, however, the collection is too heavily skewed toward western feminism for an introductory/overview text.
... Read more

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Merold Westphal has been in the foremost ranks of philosophers who proclaim a new postsecular philosophy. By articulating an epistemology sensitive to the realities of cognitive finitude and moral weakness, he defends a wisdom that begins in both humility and commitment, one that always confesses that human beings can encounter meaning and truth only as human beings, never as gods.The present volume focuses on this wisdom of humility that characterizes Westphal's thought and explores how that wisdom, expressed through the redemptive dynamic of doubt, can contribute to developing a postsecular apologetic for faith.This book can function both as an accessible introduction to Westphal for those who have not read him extensively and also as an informed critical appreciation and extension of his work for those who are more experienced readers. ... Read more

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In epistemology and in philosophy of language there is fierce debate about the role of context in knowledge, understanding, and meaning. Many contemporary epistemologists take seriously the thesis that epistemic vocabulary is context-sensitive. This thesis is of course a semantic claim, so it has brought epistemologists into contact with work on context in semantics by philosophers of language. This volume brings together the debates, in a set of twelve specially written essays representing the latest work by leading figures in the two fields. All future work on contextualism will start here. Contributors: Kent Bach, Herman Cappelen, Andy Egan, Michael Glanzberg, John Hawthorne, Ernest Lepore, Peter Ludlow, Peter Pagin, Georg Peter, Paul M. Pietroski, Gerhard Preyer, Jonathan Schaffer, Jason Stanley, Brian Weatherson, Timothy Williamson ... Read more

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Contextualism in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Language
Any utterance of a sentence occurs within a context. The speaker and the listener have certain presuppositions, a given background. Most sentences are embedded in a discussion, speech, an argumentation, or a paragraph. Contextualism in epistemology maintains that whether one knows is relative to the context of the sentence token.
Twelve essays and an introduction by the editors scrutinize contextualism in epistemology and in the philosophy of language. Thedebate about contextualism and its consequences is continued in "Contextualism in Philosophy" on a high level. Although, I think, no contextual matter will be settled with these papers, they drive the debate to new fields, the reader gets a deep insight in topical issues.
My exclamation marks in the table of contents for the contributions most illuminating for me are at Kent Bach: "The Emperor's New 'Knows'", Jonathan Schaffer: "What Shifts? Thresholds, Standards, or Alternatives?", and Jason Stanley: "Semantics in Context".
If you want to keep up with the current debate in contextualism you have to study this book completely. Caution: it will take some time and effort. ... Read more

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Embodied cognition often challenges standard cognitive science. In this outstanding introduction, Lawrence Shapiro sets out the central themes and debates surrounding embodied cognition, explaining and assessing the work of many of the key figures in the field, including George Lakoff, Alva Noë, Andy Clark, and Arthur Glenberg.

Beginning with an outline of the theoretical and methodological commitments of standard cognitive science, Shapiro then examines philosophical and empirical arguments surrounding the traditional perspective. He introduces topics such as dynamic systems theory, ecological psychology, robotics, and connectionism, before addressing core issues in philosophy of mind such as mental representation and extended cognition.

Including helpful chapter summaries and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Embodied Cognition is essential reading for all students of philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science.

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book
Great book, really covers the background of embodied cognition. The writing style is clear and provides many opportunities for further reading. Would work well for a seminar reading if you are just introducing the subject of embodied cognition. ... Read more

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Friedrich Nietzsche haunts the modern world. His elusive writings with their characteristic combination of trenchant analysis of the modern predicament and suggestive but ambiguous proposals for dealing with it have fascinated generations of artists, scholars, critics, philosophers, and ordinary readers. Maudemarie Clark's highly original study gives a lucid and penetrating analytical account of all the central topics of Nietzsche's epistemology and metaphysics, including his views on truth and language, his perspectivism, and his doctrines of the will-to-power and the eternal recurrence. The Nietzsche who emerges from these pages is a subtle and sophisticated philosopher, whose highly articulated views are of continuing interest as contributions to a whole range of philosphical issues. This remarkable reading of Nietzsche will interest not only philosophers, but also readers in neighboring disciplines such as literature and intellectual history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Provocative, thought-provoking, but poorly argued
I really admire the ambitiousness and courageousness of Clark's highly controversial readings of Nietzsche.It takes guts--and hard work--to defend her more outlandish claims, and I even admire the undercurrent of unmitigated contrariness that seems to motivate this aspect of her work ("Well, if everybody's going to say Nietzsche's anti-democratic, I'll say he's pro-democracy!Yes, that's the ticket!)

Unfortunately, she just doesn't make a very good case for her more interesting views.Even when I agree with the conclusions, I find her arguments far-fetched or just silly.Take, e.g., her treatment of the puzzling and well-known section 36 of Beyond Good and Evil, where Nietzsche appears to seriously entertain the view that the world is the will to power.Clark's solution to this admittedly problematic passage is to argue that Nietzsche inserts an argument and conclusion into his text that he disagrees with in order to show that he disagrees with it.You'd think the best way to show that would be to actually say so--or better yet, never to bring it up in the first place.

In any case, Clark does make a brave attempt to back up this reading, but ultimately it requires far too much cherry picking, twisting, and torturing of the text.By way of comparison, did you know that Nietzsche believes in God?It's true, he says so! "I" (p.20) "believe" (p.430) "in" (p.27) "God" (p.388)

Ultimately, Clark's book suffers from the same problem as so many interpretations (particularly the po-mo ones) do: her interpretation begins with what she wants Nietzsche to be, then forces him to be it.

Too analytical/scholarly and misses the point
My main problem with this book is that Clark is too analytical. The book reads like a thesis. She often "intellectulizes" her way too a point that is either obvious or that she could have gotten to in a lot less time and with more straight forward language. Don't get me wrong - she does have some insights into Nietzsche but they are few and far between. I actually thought that her chapter on the Eternal Recurrence was the best in the whole book. Overall, not that great a read.

A book whose failings are as provocative as it's successes
I began this book with no small trepidation.I am not generally fond of Nietzsche, but have recently felt that he at least deserved to be engaged with systematically.I have been reading his works and I picked up this book on an off chance, knowing little about it except that Clark sought to systematically present Nietzsche as an anti-metaphysical author.And in doing this, she highlights his strengths and weaknesses.

I appreciate her sophisticated rebuttal of much current and past Nietzsche scholarship, especially the mis-reading of him by the so-called 'post-structuralists'/'deconstructionists'.Her critique of their absolute relativism, and Nietzsche's eventual rejection of that in favor of a radical perspectivism, which at bottom is founded on a kind of neo-Kantianism, won me over to the value of the book.And that kind of thing is necessary when you slog through the first two chapters, which may be necessary, but which are also ponderous.

The failure I find most interesting, however, ultimately undermines her own argument and releases Nietzsche from any kind of coherence in relation to truth.She basically premises her reading of Nietzsche at a key point contra Magnus on the question of whether Nietzsche is arguing against 'truth as the whole'.She argues that he is not and that Nietzsche was familiar with no philosopher who would have argued as such.It is here that I must reject her argument, for Hegel very much championed this notion of 'truth is the whole' and Nietzsche seems, contrary to Clark's otherwise well-thought out scholarship, not only familiar with Hegel, but also in debate with Hegel throughout much of his work.Hegel is the hidden text to Nietzsche as Aristotle is the hidden text to Hegel's Philosophy of Right.

In recognizing this, not only does Clark's reading of Nietzsche unravel, but, IMO since Clark is largely right in her reading of Nietzsche as a neo-Kantian, Nietzsche unravels.

Now, Nietzsche was infamously hostile to 'the craving for consistency' as a mark of the weak person, so the Nietzscheans out there will have a back door through which to escape.But that is their problem.

Secondarily, I think that this unraveling causes problems for Clark's argument that Will to Power and Eternal Recurrence are non-metaphysical, or at least consistently so.However, I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the argument, even when she is obliged to engage in gymanastics to sustain it.

Finally, this work really convinced me that the appropriation of Nietzsche by Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, etc. is not based upon Nietzsche's philosophical heritage, since they stop at his earliest work and effectively gloss over the rest of what Nietzsche writes.Rather, Nietzsche provides a radical re-affirmation of the role of intellectuals as privileged specialists.But Guy Debord knew the value of such people better than most, and the obnoxious politics which follow from such self-glamorization of the would-be revaluers of values.

does Clark speak for Nietzsche on truth and philosophy?
While Nietzsche is certainly more known as a moral philosopher, or as some are certain to remark, an immoral philosopher, one finds a certain necessary connection between his moral philosophy and his epistemology (and naturally aesthetic, scientific, political thought too, its all very much connected).Thus it was with open eyes that I began this work, as I knew Clark to be so very critical of much that Kaufmann, Wilcox, Derrida, Nehamas, and Schacht had written on Nietzsche.The majority of the work was overtly analytic, which I shall neither condemn nor praise at the moment.Clark did her best to demonstrate the faults of the aforementioned Nietzsche scholars insofar as Nietzsche himself would allow.

Although there is much I could say regarding the opening chapters of the book, I shall refrain from such things, as I found them generally to be on target, insofar as Clark's exegetical work found what was necessary to support her claims.Whether or not I agree with them all is still under debate, for I question how much Nietzsche felt consistency was absolutely necessary for his early writings and ideas (look at The Birth of Tragedy or a later work like The Antichrist for examples of this, while each is brilliant in its own way they still lack scholarship all too often in exchange for Nietzsche's polemics).As Danto (I believe it was him) commented somewhere in his work though, one thing is certain with Nietzsche, you have truly not read him until you have found a contradiction to every statement he made.While this is not true in every case, there is a sense in which Nietzsche's maturing philosophy demonstrates this claim, which Clark seems to have dismissed at times.Granted, Clark does demonstrate that Nietzsche underwent such changes in his thought, as would be expected of a philosopher set on such an experimental way.

In taking Nietzsche to completely dismiss metaphysics Clark does herself a great injustice, for it forces her to radically reinterpret the will to power and the eternal recurrence.And in doing so she becomes guilty of a certain intellectual uncleanliness (as someone or another once called it).I wholeheartedly agree that the eternal recurrence is best understood not as a cosmological doctrine, but rather as something of an existential imperative (if such a thing exists). Nonetheless, as Nietzsche's Nachlass testifies, he may still have believed it to be demonstrable as a cosmological claim though he had yet to demonstrate it as such.But the will to power as anything but a metaphysical claim?As a theology professor of mine often said to me, thats just not happening.And it is within these two chapters, the last two of the book, that Clark gets sloppy in her work.At one point she simply dismisses the text of Zarathustra as too metaphorical (the second to last chapter) to cite in evidence, yet, come the last chapter of the work, lo and behold, the metaphorical problems Zarathustra posed in the previous chapter disappear - citations abound.Naturally one asks, why should she do this?To help reinforce her point perhaps?Or to help her point by not introducing certain textual problems with her reading?

As it is, do read the last two chapters, on the will to power and the eternal recurrence respectively, with a careful eye and such inconsistent readings will become apparent.It was here then that I found fault with the book, which makes me want to reread it and see how often this problem occurs.But that will have to wait until the semester ends.So, overall, a mostly consistent reading, with obvious faults, which, as Nietzsche himself would have said, reflects Clark's desires to make Nietzsche consistent.Is such consistency in Nietzsche possible though?Probably not, as his writings seem to attest, if not his experimental nature of going about his work.But then again, how much do I really know?To best understand Nietzsche, sit down with The Birth of Tragedy and read chronologically until you get to Ecce Homo, and then start all over again.

Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy by Maudemarie Clark
This is possibly the best overall book ever written about Nietzsche. Several others have brilliant insights such as Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche which gives a powerful interpretation of art as the only purpose andmeaning of life, and debunks the pseudo-concept of the 'superman' as themodern CEO of world technology, but completely misses Nietzsche's joke,which Clark does not, about the 'will to power' especially as acosmological doctrine (something he toyed with seriously ONLY in thenotebooks for years). Maudemarie Clark shows he made it into a trick uponthe reader (amongst many!) in BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL (pp.218-227, esp.221-2,of her book). She starts her book by destroying the Frenchdeconstructionist 'irrationalist' version of Nietzsche by demonstratingthat he dropped this irrationalism early starting with HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN(originally dedicated to Voltaire), and coming to a completely rationalstance in THE GENEOLOGY OF MORALS. She makes the brilliantly obvious point(so obvious it makes you feel stupid, but definitely goes against the majortrend of Nietzsche interpretation)that THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA was a novel,not a philosophical treatise or religious tract. Walter Kaufman implicitelymade this same point by comparing it to ULYSSES and FINNEGAN'S WAKE. Thisessentially puts a logical question mark on 'eternal recurrence', 'will topower', and the 'superman' as distinct philosophical ideas and actuallymakes them literary concepts, a distinction postmodernists may entirelymiss. She also, after having undermined most American commentators -- NOTWalter Kaufman --on Nietzsche by destroying the basic tenant of the Frenchthrough applying the unimpeacheable arguments against scepticism andcynicism (essentially, as the Cretan philosopher said, "All Cretansare liars", one must step somehow into a higher order of reality forthat to be judged true or false)against Nehamas'perspectivism and Danto's,Schacht's, and Rorty's ultimately meaningless relativism. Nietzsche was inno way a relativist. But one must apprize from that something verydifferent Hegel's systematic absolutism. He knew the validity of reason andreality as an absolutely alone individual (singulare tantum)very much likeHeidegger. Maudemarie Clark has essentially brought Nietzsche back into thequestion mark he deliberately placed himself. But it is a meaningfulquestion that is rational. Maudemarie Clark makes part of this pointexplicitely clear when she states that on the one hand Neitszche says he isan immoralist and 'means' it, but on the other hand quotes him as saying,"Honesty is the only virtue". Honesty presupposes consistency.Consistency presupposes rationality. To end on an interesting sidenote AynRand also went through a similar evolution to Nietzsche's. In her firstedition of WE THE LIVING she preaches a populist version of Nietzsche's'immoralism', then renounces him later on as an irrationalist when shetakes up the primacy of reason herself. She never realized she stillfollowed his path to some extent even in ATLAS SHRUGGED. ... Read more

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Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publicaton which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading philosophers in North America, Europe and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include:

*traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of scepticism, the nature of the a priori, etc

*new developments in epistemology, including movements such as naturalized epistemology, feminist
epistemology, social epistemology, and virtue epistemology, and approaches such as contextualism

*foundational questions in decision-theory

*confirmation theory and other branches of philosophy of science that bear on traditional issues in epistemology

*topics in the philosophy of perception relevant to epistemology

*topics in cognitive science, computer science, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology that bear directly on traditional epistemological questions

*work that examines connections between epistemology and other branches of philosophy, including work on testimony and the ethics of belief

Anyone wanting to understand the latest developments at the leading edge of the discipline can start here. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Rejuvenated My Interest in Philosophy
While certain aspects of this book will be unintelligible to those lacking a technical education (like me) in American analytic philosophy--or to those who've never read Sartre, Hegel or Heidegger--the style of the book renders its main points interesting and comprehensible to an intelligent, thoughtful reader. Rorty's main points come through clearly and powerfully. The metaphor of philosophy as a mirror of nature--and the imperative need to move beyond this metaphor--is compelling and independent of the more analytically dense portions of the book. The full second half is fairly easy to follow for those who have more than a passing interest in philosophy.

But, this isn't it's main value. If you're daunted by the prospect of reading Derrida or Foucault--or even Sartre--parts of this book are the most honest and readable abridgments I've run across. As a lit grad student, I barely understood Derrida. Reading Rorty was like being given a magic key to unlock the inscrutable mysteries of continental postmodernism. Some find Rorty's style strained, but I think he's one of the most talented English-language stylists philosophy has known--perhaps second only to Jane Addams or William James.

This isn't light beach-reading material, but it is a great read for those at all interested in contemporary philosophy.

Rorty
I was a bit disappointed.Some interesting issues raised about science and linguistics, but the philosophy is somewhat tenuous. Clearly following the trend that only academic philosophers need understand each other leaves the intelligent layman out in left field.Carl Sagan once lamented this same trend in the sciences, that is, that astronomers need only write for other astronomers.Obviously, String Theory is headed in the same direction, making it unintelligible for all but physicists who have been trained in the new math.Great thinkers are readily grasped by readers outside their own field.I met a philosopher who didn't want me to read his book because it was too "technical". As far as I am concerned, if you can't put your theories into plain and lucid language, your work will become useless and discarded by the majority of people who read books and use libraries. ... Read more

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Informed by the philosophy of the virtual, Keith Ansell Pearson offers up one of the most lucid and original works on the central philosophical questions.He asks that if our basic concepts on what it means to be human are wrong then, what is this to mean for our ideas of time, being, consciousness?A critical examination ensues, one informed by a multitude of responses to a large number of philosophers.Under discussion is the mathematical limits as found in Russell, questions on Relativity, Kant's notion of judgement, Popper, Dennett, Dawkins and Proust.He brings into the rapport the concepts of Bergson and their explosive insights into the idea of time. ... Read more

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This collection is one of the first to offer feminist perspectives on epistemology from thinkers outside North America. Using approaches and methods from both analytic and continental philosophy, the contributors engage with questions of traditional epistemology and with issues raised by postmodernist critiques. ... Read more

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A collection of short and excerpted works by the great thinkers of their day, this book focuses on the philosophy of love and desire. Excellent introductions offer readers brief biographies of the thinkers presented and provide historical context, enabling them to see connections and to appreciate the continuity across and the historical breaks among these works.This collection of readings cross a range of time periods (from pre-Socrates to living thinkers), present a selection of philosophical genres and styles, and address issues fundamental to philosophy.An excellent selection of popular readings on love and desire, this book is lively and engaging, making it an excellent choice for those readers with an interest in Western Philosophy. ... Read more

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The idea of approaching epistemological concerns from a social perspective is relatively new. For much of its history the epistemological enterprise -- and arguably philosophy more generally -- has been cast along egocentric lines. Where a non-egocentric approach has been taken, as in the recent work of naturalist epistemologists, the focus has been on individuals interacting with their environment rather than on the significance of social interaction for an understanding of the nature and value of knowledge.
The fifteen new essays presented in this volume aim to show the fertility and variety of social epistemology and to set the agenda for future research.They examine not only the well-established topic of testimony, but also newer topics such as disagreement, comprehension, the norm of trust, epistemic value, and the epistemology of silence.Several contributors discuss metaphilosophical issues to do with the nature of social epistemology and what it can contribute to epistemology more generally. Social Epistemology will be essential reading for anyone interested in this fast-growing area of philosophy. ... Read more

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Transcendentalism never came to an end in America. It just went underground for a stretch, but is back in full force in Robert Brandom’s new book. Brandom takes up Kant and Hegel and explores their contemporary significance as if little time had expired since intellectuals gathered around Emerson in Concord to discuss reason and idealism, selves, freedom, and community. Brandom’s discussion belongs to a venerable tradition that distinguishes us as rational animals, and philosophy by its concern to understand, articulate, and explain the notion of reason that is thereby cast in that crucial demarcating role.

An emphasis on our capacity to reason, rather than merely to represent, has been growing in philosophy over the last thirty years, and Robert Brandom has been at the center of this development. Reason in Philosophy is the first book that gives a succinct overview of his understanding of the role of reason as the structure at once of our minds and our meanings—what constitutes us as free, responsible agents. The job of philosophy is to introduce concepts and develop expressive tools for expanding our self-consciousness as sapients: explicit awareness of our discursive activity of thinking and acting, in the sciences, politics, and the arts. This is a paradigmatic work of contemporary philosophy.

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Highly recommended
Brandom's most accessible and philosophically inspiring book, Reason in Philosophy explicates the implications of his earlier work for social, political, and other domains of philosophy in a way that is far more accessible than anything he has written to date.Of even greater interest, this book includes essays on philosophy itself ... what it means, its political relevance, etc., that are inspiring must reads for everyone engaged in philosophical inquiry. ... Read more

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Presenting a fascinating analysis of the idea of what can't be said, this book ascertains whether the notion of there being a truth, or a state of affairs, or knowledge that can't be expressed linguistically is a coherent notion. The author distinguishes different senses in which it might be said that something can't be said. The first part looks at the question of whether ineffability is a coherent idea. Part two evaluates two families of arguments regarding whether ineffable states of affairs actually exist: the argument from mysticism and the argument from epistemic boundedness. Part three looks more closely at the relation between mystic and non-mystic stances. In the fourth and final part the author distinguishes five qualitatively different types of ineffability. Ineffability and Philosophy is a significant contribution to this area of research and will be essential reading for philosophers and those researching and studying the philosophy of language. ... Read more

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Appropriate for courses in epistemology, theory of knowledge, and theories of knowledge and reality, CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGY covers an unusually wide spectrum of topics. The text is divided into modular sections to accommodate different teaching styles and incorporates contemporary work, like the theory of reliabilism, often neglected in other texts. ... Read more

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Literally filled with knowledge
Contemporary Epistemology is a text, which covers theories of knowledge that range from mathematical knowledge to religious knowledge. This book is somewhat difficult to comprehend with one read (for the beginning philosophy or theology student), but is nevertheless literally filled with knowledge. One defenite draw back is that the price is pretty steep, but work a few hours of OT and it'll be worth it. ... Read more

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This book treats problems in the epistemology of the law.Beginning with the premise that the principal function of a criminal trial is to find out the truth about a crime, Larry Laudan examines the rules of evidence and procedure that would be appropriate if the discovery of the truth were, as higher courts routinely claim, the overriding aim of the criminal justice system.Laudan mounts a systematic critique of existing rules and procedures that are obstacles to that quest. He also examines issues of error distribution by offering the first integrated analysis of the various mechanisms-the standard of proof, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof-for implementing society's view about the relative importance of the errors that can occur in a trial. ... Read more

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Truth, Justice, and the American Way?
The Supreme Court, in Nix v. Whiteside, 374 U.S. 157, 158 (1986), solemnly intoned that "The very nature of a [criminal] trial [is] a search for truth," and this sentiment has been echoed by lower courts. For example, both People v. Santorelli, 5 N.Y.2d 412, 420-421, 41 N.E.2d 493, 497 (N.Y. 2000), and Floyd v. State, 902 So.2d 775, 778 (Fla. 2005), speak of "the search for truth in criminal cases."

Laudan begins with this premise and explores how well the American criminal justice system does the job of searching for truth.His verdict?Not very well.As Laudan dissects our criminal justice system, he demonstrates that it is driven by numerous considerations which have nothing whatsoever to do with discovery of the truth and which actually impede the determination of truth.As Laudan sees things, the system is in dire need of repair, and in the closing chapter he makes some modest suggestions for improving it.

I think it highly unlikely that any of Laudan's suggestions will ever be implemented, but I do believe his critique is one which everyone involved in criminal justice should seriously consider. If this were to happen, we might possibly prevent further erosion of our ability to determine truth in criminal trials.



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Examines the overlap between film and philosophy in three distinct ways: epistemological issues in film-making and viewing; aesthetic theory and film; and film as a medium of philosophical expression. ... Read more

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Charles S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was also the architect of a remarkable theory of signs that continues to puzzle and inspire philosophers today. In this important new book, Mats Bergman articulates a bold new approach to Peirce's semeiotic through a reassessment of the role of rhetoric in his work. This systematic approach, which is offered as an alternative to formalistic accounts of Peirce's project, shows how general sign-theoretical conceptions can plausibly be interpreted as abstractions from everyday communicative experiences and practices. Building on this fallible ground of rhetoric-in-use, Bergman explicates Peirce's semeiotic in a way that is conducive to the development of rhetorical inquiry and philosophical criticism. Following this path, the underpinnings of a uniquely Peircean philosophy of communication is unearthed a pragmatic conception encased in a normative rhetoric, motivated by the continual need to transform and improve our habits of action. ... Read more

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Process Philosophy surveys the basic issues andcontroversies surlly and epistemically. Rescher examines themovements historical origins, reflecting a major line of thought inthe work of such philosophers as Heracleitus, Leibniz, Bergson,Peirce, William James, and especially A. N. Whitehead.

Reacting against the tendency to associate p or group.

This book will appeal to both students and professors ofphilosophy. Those teachers who have not been trained in processphilosophy will welcome this new trained in process philosophy willwelcome this new text by one one of North Americas foremostphilosophers as a perspicuous and informative introduction. ... Read more