Species Of Knowledge Research Articles

Can God's work in history be discerned? The ambiguities of providence in the poetry of John Milton

AbstractIs the doctrine of providence a guide to interpreting history? The early work of John Milton is optimistic about the possibility of such providential discernment. Milton lived during one of the most turbulent periods of English history and was actively involved in the cause of revolution and social reform. His poems typically centre on moments of historical change that seem to illuminate the ultimate meaning of history. After his revolutionary hopes had been shattered, Milton came to perceive a much more ambiguous relationship between history and providence. What history reveals, he now thought, is mostly a pattern of repetition and decline. Milton endsParadise Lostwith the reflection that belief in providence is not so much a species of knowledge as a practice of life. This article traces Milton's movement from providential optimism to providential pessimism and argues for a conception of history in which even acts of divine intervention do not unambiguously alter the course of history.

Radical Scepticism and the Epistemology of Confusion

The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any knowledge, even if we can retain other kinds of epistemic standings, like epistemically justified belief. If understanding is a species of knowledge, then radical sceptical arguments threaten to rob us categorically of knowledge and understanding in one fell swoop by implying universal ignorance. If, however, understanding is not a species of knowledge, then three questions arise: (i) is ignorance the lack of understanding, even if understanding is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i–iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy.

A low number of invasive marine species in the tropics: a case study from Pilbara (Western Australia)

Invasive marine species (IMS) are thought to be one of the most serious anthropogenic threats to global marine biodiversity. There are numerous reports of IMS being introduced into new areas throughout the world, but relatively few are in tropical locations. It has been suggested that this is an artefact of our lack of knowledge species present in the megadiverse tropics and a lack of IMS surveys. The Pilbara in northern Western Australia (WA) is used as a case study to examine these questions. The area is at high risk of IMS because of extensive international shipping. A detailed literature search of marine biodiversity studies developed a database of 5,532 species recorded in the Pilbara. There have been numerous surveys for species on the Australian national and WA IMS lists but only one, the ascidian Didemnum perlucidum Monniot, 1983, has been found.

What must I know to be brave?: revisiting the role of knowledge in the exercise of courage in sport

The Platonic definition of courage as the ‘knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful’ is often eschewed by philosophers of sport. In fact, the passionate nature of sport itself seems to testify against such a definition. Hence, accounts of courage within sport tend to emphasize the affective dimension of courage at the expense of the cognitive dimension. This essay argues in defense of the Platonic vision of courage as a species of knowledge as opposed to contemporary attempts to recover the affective dimension of courage, as exemplified by John Corlett. I shall argue that far from producing an overly intellectualized vision of courage, treating courage as a species of knowledge, even within sport, throws valuable light on the exercise of courage in sport and on the shape of sport itself with regards to the exercise of virtue.

Understanding without Justification or Belief

AbstractIn recent years there has been a resurgence of interest among epistemologists in the nature of understanding, with some authors arguing that understanding should replace knowledge as the primary focus of epistemology. But what is understanding? According to what is often calledthe standard view, understanding is a species of knowledge. Although this view has recently been challenged in various ways, even the critics of the standard view have assumed that understanding requires justification and belief. I argue that it requires neither. If sound, these arguments have important upshots not only for the nature of understanding, but also for its distinctive epistemic value and its role in contemporary epistemology.

Moral understanding and knowledge

Moral understanding is a species of knowledge. Understanding why an action is wrong, for example, amounts to knowing why the action is wrong. The claim that moral understanding is immune to luck while moral knowledge is not does not withstand scrutiny; nor does the idea that there is something deep about understanding for there are different degrees of understanding. It is also mistaken to suppose that grasping is a distinct psychological state that accompanies understanding. To understand why something is the case is to grasp or see why something is the case and grasping and seeing are ways of knowing.

The Role of Attention in Russell's Theory of Knowledge

In his Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell distinguished knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge of truths. This paper argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between these two species of knowledge. I argue that knowledge by acquaintance of an object neither suffices for knowledge that one is acquainted with the object, nor puts a subject in a position to know that she is acquainted with the object. These conclusions emerge from a thorough examination of the central role played by attention in Russell's theory of knowledge. Attention bridges the gap between knowledge by acquaintance and our capacity to form judgements about the objects of acquaintance.

Lucky understanding without knowledge

Can one still have understanding in situations that involve the kind of epistemic luck that undermines knowledge? Kvanvig (The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003; in: Haddock A, Miller A, Pritchard D (eds) Epistemic value, 2009a; in: Haddock A, Miller A, Pritchard D (eds) Epistemic value, 2009b) says yes, Prichard (Grazer Philos Stud 77:325–339, 2008; in: O’Hear A (ed) Epistemology, 2009; in: Pritchard D, Millar A, Haddock A (eds) The nature and value of knowledge: three investigations, 2010) say sometimes, DePaul and Grimm (Philos Phenomenol Res 74:498–514, 2007) and Grimm (Br J Philos Sci 57:515–535, 2006; in: Bernecker S, Pritchard D (eds) The Routledge companion to epistemology, 2011), Kvanvig’s critics, say no. The cases put forth by Kvanvig’s critics share a common feature, which seems to drive the intuition that understanding can’t be lucky: the fact that the information that makes up the individual’s understanding comes exclusively from a bad source. I formulate a case that lacks this feature, drawing on the fact that understanding produced from scientific inquiry is often produced by collaboration. I argue that my case provides good evidence that understanding is not a species of knowledge.

Idealizations and scientific understanding

In this paper, I propose that the debate in epistemology concerning the nature and value of understanding can shed light on the role of scientific idealizations in producing scientific understanding. In philosophy of science, the received view seems to be that understanding is a species of knowledge. On this view, understanding is factive just as knowledge is, i.e., if S knows that p, then p is true. Epistemologists, however, distinguish between different kinds of understanding. Among epistemologists, there are those who think that a certain kind of understanding—objectual understanding—is not factive, and those who think that objectual understanding is quasi-factive. Those who think that understanding is not factive argue that scientific idealizations constitute cognitive success, which we then consider as instances of understanding, and yet they are not true. This paper is an attempt to draw lessons from this debate as they pertain to the role of idealizations in producing scientific understanding. I argue that scientific understanding is quasi-factive.

Knowing That, Knowing How, and Knowing to Do

Ryle’s distinction between knowing that and knowing how has recently been challenged. The paper first briefly defends the distinction and then proceeds to address the question of classifying moral knowledge. Moral knowledge is special in that it is practical, that is, it is essentially a motive. Hence the way we understand moral knowledge crucially depends on the way we understand motivation. The Humean theory of motivation is wrong in saying that reason cannot be a motive, but right in saying that desire is essential for motivating us. The right response to the Humean theory of motivation is to see that moral knowledge is desire-related rationality or thought-related desire. Moral knowledge is neither knowing that nor knowing how but rather a third species of knowledge which we may call “knowing to do.” Knowing to do is to be rationally disposed to do the right thing. This understanding of moral knowledge is exactly what we can learn from Aristotle’s ethics.

The End of Anthropology, Again: On the Future of an In/Discipline

ABSTRACT The “End of Anthropology” has been predicted many times and for many different reasons—among them, its disappearing object of study, its political imbrication in colonialism, the loss of its distinctive concepts, and the effects of globalization in diffusing its received subject matter. And yet, both institutionally and discursively, the discipline is very much alive, producing new species of knowledge, new theoretical discourses, new empirical interests, new arguments. How, in light of this, do we read the history of its present? By what means is its “end” to be avoided, its future(s) assured? Where should it go from here, empirically, methodologically, theoretically? One answer lies in a new indiscipline, a discourse that, in dialectic tension with the contemporary world in which it is embedded, redefines the scale, the conceptual foundations, and the techniques of knowledge production of anthropology.

The role of qualitative research within an evidence-based context: Can metasynthesis be the answer?

The increasing emphasis on evidence in the health care planning and policy context has fuelled considerable discussion and debate in nursing circles on the appropriate place of the less favourably placed knowledge forms within the conventional evidentiary hierarchy. In this paper, nursing's affinity for qualitative methods, and the species of knowledge they generate, are considered within the context of this evolving evidence-based practice movement. Noting conceptual and terminological confusions around the notion of evidence such as have arisen within the nursing literature, the author argues for clarity in our collective thinking about the role of research in a nursing or any other applied practice discipline. Toward this end, she points to some of the newer approaches to research synthesis and integration that may hold particular promise for enhancing our confidence about what might properly constitute a qualitatively-derived evidentiary knowledge claim. Such approaches may assist nurses to work more comfortably within the evidence-based movement, assured that reliance upon scientifically sound reference points need not compromise the complexity, richness and diversity they recognize as inherent in practice context excellence.

Mwongozo—the Study Guide to Swahili Literary Works: Its Role as a Component in Education in Kenya

Designed to play a pedagogic role, mwongozo,1 the study guide to Swahili literature, had by the 1970s already penetrated2 Kenya educational practice, causing the relationship between Swahili literature and Swahili literary study to appear more visible, in spite of the opposition inherent in them: literature being an art, and literary study, if not precisely a science, a species of knowledge (Wellek and Warren 15). Such an opposition however, raises a number of theoreti cal issues that are beyond the limit of this essay. Suffice it to stress that it especially offers two alternatives: one stressing the conception that literature can only be read, enjoyed, and appreciated, but not studied; and the other, maintaining that for academic and intellectual reasons, literature should thus be taught as well as appreciated and enjoyed. The word teach, however, carries many connotations and can therefore be interpreted in various ways. With reference to literature, its meaning goes beyond the need to digest the substance of a given work of literature, to that of grasping the work in its totality, translating it into intellectual experiences that affect the reader's mental attitude. The word also has the sense of providing students with the analytical tools necessary to cope with rules and conventions that structure texts; of sharpening their intellectual skills. Reading a literary work means read ing it on its own terms, but also in relation to other works by the same author or others. Though the above objectives are essential to the teaching of literature in general, they by no means give a complete picture of why study guides to Swahili literary works, mwongozo, were introduced in Kenya's educational practice. It was, it could be argued, the quantitative and qualitative growth of Swahili literature

Clearer sentences—Part 1

On the recommendation of George Gopen, coauthor of “The Science of Writing Science” ( American Scientist , 1990), my favorite article on technical writing, I picked up a short text called STYLE—Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams. What a find! In his preface Williams writes, “Do not take what we offer here as draconian rules of composition, but rather as diagnostic principles of interpretation. We offer these principles as the basis for questions that allow a writer or editor to anticipate how readers are likely to respond to a piece of prose, a species of knowledge usually unavailable to writers when they unreflectively reread their own writing.” This and future columns are rooted in Williams' vade mecum. I have taken many examples directly from Williams. How would you describe these sentences? 1. Our lack of knowledge about local geology precluded determination of the planner's effectiveness in resource allocation to those areas of investigation with greatest potential. 2. Because we knew nothing about local geology, we could not determine how effectively the planners had allocated resources to investigate areas of greatest potential. Most would call sentence 2 clearer and more concise. This is because sentence 1 makes us sort out and then reassemble its actions through abstract nouns— knowledge, determination , etc. The rearranging distorts the sequence of actions and obscures who does what. In 2, we have converted the abstract nouns into verbs, we've made the actors the subjects of these verbs, and we have rearranged the events into a logical sequence. …

"Ruinous Mixture": Godwin, Enclosure and the Associated Self

The subject of property is the key-stone that completes the fabric of political justice. --William Godwin, Political Justice (2.420) The purpose ... of early instruction is not absolute. It is of less importance, generally speaking, that a child should acquire this or that species of knowledge, than that, through the medium of instruction, he should acquire habits of intellectual activity. It is not so much for the direct consideration of what he learns, that his mind not be suffered to lie idle. The preceptor in this respect is like the incloser of uncultivated land; his first crops are not valued for their intrinsic excellence; they are sown that the land may be brought into order. The springs of the mind, like the joints of the body, are apt to grow stiff for want of employment. They must be exercised in various directions and with unabating perseverance. In a word, the first lesson of a judicious education is, Learn to think, to discriminate, to remember and to inquire. --William Godwin, The Enquirer(1) ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY CITED JUDGMENTS OF GODWIN'S WORK and of his place in the British radical tradition of the 1790's is William Hazlitt's claim, in The Spirit of the Age, that no one more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice the theme, his name not far off. he continued, was as a Tom Fool to him, Paley an old woman, Burke a flashy sophist.(2) Godwin has rarely fared so well since that time. Marilyn Butler's account, in her Introductory Essay to Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy is a bit more reserved: [n]o other production of the pamphlet war achieved the impact or the notoriety of Paine's Rights of Man, but coupled with it, Political Justice, she argues, remains one of the most significant publications of the era.(3) Much of the critical debate about Godwin's work focuses on just this question: what is his place in the radical tradition? Most studies rightly pay particular attention to his (rather critical) relationship with the leaders of the political association movement as a central context for his work. But readers--in our day as in Godwin's--have been quite divided on the question of Godwin's commitment to revolutionary principles.(4) Mark Philp has made a compelling argument that E. P. Thompson's critique that Godwin not seriously engaged in radical political action (which he takes more seriously than as a merely polemical use of Godwin to make his case against contemporary Marxists) mis-characterises Godwinism (228). And Butler has called attention to Godwin's great courage during the repressive years from 1792-94 in defending radicals accused of treason and criticizing all forms of government.(5) Philp argues that Godwin and his circle, who played a pivotal role in the development and testing of the premises of Political Justice, sought to transform a theoretical discourse based on private into a practical reality. He also asserts that Godwin's readers--in particular his immediate circle of Rational Dissenters--would have recognized that private involved a duty to act (228-30). Indeed, Philp goes so far as to say that this context (of Godwin's close circle) makes his much mocked optimism about the eventual withering away of government as individuals govern themselves by the dictates of reason and mutual correction intellectually defensible and empirically grounded. This group, Philp argues, actually practiced the kind of rationally self-regulating and cohesive mutual self-government Godwin advocated (96-98; 170-74). Since Philp's influential argument articulates the grounding of Godwin's conception of private which I take as my subject, it merits a brief discussion here. Philp argues that Godwin owes his central belief in the sanctity of private judgment to the tradition of Rational Dissent.(6) Godwin not simply aware of this tradition, but was, more crucially, steeped in its intellectual heritage and practically involved in its social circles. …

An Externalist Account of Introspective Knowledge

The Content Skeptic argues that a subject could not have introspective knowledge of a thought whose content is individuated widely. This claim is incorrect, relying on the tacit assumption that introspective knowledge differs significantly from other species of knowledge. The paper proposes a reliabilist model for understanding introspective knowledge according to which introspective knowledge is simply another species of knowledge, and according to which claims to introspective knowledge are not, as suggested by the Content Skeptic, defeated by the mere possibility of error. This way of understanding introspective knowledge affords a robust theory of privileged access consistent with semantic externalism.

Three Major Originators of the Concept of Verstehen: Vico, Herder, Schleiermacher

It is generally agreed by historians of modern thought that, at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, philosophers in the German-speaking world identified and defined a type or species of knowledge whose peculiar independent status had hitherto been largely overlooked. It was developed, clarified, and, with a sharpened awareness of its unique possibilities, made to work in practice above all by Dilthey, Windelband, Rickert and their numerous followers; and, to a degree, also by Max Weber. The general name by which it was, and is, most often referred to is ‘Verstehen’—understanding. It has to be admitted that it was from the first, and remains to this day, a highly problematic and hotly disputed concept. Positivists, materialists, behaviourists and monists of all kinds—all those whose ideal is a single structure of organized systematic knowledge—have tended to view it with deep suspicion, and even to deny its existence altogether, claiming that it is wholly illusory and doomed to disappear before the inevitable advance of positive scientific method. However that may be, it will not be my purpose in this paper to enter into these difficult controversies. It may indeed be that no watertight definition of it is possible; that its putative boundaries with other forms or types of knowledge are vague and shifting; and even that there is no ultimate discontinuity in principle between it and the knowledge we gain from other spheres of research and investigation.