Quassim Cassam Research Articles

Overconfidence, self-knowledge, and self-improvement

Recently physician overconfidence has been considered as a major factor contributing to diagnostic error. A philosophical inquiry into overconfidence as a character vice has the promise of shedding light on how we can overcome this vice and potentially reduce diagnostic errors. In his recent work, Quassim Cassam conducts such an inquiry. This paper puts Cassam’s work on physician overconfidence in the context of his theoretical work on self-knowledge and epistemic vices. It shows that physician overconfidence, considered as a major factor in diagnostic error, provides a significant real-life application of Cassam’s accounts of self-knowledge and epistemic vices. It focuses on the features of these accounts that lead to the following result: self-knowledge is rarely, if ever, a remedy for physicians’ overconfidence and the resulting diagnostic errors. By appealing to the same data Cassam cites regarding diagnostic error and physicians’ overconfidence, it is shown that the more substantial—in the sense Cassam specifies—one’s third-personal knowledge of oneself is, the less likely it is to be of any practical value qua self-knowledge. This paper defends the view that what Cassam calls ‘trivial self-knowledge’—first-personal knowledge that has been the primary concern for philosophers—is crucial for any kind of self-knowledge to be instrumental for self-improvement. Since an agent acts from the standpoint that she is aware of herself trivially, it is argued that what Cassam calls ‘substantial self-knowledge’ has no practical value unless it is integrated with what he calls ‘trivial self-knowledge’. In this way the paper explains why if what one learns about oneself from the third-person perspective is drastically different from what one takes to be true from the first-person perspective, one cannot act on this knowledge. Since the standpoint from which one experiences and acts intentionally are one and the same, the paper also explains why traumatic experiences (such as the death of a patient or of a loved one) can sometimes lead to fundamental change and self-improvement.

Ways and Means: When Sometimes “Knowledge-First” Epistemology Is Not Epistemology

I will claim that the distinction Craig French describes between “specific realizations of knowledge” and “means of knowing”, after respective theorisations by Timothy Williamson and Quassim Cassam, can be seen as a faultline between epistemology on the one hand, and (merely) the analysis of ordinary language use on the other. The possibility of this disjunction, I believe, raises the question as to whether the latter kind of analysis has anything to contribute to epistemology at all. Cassam’s “explanatory” conception of ways of knowing is shown to be inconsistent as an epistemology, and prone to use of unfair examples even considered as (merely) the analysis of ordinary discourse for expressions of knowledge. Nonetheless, in order to argue that this is the case, the “explanatory” conception helps us to consider the better mode of analysis for explanations of knowledge in philosophy.

Self-Knowledge for Humans, by Quassim Cassam.

<i>Self-Knowledge for Humans</i>, by Quassim Cassam.

Idiosyncratic Perception

Some have argued that we can put pressure on a relational view of experience with reference to the fact that the idiosyncrasies of perceivers can affect the qualitative characters of their experiences. Quassim Cassam calls this the problem of idiosyncratic perception. I defend the relational view in response to this problem.

Knowledge and Ways of Knowing

Quassim Cassam (2007a) offers a conception of ways of knowing which he argues is preferable to rival accounts such as the account we find in Williamson (2000). The correct way to think about ways of knowing matters for philosophers, such as Cassam and Williamson, who want to understand knowledge itself in terms of ways of knowing. So is Cassam right that his conception of ways of knowing is preferable to Williamson's? The discussion to follow is irenic in spirit: I will argue that in fact Cassam and Williamson don't offer competing accounts of the same phenomenon, but consistent accounts of subtly different phenomena. It is then open that ways of knowing in both senses are relevant to elucidating knowledge itself.

Epistemic Self‐Audit and Warranted Reasons

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 85, Issue 1 p. 185-191 Epistemic Self-Audit and Warranted Reasons QUASSIM CASSAM, QUASSIM CASSAM University of WarwickSearch for more papers by this author QUASSIM CASSAM, QUASSIM CASSAM University of WarwickSearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 June 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00592.xRead 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 onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume85, Issue1July 2012Pages 185-191 RelatedInformation

Explaining Perceptual Knowledge: Reply to Quassim Cassam

Explaining Perceptual Knowledge: Reply to Quassim Cassam

The Possibility of Knowledge, by Quassim Cassam.

The Possibility of Knowledge, by Quassim Cassam.

Other Minds and Perceived Identity

Quassim Cassam has recently defended a perceptual model of knowledge of other minds: one on which we can see and thereby know that another thinks and feels. In the course of defending this model, he addresses issues about our ability to think about other minds. I argue that his solution to this ‘conceptual problem’ does not work. A solution to the conceptual problem is necessary if we wish to explain knowledge of other minds.

Does Knowledge of Material Objects Depend on Spatial Perception? Comments on Quassim Cassam's The Possibility of Knowledge

Does Knowledge of Material Objects Depend on Spatial Perception? Comments on Quassim Cassam's The Possibility of Knowledge

The Possibility of Knowledge

Some of the most challenging philosophical questions about human knowledge take the form of asking how knowledge of a certain kind is possible. Even when they are not explicitly expressed in those words, what lies behind such philosophical questions are certain considerations that seem to imply that it is not possible for anyone to have any knowledge of the kind in question. Quassim Cassam focusses on the role of such obstacles and on what needs to be done in the face of

THE NEW NEO‐KANTIAN AND REDUCTIONIST DEBATE

Abstract: Has Derek Parfit modified his views on personal identity in light of Quassim Cassam's neo‐Kantian argument that to experience the world as objective, we must think of ourselves as enduring subjects of experience? Both parties suggest there is no longer a serious dispute between them. I retrace the path that led to this truce, and contend that the debate remains open. Parfit's recent work reveals a re‐formulation of his ostensibly abandoned claim that there could be impersonal descriptions of reality. I show why Parfit still needs this claim, and how it conflicts with the neo‐Kantian view.

Explaining ‘The Hardness of the Logical Must’: Wittgenstein on Grammar, Arbitrariness and Logical Necessity

This paper explains (in Part A) Wittegnstein’s understanding of the ‘grammar’ of our (or any) language, tracing its origins in the Tractatus’s concept of logical syntax, and then examining the senses in which Wittegnstein, in his later work, viewed grammar as being ‘arbitrary’. Then, armed with this understanding, it moves on (in Part B) to the task of examining how, within the framework of a Wittegnsteinian view of language, we should understand the inescapable ‘compellingness’ of logical necessity – what Wittegnstein calls the “hardness of the logical must”. Whereas it is often thought that Wittegnstein’s views on the nature of the ‘grammar’ of our concpets leads him towards a vitiatingly conventionalist or anti‐realist understanding of necessity, in which its logical ‘superhardness’ becomes problematic, this paper will argue that there is actually no such tension in Wittegnstein’s thought. In fact, it will be argued, an understanding of the ways in which our conceptual grammar is arbitrary casts a great deal of light on how it is that our concepts can nevertheless support a logically superhard, and normatively commanding, notion of necessity. In support of this view, I distinguish Wittegnstein’s views on necessity from the ‘classical’ conventionalism of the Vienna Circle, and from the radical conventionalism of Michael Dummett, and defend Wittegnstein’s view from a powerful recent attack from Quassim Cassam.

Reviews

Quassim Cassam, Self and WorldP.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein, Mind and Will

Reviews

A.W. Moore,Points of ViewMonique Canto‐Sperber, Jonathan Barnes, Luc Brisson, Jacques Brunschwig, and Gregory Vlastos, Philosophie grecqueNancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on VirtueRobin Le Poidevin, Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of ReligionPaul Griffiths, What Emotions Really AreQuassim Cassam, Self and World

Self‐Reference, Self‐Knowledge and the Problem of Misconception

European Journal of PhilosophyVolume 4, Issue 3 p. 276-295 Self-Reference, Self-Knowledge and the Problem of Misconception Quassim Cassam, Quassim Cassam Wadham College, Oxford, EnglandSearch for more papers by this author Quassim Cassam, Quassim Cassam Wadham College, Oxford, EnglandSearch for more papers by this author First published: December 1996 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0378.1996.tb00079.xCitations: 1AboutPDF 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 onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume4, Issue3December 1996Pages 276-295 RelatedInformation

II—Parfit on Persons

Journal Article II—Parfit on Persons Get access Quassim Cassam Quassim Cassam Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 17–38, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/93.1.17 Published: 09 September 2015

Realism, Meaning and Truth

Philosophical BooksVolume 30, Issue 1 p. 10-16 Realism, Meaning and Truth QUASSIM CASSAM, QUASSIM CASSAM WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORDSearch for more papers by this author QUASSIM CASSAM, QUASSIM CASSAM WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORDSearch for more papers by this author First published: January 1989 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0149.1989.tb02129.xRead 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 Volume30, Issue1January 1989Pages 10-16 RelatedInformation