Sven Bernecker

The global method safety account of knowledge states that an agent’s true belief that p is safe and qualifies as knowledge if and only if it is formed by method M, such that her beliefs in p and her beliefs in relevantly similar propositions formed by M in all nearby worlds are true. This paper argues that global method safety is too restrictive. First, the agent may not know relevantly similar propositions via M because the belief that p is the only possible outcome of M. Second, there are cases where there is a fine-grained belief that is unsafe and a relevantly similar coarse-grained belief that is safe and where both beliefs are based on the same method M. Third, the reliability of conditional reasoning, a basic belief-forming method, seems to be sensitive to fine-grained contents, as suggested by the wide variation in success rates for thematic versions of the Wason selection task.

It is a mistake to think that we cannot be morally responsible for forgetting because, as a matter of principle, forgetting is outside of our control. Sometimes we do have control over our forgetting. When forgetting is under our control there is no question that it is the proper object of praise and blame. But we can also be morally responsible for forgetting something when it is beyond our control that we forget that thing. The literature contains three accounts of the blameworthiness of forgetting over which the agent has no control—the tracing account, the liberalized awareness condition, and attributionism. Even though these are competing accounts of the blameworthiness of harmful forgetting they are compatible with one another. In particular, it is possible to come up with a position that endorses the tracing account for certain kinds of harmful forgetting and attributionism for other kinds of harmful forgetting.

Philosophy of medicine has traditionally examined two issues: the scientific ontology for medicine and the epistemic significance of the types of evidence used in medical research. In answering each question, philosophers have typically brought to bear tools from traditional analytic philosophy. In contrast, this volume explores medical knowledge from the perspective offered by social epistemology.While many of the same issues are addressed, the approach to these issues generates both fresh questions and new insights into old debates. In addition, the broader purview offered by social epistemology opens up opportunities to address new topics such as the role of consensus conferences, epistemic injustice, the value of medical knowledge, continuing medical education, and industry funding. This article situates and summarizes the contributions to this special issue.

This paper attempts to answer the question of what defines mnemonic confabulation vis-à-vis genuine memory. The two extant accounts of mnemonic confabulation as “false memory” and as ill-grounded memory are shown to be problematic, for they cannot account for the possibility of veridical confabulation, ill-grounded memory, and wellgrounded confabulation. This paper argues that the defining characteristic of mnemonic confabulation is that it lacks the appropriate causal history. In the confabulation case, there is no proper counterfactual dependence of the state of seeming to remember on the corresponding past representation.

Der in der zeitgenössischen Philosophie vorherrschende Empirismus hinsichtlich des Erwerbs von Farbbegriffen besagt: S erwirbt den Farbbegriff F nur dann, wenn S phänomenale Erlebnisse gemacht hat, die von einem Gegenstand, der die durch den Farbbegriff F bezeichnete Farbe aufweist, auf geeignete Weise kausal verursacht sind. Der Empirismus hinsichtlich des Erwerbs von Farbbegriffen geht Hand in Hand mit dem Empirismus hinsichtlich der Speicherung von Farbbegriffen: S hat zum Zeitpunkt t2 den zum Zeitpunkt t1 erworbenen Farbbegriff F nur dann gespeichert, wenn S zum Zeitpunkt t2 persönliche Erinnerungen an das phänomenale Erlebnis haben kann, welches von einem Gegenstand, der die durch den Farbbegriff F bezeichnete Farbe aufweist, zum Zeitpunkt t1 auf geeignete Weise kausal verursacht wurde. Gegen den Empirismus hinsichtlich des Erwerbs von Farbbegriffen wird ins Feld geführt, daß man einen Farbbegriff erwerben kann, auch ohne die bezeichnete Farbe gesehen zu haben. Der Besitz des Begriffes rot erfordert kein Wissen hinsichtlich der phänomenalen Qualität eines Roteindrucks. Gegen den Empirismus hinsichtlich der Speicherung von Farbbegriffen wird gezeigt, daß visuelle Erinnerungen an die phänomenalen Qualitäten von Farbeindrücken keine notwendige Bedingung für die Speicherung von Farbbegriffen darstellen.

This paper criticizes the widespread view whereby a second-order judgment of the form ‘I believe that p ’ qualifies as self-knowledge only if the embedded content, p, is of the same type as the content of the intentional state reflected upon and the self-ascribed attitude, belief, is of the same type as the attitude the subject takes towards p. Rather than requiring identity of contents across levels of cognition self-knowledge requires only that the embedded content of the second-order thought be an entailment of the content of the intentional state reflected upon. And rather than demanding identity of attitudes across levels of cognition self-knowledge demands only that the attitude of the intentional state reflected upon and the attitude the subject self-attributes share certain features such as direction of fit and polarity.

Kants Position zur moralischen Selbsterkenntnis liegt zwischen den beiden Polen des Cartesianismus und des Behaviorismus. Hinsichtlich des Wissens um die eigenen Maximeninhalte vertritt Kant die cartesische Direktheitsthese und m.E. auch die Unfehlbarkeitsthese. Die beiden anderen Aspekte der moralischen Selbsterkenntnis – das Wissen um die Pflichtgemäßheit der Maximen und das Wissen um die Handlungsmotive – sind Kant zufolge allerdings weder infallibel, noch unbezweifelbar, noch direkt. Und obgleich Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der eigenen Handlungsmotive in Zweifel gezogen werden und sich als falsch erweisen können, sind sie dennoch verläßlicher als Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der Handlungsmotive anderer.

Memory occupies a fundamental place in philosophy, playing a central role not only in the history of philosophy but also in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. Yet the philosophy of memory has only recently emerged as an area of study and research in its own right. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory is an outstanding reference source on the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting area, and is the first philosophical collection of its kind. The forty-eight chapters are written by an international team of contributors, and divided into nine parts: The nature of memory The metaphysics of memory Memory, mind and meaning Memory and the self Memory and time The social dimension of memory The epistemology of memory Memory and morality History of philosophy of memory. Within these sections, central topics and problems are examined, including: truth, consciousness, imagination, emotion, self-knowledge, narrative, personal identity, time, collective and social memory, internalism and externalism, and the ethics of memory. The final part examines figures in the history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Augustine, Freud, Bergson, Wittgenstein and Heidegger, as well as perspectives on memory in Indian and Chinese philosophy. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind and psychology, the _Handbook_ will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as psychology and anthropology.

I argue that the problem of rule-following rests on semantic internalism and that semantic externalism makes the problem evaporate. Given that the rule-following problem is a version of the general problem that the reference of an intentional phenomenon is underdetermined by its meaning, semantic externalism solves the problem by reducing meaning to reference. Since both Kripke and Wittgenstein are proponents of semantic externalism, the problem of rule-following is not a problem for either Kripke or Wittgenstein, but only for Wittgenstein’s internalist interlocutor.

According to the standard view, the causal process connecting a past representation and its subsequent recall involves intermediary memory traces. Yet Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein held that since the physiological evidence for memory traces isn't quite conclusive, it is prudent to come up with an account of memory causation-referred to as nmemic causation—that manages without the stipulation of memory traces. Given mnemic causation, a past representation is directly causally active over a temporal distance. I argue that the stipulation of memory traces is indeed indispensable for analyzing mernory causation.

This paper argues for an overlooked dimension in the metaphysical microstructure of knowledge. The connection between knowledge and truth is even deeper than generally acknowledged. Knowledge, I argue, supervenes not only on a specific (namely modal) relation between the proposition p’s truth and an agent’s belief that p, but also on specific relations between the proposition’s truthmaker and the belief’s justification-maker. S knows that p only if the states of affairs referred to by S’s reasons for believing that p are identical with, causally related to, or grounded in the states of affairs that make p true.

The chapter starts out by explaining the taxonomy of kinds of memory used in analytic philosophy. Following this, it offers a tentative analysis of the kind of memory analytic philosophers discuss the most—propositional memory. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to the discussion of three questions in the epistemology of memory: Is memory a form or a source of knowledge? Is memory merely a preservative source of justification and knowledge or can it also function as a generative source? Do we have reasons to trust our memories? The last section of the chapter deals with the dependence of memory on personal identity through time.

It has long been known that memory need not be a literal reproduction of the past but may be a constructive process. To say that memory is a constructive process is to say that the encoded content may differ from the retrieved content. At the same time, memory is bound by the authenticity constraint which states that the memory content must be true to the subject's original perception of reality. This paper addresses the question of how the constructive nature of visual memory can be reconciled with the authenticity constraint. In what respect and to what extent may the content of a visual memory differ from the original perceptual state while still adequately reflecting the subject's original perception?