Epistemic Source Research Articles

Variabilidad intraindividual e (in)dependencia epistémica del docente en el desarrollo de clases expositivas y participativas- guiadas

El objetivo de la presente investigación es comparar el desarrollo epistémico de dos estilos de enseñanza tradicionalmente opuestos: expositivo y participativo-guiado, en un contexto naturalista o de clase real. Específicamente se trata de analizar descriptivamente ciertas diferencias no fácilmente perceptibles entre tipos de clase claramente representativas de dichos estilos. El foco está puesto en el desarrollo instructivo del conocimiento, esto es, en el proceso de enseñanza en sí mismo; no se consideran los efectos derivados en términos de aprendizaje.Las diferencias “ocultas” que se trata de poner en evidencia conciernen a la estabilidad-variabilidad intraindividual del docente y a la dependencia-independencia de éste respecto de la fuente epistémica.>Participaron cuatro profesores de biología, los cuales debían dar una clase a sus propios alumnos de secundaria sobre un tema extra-curricular, ajustándose dos de ellos a un estilo expositivo y los otros dos a un estilo participativo-guiado.Los resultados muestran notorias diferencias entre ambos estilos de enseñanza en los aspectos referidos. En efecto, el estilo expositivo exhibe un patrón intraindividual mucho más estable en lo que hace al desarrollo epistémico-didáctico, en tanto que el estilo participativo-guiado muestra mayor variabilidad inter-clases. Por otra parte, el estilo participativo-guiado manifiesta un desarrollo más flexible y libre respecto de la fuente epistémica (texto proporcionado a cada profesor), tanto a nivel de contenido como lingüístico; el estilo expositivo, en cambio, es más fiel a dicha fuente epistémica.

I—Elizabeth Fricker: Stating and Insinuating

An utterer may convey a message to her intended audience by means of an explicit statement; or by a non-conventionally mediated one-off signal from which the audience is able to work out the intended message; or by conversational implicature. I investigate whether the last two are equivalent to explicit testifying, as communicative act and epistemic source. I find that there are important differences between explicit statement and insinuation; only with the first does the utterer assume full responsibility for the truth of what she communicates to her audience.

A New Hope for Philosophers’ Appeal to Intuition

Some recent researches in experimental philosophy have posed a problem for philosophers’ appeal to intuition (hereinafter referred to as PAI); the aim of this paper is to offer an answer to this challenge. The thesis against PAI implies that, given some experimental results, intuition does not seem to be a reliable epistemic source, and —more importantly— given the actual state of knowledge about its operation, we do not have sufficient resources to mitigate its errors and thus establish its reliability. That is why PAI is hopeless. Throughout this paper I will defend my own conception of PAI, which I have called the Deliberative Conception, and consequently, I will defend intersubjective agreement as a means to mitigate PAI errors, offering empirical evidence from recent studies on the Argumentative Theory of Reason that favor the conception I defend here. Finally, I will reply to some objections that might arise against the Deliberative Conception, which will lead me to discuss some metaphilosophical issues that are significantly relevant for the future of the dispute about the appeal to intuition.

Generative memory

This paper explores the implications of the psychology of constructive memory for philosophical theories of the metaphysics of memory and for a central question in the epistemology of memory. I first develop a general interpretation of the psychology of constructive memory. I then argue, on the basis of this interpretation, for an updated version of Martin and Deutscher's influential causal theory of memory. I conclude by sketching the implications of this updated theory for the question of memory's status as a generative epistemic source.

Advancing Religious Pluralism in Islam

AbstractPluralism in the context of religion suggests both diversity of interpretation of the foundational sources of that tradition and relativity implied in such plurality of hermeneutics. At this time, a number of Muslim scholars writing from traditional centers of Islamic learning in the Middle East are resisting the implications of pluralistic discourse on religion. There is a deep‐seated fear of secularly inspired relativism about religious truth that, according to these scholars, belief in pluralism might destabilize the authority of revelation as well as the tradition that has determined the authenticity of its foundational sources and the praxis for the faith community. It is important to bear in mind that this traditional defensive discourse against pluralism has nothing to do with the recognition of peaceful interfaith relations as the cornerstone of contemporary pluralistic political and social order. In fact, the growing interest in minority jurisprudence (fiqh ) in a number of traditional centers indicates the acknowledgement, though not whole‐hearted acceptance, of the reality of the modern world in which plurality of religious traditions has been recognized as a major principle of co‐existence. However, this does not necessarily mean that pluralism has been acknowledged as an epistemic source of critical reassessment of Islamic theological and metaphysical notions for a new inclusive political theology.

Experts, Semantic and Epistemic

In this paper I argue that the tendency to defer in matters semantic is rationalized by our reliance on the say‐so of others for much of what we know about the world. The result, I contend, is a new and distinctly epistemic source of support for the doctrine of attitude anti‐individualism.

Primo Levi, Robert Antelme, and the Body of the Muselmann

Part of the project of reweaving the threads of the history of the Third Reich, the essay discusses the complex relation between the testimony of the victims and their body as an epistemic source of the witnessing. On a theoretical bases constructed with the help of Shoah memoirs – by Primo Levi, Jean Améry, Jorge Sempun, Robert Antelme, and others, the paper challenges the notion of the witness as a speaker, a narrator; instead, it treats the kind of victim that since Auschwitz has been known as “a Muselmann” as an integral witness. It is the body of the survivor that constitutes integral testimony; it fills a testimonial lacuna. The presence of the Muselmann is testifiable, and it can replace the memoir by the body as the repository of the event. When the body translates into the corpus of writing, survivor testimony is perceived as incomplete so long as the Muselmann is perceived as the other. The lacuna in survivor narratives is testimony from inside the experience of the Muselmann.

Wikipediaand the Epistemology of Testimony

ABSTRACTIn “Group Testimony” (2007) I argued that the testimony of a group cannot be understood (or at least cannot always be understood) in a summative fashion; as the testimony of some or all of the group members. In some cases, it is the groupitselfthat testifies. I also argued that one could extend standard reductionist accounts of the justification of testimonial belief to the case of testimonial belief formed on the basis of group testimony. In this paper, I explore the issue of group testimony in greater detail by focusing on one putative source of testimony, that ofWikipedia. My aim is to the answer the following questions: IsWikipediaa source of testimony? And if so, what is the nature of that source? Are we to understandWikipediaentries as a collection of testimonial statements made by individuals, some subset of individuals, or isWikipediaitself (the organization or theWikipediacommunity) the entity that testifies? IfWikipediaitself is a source of testimony, what resources do we have for assessing the trustworthiness of such an unusual epistemic source? In answering these questions I hope to further elucidate the nature of collective epistemic agency (Tollefsen 2006), of which group testimony is a paradigm example.When a mans Discourse begineth…at some saying of another, of whose ability to know the truth, and of whose honesty in not deceiving, he doubteth not; and then the Discourse is not so much concerning the Thing, as the Person; and the Resolution is called Beleefe, and Faith: Faith in the man. (1651/1991, Ch. 7; p. 48)

Self-Incrimination and the Epistemology of Testimony

The United States Supreme Court's limitation of the privilege against self-incrimination to evidence of a testimonial nature has been controversial. The doctrinal reliance on a distinction between physical and testimonial evidence has proven difficult to apply in practice, and it has been criticized as being descriptively inaccurate, analytically incoherent, and normatively indefensible. This article offers a defense of the distinction on epistemological grounds. The philosophical focus on testimony as a source of knowledge provides some insight into what makes testimony distinct as an epistemic source. These considerations are used to provide a coherent and principled way to distinguish what evidence to treat as testimonial for Fifth Amendment purposes: any evidence that requires a fact-finder to rely on the epistemic authority of the defendant. This principle is then used to justify a testimonial privilege in light of the presumption of innocence and to clarify doctrine.

Suing One's Sense Faculties for Fraud: ‘Justifiable Reliance’ in the Law as a Clue to Epistemic Justification

The law requires that plaintiffs in fraud cases be ‘justified’ in relying on a misrepresentation. I deploy the accumulated intuitions of the law to defend externalist accounts of epistemic justification and knowledge against Laurence BonJour's counterexamples involving clairvoyance. I suggest that the law can offer a well-developed model for adding a no-defeater condition to either justification or to knowledge but without requiring that subjects possess positive reasons to believe in the reliability of an epistemic source.

Preserving Preservationism: A Reply to Lackey

In her essay Memory as a Generative Epistemic Source,l Jennifer Lackey argues that, contrary to a common viewpoint, men10ry can gener­ ate rationality, justification, and even knowledge. In this paper, I will critically evaluate the case she makes for memory's epistemically genera­ tive abilities and find it wanting. In particular, I will argue that her alleged counterexamples are not compelling and can reasonably be resis­ ted by her opponent. More importantly, I will argue that even if her examples show the principle against which they are aimed to be false, she has nevertheless not shown that memory is a generative epistemic source. Before evaluating Lackey's examples, I should mention that there is a section of Lackey's paper that I will not be addressing. In section 4, she argues that memorycan be epistemically generative because it can produce new beliefs. F or example, it is plausible to think we often take in more vis­ ual inforn1ation than we process into doxastic states. At a later time, we may recall past visual experiences and come to form new, justified beliefs based on them. There is an obvious sense in which n1emory functions gen­ eratively here, and I have no wish to deny the obvious. However, since such examples are also instances of beliefgeneration, they are very much unlike the main examples in her paper. The main sections of her paper, and the ones with which I shall be taking issue, are intended to show that memory can be epistemically generative even when it is not doxastically

Why Memory Really Is a Generative Epistemic Source: A Reply to Senor

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 74, Issue 1 p. 209-219 Why Memory Really Is a Generative Epistemic Source: A Reply to Senor JENNIFER LACKEY, JENNIFER LACKEY Northern Illinois UniversitySearch for more papers by this author JENNIFER LACKEY, JENNIFER LACKEY Northern Illinois UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 20 March 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00010.xCitations: 14Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume74, Issue1January 2007Pages 209-219 RelatedInformation

The Epistemic Parity of Testimony, Memory, and Perception

Extensive literatures exist on the epistemology of testimony, memory, and perception, but for the most part these literatures do not systematically consider the extent of the analogies between the three epistemic sources. A number of the same problems reappear in all three literatures, however. Dealing simultaneously with all three sources and making a careful accounting of the analogies and disanalogies between them should therefore avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. Other than limits on the scope of which memorially- and testimonially-based beliefs should be included in the Parity Thesis, I argue that most of the disanalogies that different philosophers have proffered between the sources do not mark distinctions among the universes of possible testimonially-, memorially-, and perceptually-based beliefs regarding the explanation of those beliefs' epistemic status. I first criticize the suggestion that perception is a generative epistemic source, while testimony and memory are not; I propose and defend counterexamples in which testimony and memory produce new beliefs. Next, I criticize a variety of distinctions that have been drawn between testimony and perception, taken chiefly from the reductionist-antireductionist literature on testimony. I criticize the suggestion that the conceptualization of content and the transparency of experience affect the epistemologies of testimony and perception in different ways. Regarding memory and testimony, I advocate modeling testimony on the legal relationship of a principal and an agent, arguing that law's apparatus used to analyze such situations suggests that using others' epistemic services in testimony will supply the same epistemic benefits and burdens as if we had performed those epistemic tasks personally and then relied only on memory. I apply this analysis to the transmission of defeaters in testimony. I argue that memory does feature the epistemic equivalent of a perceptual image and that both perceptually- and memorially-based beliefs can concern either the past or the present. Finally, I construct a set of six transformations that turn individual possible instances of perceptually-, memorially-, or testimonially-based beliefs into individual possible instances of the other two types of beliefs without changing the structure of those beliefs' epistemologies.

Memory as a Generative Epistemic Source

It is widely assumed that memory has only the capacity to preserve epistemic features that have been generated by other sources. Specifically, if S knows (justifiedly believes/rationally believes) that p via memory at T2, then it is argued that (i) S must have known (justifiedly believed/rationally believed) that p when it was originally acquired at T1, and (ii) S must have acquired knowledge that p (justification with respect to p/rationality with respect to p) at T1 via a non-memorial source. Thus, according to this view, memory cannot make an unknown proposition known, an unjustified belief justified, or an irrational belief rational–it can only preserve what is already known, justified, or rational. In this paper, I argue that condition (i) is false and, a fortiori, that condition (ii) is false. Hence, I show that, contrary to received wisdom in contemporary epistemology, memory can function as a generative epistemic source.