Third-person Knowledge Research Articles

From SSI to contextualism

Abstract Subject-Sensitive Invariantism (SSI) and Epistemic Contextualism (EC) are rival theories in epistemology. Both involve shifting epistemic standards, but they differ in how they explain this shiftiness. SSI is primarily a metaphysical thesis about the knowledge relation, whereas EC is primarily a semantic thesis about knowledge attributions. This paper revisits some of the central problems faced by SSI, especially those concerning Dutch books and third-person knowledge ascriptions. The main aim is to show that existing responses that stay true to SSI do not succeed, leaving SSI in serious jeopardy. Some strategies put forward by, or on behalf of, SSI-friendly philosophers fare better. But these involve forsaking central features of SSI, ceding ground to EC, and falling back on a defense of impurism. I sketch what such an impurist fallback position might look like and argue that the more ground it cedes to EC, the more attractive it will be. It is shown that such an impurist, contextualist position can handle all the difficulties I discuss in relation to SSI. The paper concludes by briefly considering what new challenges this kind of position faces instead.

Researching Pure Digital Entrepreneurship – A Multimethod Insider Action Research approach

Abstract Knowledge production in Pure Digital Entrepreneurship (PDE) needs to reflect the non-linear nature of a journey defined by digital artifact and platform creation. Accordingly, this paper proposes and offers practical guidance on the use of Multimethod Insider Action Research (MIAR) as a suitable research design for studying the entrepreneurial journey in this context. It argues for integrating first-person Reflective Practice, second-person Collaborative Inquiry and Design Research for third-person knowledge production that balances rigour and relevance. While calls for such forms of longitudinal process inquiry have largely gone unanswered due to identified challenges, this paper uses a case narrative to illustrate the feasibility of conducting them in a PDE context.

Knowledge, hope, and fallibilism

Hope, in its propositional construction “I hope that p” is compatible with a stated chance for the speaker that $$\lnot \textit{p}$$ . On fallibilist construals of knowledge, knowledge is compatible with a chance of being wrong, such that one can know that p even though there is an epistemic chance for one that $$\lnot \textit{p}$$ . But self-ascriptions of propositional hope that p seem to be incompatible, in some sense, with self-ascriptions of knowing whether p. Data from conjoining hope self-ascription with outright assertions, with first- and third-person knowledge ascriptions, and with factive predicates suggest a problem: when combined with a plausible principle on the rationality of hope, they suggest that fallibilism is false. By contrast, the infallibilist about knowledge can straightforwardly explain why knowledge would be incompatible with hope, and can offer a simple and unified explanation of all the linguistic data introduced here. This suggests that fallibilists bear an explanatory burden which has been hitherto overlooked.

Constructive Empathizing – Educational Competence in the Light of Child’s Play

Pre-school play is an important moment in a child’s development. Caretakers play an important role during play. This article presents a structure of educational competence called “constructive empathizing” or “invitingaccompanying competence”. A caretaker’s special task during child’s play is conversion between the third-person knowledge and a subjective, autotelic interaction. The caretaker’s constructive empathizing during a child’s play determines the child’s social and moral development, it helps the child to turn play into work, as a sign of higher spontaneous understanding of cultural norms standing behind cultural correctness actions. Finally, it is evidence of dynamic interaction between abstract-concrete thinking, with the child learning from the caretaker.

Contextualism, Multi‐Tasking, and Third‐Person Knowledge Reports: A Note on Keith DeRose’s The Case for Contextualism1

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 84, Issue 3 p. 686-692 Contextualism, Multi-Tasking, and Third-Person Knowledge Reports: A Note on Keith DeRose’s The Case for Contextualism† PETER LUDLOW, PETER LUDLOW Northwestern UniversitySearch for more papers by this author PETER LUDLOW, PETER LUDLOW Northwestern UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 May 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00584.x † Thanks to Jason Stanley for discussion. Read 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 Volume84, Issue3May 2012Pages 686-692 RelatedInformation

Entering the Chinese Room with Casteneda's Principle (P)

In Omniscience and Indexical Reference, Hector-Neri Castaneda formulates the following principle, which he designates (P): If a sentence of the form 'X knows that a person Y knows that . . .' formulates a true statement, then the person X knows the statement formulated by the clause filling the blank '. . .'. (Castaneda 1967a, 207).1 Thus, for example, Jones knows that Smith knows that 2 + 5 = 7 entails Jones knows that 2 + 5 = 7. In the present essay shall be attempting to demonstrate that situations such as Castaneda considers often take on an unexpected significance when viewed in the light of arguments pertaining to Searle's Chinese Room scenario. This significance is especially noteworthy given that it concerns the problem of the relationship between private knowledge and public knowledge (and, shall argue, by extension the problem)-a problem often considered by Castaneda and other researchers in his area. Indexicals and the Mind-Body Problem It is not hard to see why consideration of indexicals should eventually lead to consideration of the mental substance/physical substance problem; for an obvious first step in this direction is taken when the relationship between I and is investigated; and the central issue concerning many of the theorists in the indexicals field can be put as follows: [A sentence involving I] doesn't identify a proposition. For this sentence is not true or false absolutely, but only as said by one person or another... There is a missing conceptual ingredient: a sense for which am the reference, or a complex of properties alone have, or a singular term that refers to no one but me. (Perry 1979, 6-7) Many researchers are struck by the logical difficulties involving statements that contain I as compared with statements apparently relating the same facts or state of affairs but in the third person. Of course, any kind of bifurcation between statements involving I and statements in the third person cannot help but make one wonder whether consideration of some kind of dualist approach may be appropriate for dealing with such statements. hasten to add that Perry does not ultimately come down in favor of any kind of Cartesian dualism - his final formulation, indeed, is of behaviorist belief states, which cause people merely to act as though they have (private) beliefs-but on the other hand do find significance in his following admission: a theory of propositions of limited accessibility seems acceptable, even attractive, to some philosophers. Its acceptability or attractiveness will depend on other parts of one's metaphysics; if one finds plausible reasons elsewhere for believing in a universe that has, in addition to our common world, myriads of private perspectives, the idea of propositions of limited accessibility will fit right in. (Perry 1979, 16) Castaneda, too, seems to allude to issues involving dualism.2 In Omniscience and Indexical Reference, he says, for example: one can, of course, raise the problem of other minds. If there is a sense of 'know' in which one cannot know facts of the form 'X, different from me, knows that _', then there is a sense in which one cannot know another person's oratio recta indexical statements, whether they are about himself or not, and whether they are about physical or psychological matters. (Castaneda 1967a, 209) The effect of all this is to direct attention firmly towards the distinction (real, or only apparent) between public and private knowledge, that is, the distinction between that knowledge which is available to others and that which appears to be available only to the I (below shall call this distinction that between third-person knowledge and first-person knowledge). Of course, this is an epistemological distinction; but in my opinion it is not unreasonable to expect that looking at the problem from the point of view of epistemology will also shed at least a little light on the ontology of the I-others (and, by extension, the mental substance/physical substance) problem. …

How we know our minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality

AbstractAs adults we believe that our knowledge of our own psychological states is substantially different from our knowledge of the psychological states of others: First-person knowledge comes directly from experience, but third-person knowledge involves inference. Developmental evidence suggests otherwise. Many 3-year-old children are consistently wrong in reporting some of their own immediately past psychological states and show similar difficulties reporting the psychological states of others. At about age 4 there is an important developmental shift to a representational model of the mind. This affects children's understanding of their own minds as well as the minds of others. Our sense that our perception of our own minds is direct may be analogous to many cases where expertise provides an illusion of direct perception. These empirical findings have important implications for debates about the foundations of cognitive science.