Class Of Judgments Research Articles

Semantics of Judgments about Interoceptive Experience

The linguistic representation of interoceptive sensations is valuable not only for the study of cognitive processes, but also for conceptual analysis within the framework of the phenomenal approach in the philosophy of mind. This article focuses on the deep linguistic mechanisms of metaphorical conceptualization of corporeality and their relationship with various classes of judgments expressing awareness of internal bodily experience. Interoceptive sensations are associated with the representation of the image of the inner-body space and the processes occurring in it. The content of these representations is extracted simultaneously from mental beliefs about the properties of one's own physicality and, at the same time, from both real (physical) and imaginary causes of internal states. The main purpose of the article is to reveal the relationship of the semantics of these judgments with the principles of forming a conceptual dictionary of interoceptive sensations coming from a variety of pragmatic contexts. Some results of clinical and semantic studies of psychopathology deserve special attention. Semantic intersections of metaphors in idiomatic expressions of emotional states and judgments describing an abnormal inner-body experience are found. The paper substantiates the thesis that body, in addition to the functions of the organismic “interface” device, also has deep representative properties. While attempting to formulate utterances expressing abnormal inner-body experience, a conceptually conditioned metaphorical dictionary is automatically used. Along with the formation of conceptual schemes, the formation of judgments of awareness about the qualities of one's own conscious experience takes place.

Infallibility, Acquaintance, and Phenomenal Concepts

In recent literature, there is a strong tendency to endorse the following argument: There are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible; if there are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, then the infallibility of those judgments is due to the relation of acquaintance; therefore, acquaintance explains why those particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences are infallible. The aim of this paper is to examine critically both the first and the second premise of this argument. It will emerge that there might be a small class of judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, namely judgments involving direct phenomenal concepts. However, as I will try to show, the infallibility of such judgments, if existent at all, is not due to the relation of acquaintance.

Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Content

The question of content externalism's compatibility with a plausible account of self-knowledge has been the subject of much debate in recent years. If the very content of my thoughts depends on external factors beyond me, factors that can only be known a posteriori, what happens to the traditional assumption that we know our own thoughts directly, without having to rely on any empirical investigations of the environment?Two decades ago, Tyler Burge presented what has become the standard compatibilist reply to this challenge. Burge focused on a certain class of judgments, what he calls ‘basic self-knowledge,’ such as I think (with this very thought) that water is wet. Exploiting the fact that reflexive judgments of this sort reemploy the content of the first-order thought, such that no ‘content mistakes’ are possible, Burge argued that externalism is perfectly compatible with the traditional view that we know our own thoughts directly and authoritatively.

Reflexão e fundamento: sobre a relação entre gosto e conhecimento na estética de Kant

A Crítica da Faculdade do Juízo, de Kant, é primordialmente uma investigação crítica acerca de uma certa classe de juízos chamados reflexionantes, que se subdivide em dois grupos, estéticos e teleológicos, e se define em oposição a uma outra classe, a dos chamados juízos determinantes. Nosso objetivo neste artigo é elaborar a hipótese de um privilégio fundacional do juízo reflexionante estético relativamente ao conhecimento determinante. Para tanto, pretendemos cumprir duas etapas. Em primeiro lugar, procederemos a uma análise da conexão entre os temas centrais - e aparentemente dissociados - do belo e da faculdade do juízo enquanto tal que justifica a passagem do projeto de uma crítica do gosto ao de uma crítica do juízo e delimita como alvo da obra o fundamento de determinação (Bestimmungsgrund) de uma "intersubjetividade" conceitualmente indeterminada. Em segundo lugar, passaremos à análise da relação entre a reflexão e o princípio da finalidade da natureza, com base na Introdução da terceira Crítica, a fim de identificar, na formulação "prática" do princípio do gosto, o germe de uma anterioridade que subordina a determinação à reflexão estética.

Natural Right and Aristotle's Understanding of Justice

DOES ARISTOTLE CLAIM that the nature of things provides us with an absolutely correct standard of justice? In this article, I argue that, despite his reputation as a founder of natural right and natural law theory, he does not. Aristotle certainly insists that right or justice exists nature (phusei) as well as by agreement (Nicomachean Ethics [NE] 1134b30).' That he does so is one of the few points in his discussion of natural and conventional right about which there can be no doubt or disagreement. In what follows, however, I shall try to show that Aristotle's claim about the naturalness of right does not commit him to what we have come to call natural right -that is, the idea that for every particular situation there exists one inherently just state of affairs against which we can measure the justice of our actions and opinions. Aristotelian natural right, I argue, does not refer to a set of higher standards of justice. It refers, instead, to a kind of judgment about justice that develops naturally in political communities. Citizens derive the justice and injustice of their actions, according to Aristotle, either from agreements to designate otherwise indifferent actions as just and unjust or from their judgments about the intrinsic merits of particular actions. The former class of judgments, I suggest, makes up conventional right, the latter, natural right. Aristotelian natural right, according to my interpretation, includes all the judgments made by citizens about the intrinsic justice or injustice of their actions, not merely those judgments that are correct and correspond somehow to the nature of things. In insisting upon the naturalness of justice, Aristotle thus is not, I argue, defending the existence of natural, inherently correct standards of justice. He is, instead, arguing that the need for citizens to make and argue about judgments of the intrinsic justice of their actions is something that develops naturally within political communities.

The Aviary Theory in the Theaetetus

At 195B 9 it is pointed out that the Wax Block theory does not cover that large class of judgments in which no sense-objects are concerned, e.g. judgments about numbers. How can we make the mistake of judging that 7 + 5 = 11?The simile of the Aviary, now introduced, is very simple. It illustrates the difference between potential (or latent) knowledge and actual knowledge, i.e. between knowledge at our disposal, because it has been learnt and stored away in the mind, and knowledge present and ‘alive’ at the moment. The theory is that when we make a mistake about the sum of 7 and 5 we are ‘hunting for’ the knowledge of 12, which we ‘possess’ (κεκτ⋯σΘαι) as we might possess a bird in a cage, but which we have not ‘got about us’ (ἒχειν); but we mis-take, wrongly take our knowledge of 11, i.e. we call up before our mind a different piece of knowledge.