Earl Conee

Skeptical arguments from dreaming deny that we can know that we are awake. This denial lacks initial credibility to many of us. Often it seems easy to know. A brief reflection seems sufficient. How might the reflection enable us to know? Berislav Marusic offers a plausible answer. The answer is that we can take note of certain phenomenal qualities that are present only when we are awake. The present work argues that there are no such qualities. The final section gives a different account of the knowledge.

Metaphysical functionalism holds that the nature of the mental is its functional role. Proponents of the absent qualia objection to functionalism assert that mental states with essential phenomenal qualities might have had functional duplicates without qualia. Michael Tye has argued that this purported possibility is incoherent. Robert van Gulick has criticized Tye's argument. It is contended here that although van Gulick's criticism does not refute the argument, Tye's argument is unsuccessful. It is also contended that our evidence very strongly supports the possibility of absent qualia.

Tim defines a "luminous" condition as one that we are always in a position to know that we are in, whenever we are in it. To explain the idea of being in a position to know, Tim tells us that we are in a position to know a proposition when it states a fact that is open to our view, unhidden, and with no obstacle to our knowing it. He also tells us that if we are in a position to know a proposition, and we do what we are in a position to do toward knowing whether or not it is true, then we know it to be true. So a luminous condition obtains only if it is all set to be known to obtain by the one in the condition.

The Appendix considers whether instrumental value of any sort depends upon intrinsic goodness. It is argued that most familiar sorts do not so depend, but one can be shown to do so by a kind of First Cause argument. ;Chapter IV begins with an attempt to give a clear and complete formulation of hedonism--the theory according to which only pleasure is intrinsically good. The formulation builds upon the efforts of Warren Quinn and Edward Oldfield. Then an argument against hedonism by Brentano is critically assessed. C. D. Broad's objection to the effect that the pleasure of malice is not intrinsically good is then evaluated, as is G. E. Moore's objection to the effect that beauty is also intrinsically good. It is contended that hedonism does not succumb to any of these objections. ;In Chapter III the question is whether the concept of pleasure enters into an analysis of the concept of being intrinsically good. This topic is approached through writings by Franz Brentano. It is argued that no such analysis is possible. ;Chapter III is concerned with whether pleasure can help us to identify the bearers of intrinsic goodness. Again, some of Brentano's work is central to the topic, as is work by Charles Baylis. It is argued that pleasure is of no special help in discovering the intrinsic goods. ;The three major philosophical connections between concepts are analysis, epistemic mark, and general theoretical link. Each has been thought to relate pleasure to intrinsic goodness. The Introduction consists in a brief study of the nature of these connections. The body of the thesis examines whether pleasure and intrinsic goodness are so related

Roderick Chisholm has offered a new attempt to define knowledge in the second edition of Theory of Knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to present an objection to that definiton.Here is the proposed definition :D6.4 h is known by 5 =df h is accepted by S; h is true; and h is nondefectively evident for 5.To understand D6.4 we need to know what it is for a proposition to be nondefectively evident for a person. That has the following definition:D6.3 h is nondefectively evident for S=df Either h is sertain for S, or h is evident for S and is entailed by a conjunction of propositions each having for S a basis which is not a basis for any false proposition.There are four technical expressions in D6.3: “entailed,” “certain” “evident,” and “basis.“

Evidentialism is a view about the conditions under which a person is epistemically justified in having a particular doxastic attitude toward a proposition. Evidentialism holds that the justified attitudes are determined entirely by the person's evidence. This is the traditional view of justification. It is now widely opposed. The essays included in this volume develop and defend the tradition. Evidentialism has many assets. In addition to providing an intuitively plausible account of epistemic justification, it helps to resolve the problem of the criterion, helps to disentangle epistemic and ethical evaluations, and illuminates the relationship between epistemic evaluations of beliefs and the evaluation of the methods used to form beliefs. These issues are all addressed in the essays presented here. External world skepticism poses the classic problem for an epistemological theory. The final essay in this volume argues that evidentialism is uniquely well qualified to make sense of skepticism and to respond to its challenge. Evidentialism is a version of epistemic internalism. Recent epistemology has included many attacks on internalism and has seen the development of numerous externalist theories. The essays included here respond to those attacks and raise objections to externalist theories, especially the principal rival, reliabilism. Internalism generally has been criticized for having unacceptable deontological implications, for failing to connect epistemic justification to truth, and for failing to provide an adequate account of what makes basic beliefs justified. Each of these charges is answered in these essays. The collection includes two previously unpublished essays and new afterwords to five of the reprinted essays; it will be the definitive resource on evidentialism for all epistemologists.

Disjunctivists hold that perceiving external objects is fundamentally different from any experiential state that is not a perception. In fact, roughly speaking, disjunctivists say that they have nothing in common. Suppose that it appears to someone as though she perceives something. Disjunctivists say that there are two disparate sorts of facts that could make this true. Either she is genuinely perceiving something, or she is in an experiential state of merely apparent perception. An apparent perception is fundamentally unlike a perception. Disjunctivists differ in what they say the fundamental difference is. We’ll get to some of that shortly. First I’ll say where I’m headed here