Catherine Elgin

In “Useful False Beliefs,” Peter Klein argues that the justification required for knowledge can contain a false belief essentially. When this happens, the agent arrives at her conclusion via a chain of inference that includes a false belief. He illustrates his argument with cases that depend on apparent memory, testimony, recorded empirical evidence, and observation-based calculation. If the agent’s inferential path is close enough to a route that contains only truths, Klein maintains, her conclusion is justified. Still, he intimates, reliance on a falsehood is an epistemic defect, even if not a fatal one. All things considered, it is preferable to take the epistemic high road and rely only on truths. I will argue, however, that sometimes inferring via a falsehood is an epistemic strength. Reliance on a falsehood enables the agent to marshal epistemic resources by excluding from her reasoning irrelevant complications that would blind her to the relation between her evidence and her conclusion.

En posant avec clarté des questions de philosophie de l’esprit, d’ontologie et d’épistémologie, ce livre témoigne à la fois de l’intérêt réel de la danse comme objet philosophique et du rôle unique que peut jouer la philosophie dans une meilleure compréhension de cet art. Qu’est-ce que danser ? Que nous apprend le mouvement dansé sur la nature humaine et la relation entre le corps et l’esprit ? À quelles conditions une œuvre est-elle correctement interprétée par les danseurs et bien identifiée par les spectateurs ?

Although our theories are not precisely true, scientific realists contend that we should admit their objects into our ontology. One justification--offered by Sellars and Putnam--is that current theories belong to series that converge to ideally adequate theories. I consider the way the commitment to convergence reflects on the interpretation of lawlike claims. I argue that the distinction between lawlike and accidental generalizations depends on our cognitive interests and reflects our commitment to the direction of scientific progress. If the sciences disagree about the lawlikeness of some generalization(s), as an argument of Davidson's suggests, it follows from the interest relatively of lawlikeness that the laws of a science do not determine the essences of their objects. I conclude that this form of scientific realism provides no metaphysical support for essentialism

Davidson's token-Token identity theory is based on the indeterminacy of translation. I argue that psychological theories, Like other theories, Are underdetermined by the evidence, And that their reduction, Like other reductions, Is subject to the indeterminacy of translation. This does not invalidate reduction, But it does raise epistemic difficulties. Accepting a claim as law-Like involves uncertainty and risk. There are ideological reasons for thinking that psychophysical reduction involves risks we should not take

Knowing how to ride a bicycle, prove a theorem, tie a necktie, or play chess is, at least in part, an epistemic accomplishment. It is some sort of knowing. Abel (2012) argues that knowing how is irreducible to knowing that. No collection of knowings-that, however extensive, enables a person to play chess. I agree. He concludes that knowing how is therefore inscrutable. I argue that knowing how is akin to Aristotelian virtue - a matter of having a propensity to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason. The norm of the practice has been internalized, becoming second nature. I argue that rather than conforming to expressly stated rules, we model our behavior on exemplars - publicly available instances that manifest the features we seek to emulate. Since the exemplars are public, knowing-how is scrutable.

Cognitive advancement is not always a matter of acquiring new information. It often consists in reconfiguration--in reorganizing a domain so that hitherto overlooked or underemphasized features, patterns, opportunities, and resources come to light. Several modes of reconfiguration prominent in the arts--metaphor, fiction, exemplification, and perspective--play important roles in science as well. They do not perform the same roles as literal, descriptive, perspectiveless scientific truths. But to understand how science advances understanding, we need to appreciate the ineliminable cognitive contributions of non-literal, non-descriptive symbols.

If the point of argument is to produce conviction, an argument tor a foregone conclusion is pointless. I maintain, however, that an argument makes a variety of cognitive contributions, even when its conclusion is already believed. It exhibits warrant. It affords reasons that we can impart to others. It identifies bases tor agreement among parties who otherwise disagree. It underwrites confidence, by showing how vulnerable warrant is under changes in background assumptions. Multiple arguments for the same conclusion show how our beliefs hang together.

I show that it follows from both externalist and internalist theories that stupid people may be in a better position to know than smart ones. This untoward consequence results from taking our epistemic goal to be accepting as many truths as possible and rejecting as many falsehoods as possible, combined with a recognition that the standard for acceptability cannot be set too high, else scepticism will prevail. After showing how causal, reliabilist, and coherentist theories devalue intelligence, I suggest that knowledge, as contemporary theories construe it, is not a particularly valuable cognitive achievement, and that we would do well to reopen epistemology to the study of cognitive excellences of all sorts.