Waldomiro Silva Filho

Might knowledge normatively govern conversations and not just their discrete constituent thoughts and (assertoric) actions? I answer yes, at least for a restricted class of conversations I call aimed conversations. On the view defended here, aimed conversations are governed by participatory know-how – viz., knowledge how to do what each interlocutor to the conversation shares a participatory intention to do by means of that conversation. In the specific case of conversations that are in the service of joint inquiry, the view defended is that interlocutors (A, B, … n) must intentionally inquire together into whether p, by means of an aimed conversation X, only if A,B, … n know how to use X to find out together whether p. The view is supported by considerations about instrumental rationality, shared intentionality, the epistemol- ogy of intentional action, as well as linguistic data.

Might knowledge normatively govern conversations and not just their discrete constituent thoughts and (assertoric) actions? I answer yes, at least for a restricted class of conversations I call aimed conversations. On the view defended here, aimed conversations are governed by participatory know-how – viz., knowledge how to do what each interlocutor to the conversation shares a participatory intention to do by means of that conversation. In the specific case of conversations that are in the service of joint inquiry, the view defended is that interlocutors (A, B, … n) must intentionally inquire together into whether p, by means of an aimed conversation X, only if A,B, … n know how to use X to find out together whether p. The view is supported by considerations about instrumental rationality, shared intentionality, the epistemol- ogy of intentional action, as well as linguistic data.

In this paper, I will assert that reflective performance produces something that is epistemically valuable. My argument depends on us stepping back from the scenario in which the dispute about internalism and externalism about knowledge and justification have developed over recent decades, in order to begin to consider certain, so far little explored, skeptical dialectic challenges. These are skeptical challenges in which individuals are challenged to evaluate and judge whether or not their beliefs are justified. As a rule, a person is presented with reasons to suspect the limitations of their subjective perspective about the evidence and reasons that dispose them to believe. In dialectical challenges between epistemic peers, both recognize that they are not in a better position than their interlocutor to believe. In this context, to continue the dialogue requires a critical reflective examination of their initial beliefs (with their evidence and reasons) and, in the end, the achievement of epistemic change: the person must improve, expand, deepen, better understand, guarantee, confirm, renounce, or suspend their judgment etc. In this sense, reflection is understood as a performance, an activity in which the person examines the evidence, content and reliability of their own beliefs. This performance may lead to different results, but if someone is capable of critically reflecting on their own beliefs in skeptical-dialectic contexts, this is a positive thing, whatever the result – contrary to people who, in the face of skeptical challenges, simply decide to remain intellectually immobile, maintaining a cowardly, arrogant or dogmatic position.

In this paper, we discuss two recurring themes in Sosa’s work, reexamined in Judgment and Agency (SOSA, 2015) from a new angle, i.e. the place and importance of reflection in the cognitive economy of the epistemic agent, and epistemic value. Regarding the latter, Sosa suggests that knowing full well, which necessarily involves reflection, has value because it contributes to human flourishing. Although Sosa’s “new virtue epistemology” appears very promising in explaining different intuitions regarding epistemology and demonstrating that it is possible to join reliabilist and responsibilist accounts of virtue epistemology, we believe that solving the value problem requires further clarification in order to truly explain the value of knowledge.

Este ensaio apresenta as seguintes três breves considerações sobre autoconhecimento e transparência : a) a transparência do conteúdo mental é um traço característico do autoconhecimento; b) o tratamento epistemológico da transparência do conteúdo tem obscurecido a noção de autoconhecimento e o lugar que essa noção ocupa na imagem que temos de pessoa e da ação humana e; c) quando digo ter uma crença, a transparência não é um traço lógico ou epistêmico do discurso de primeira-pessoa, mas antes é uma expressão das atitudes pelas quais sou responsável. Com isso, pretendo sugerir que o autoconhecimento não é um conhecimento (que pode ser justificado e garantido teoreticamente), mas uma característica da posição de primeira-pessoa em relação a pensamentos, crenças etc. Nesse sentido, sugiro que, a partir da idéia de deliberação, um caminho interessante para discutir a noção de autoconhecimento é investigar a experiência comunicativa cotidiana

This text investigates some difficulties that Semantic Externalism presents for the idea of “self-knowledge” and “first person authority”. I would like to defend that those difficulties originate mainly from the fact that externalist arguments often fall back on mental experiments construed in the perspective of an omniscient narrator. I believe that “self-knowledge” and “first person authority” should be thought of not from the viewpoint of epistemology, but our normal practical capacities to evaluate, ponder, criticize, judge our thoughts, attitudes and actions, especially when we want to give proof, plan something, talk with other people, justify, explain, in short, when we want to offer reasons.

RESUMO Este ensaio visa motivar uma concepção epistêmica não individualista sobre a reflexão. A proposta é não individualista porque (a) não considera apenas o desempenho metacognitivo individual; (b) refere-se a uma situação em que duas ou mais pessoas estão em desacordo dialógico sobre o mesmo assunto ou alvo da proposta; (c) essas pessoas realizam uma disputa com base no espaço de conversação e têm o direito legítimo de esperar umas das outras o compromisso com a busca da verdade, evitar os erros e o entendimento. Chamo esta proposta de Perspectiva Dialética sobre Reflexão. Segundo essa perspectiva, reflexão é uma operação intelectual consciente e intencional por meio da qual uma pessoa toma conhecimento do conteúdo de crenças disputadas em uma troca dialógica ou interpessoal, envolvendo tanto suas próprias crenças quanto as crenças de seus interlocutores. Para essa proposta, a reflexão produz o bem epistêmico de evitar vícios epistêmicos e promover a moderação epistêmica.

O texto compõe-se de duas partes em confronto. Na primeira, mais breve, Waldomiro, partindo de uma posição cético-analítica, levanta um conjunto de críticas e indagações à posição prático-poiética, de Crisóstomo, que, na segunda parte procura responder a cada uma delas. A primeira posição, internalista, toma como central a noção de reflexão; a segunda, externalista, tem como central a noção de prática. Para a primeira, a filosofia deve lidar apenas com problemas isolados, que atrapalhem o fluxo da vida prática. Para a segunda, também do ponto de vista da vida prática, a filosofia pode legitimamente ocupar-se da compreensão geral das coisas, orientadora, sem ser com isso dogmática nem transcendental. Na construção de seu ponto de vista, Crisóstomo parte de sua noção de intencionalidade sensível e de nosso suposto emaranhamento prático-sensível, criativo, com o mundo e as coisas. Um ponto de vista, então, que se pretende prático, não ascético, favorável à criação, que se constrói e se afirma por confronto com o empirismo, enquanto passivo, abstrato, mentalista, dogmático, e também com o linguicentrismo, enquanto idealista, relativista, “agnóstico”. Waldomiro vê com simpatia tal posição mas questiona como possivelmente demasiado ambiciosas sua abrangência, sua forma de justificação dialética, sua aparente redução de conhecimento humano a know-how, e eventuais inconsistências de um contraditório naturalismo criativo. Para Crisóstomo, por outro lado, é o ponto de vista de Waldomiro que arrisca envolver subjetivismo, artificialismo e inconsistência - na sustentação de nossas crenças.

This article intends to show that the defense of “understanding” as one of the major goals of science education can be grounded on an anti-reductionist perspective on testimony as a source of knowledge. To do so, we critically revisit the discussion between Harvey Siegel and Alvin Goldman about the goals of science education, especially where it involves arguments based on the epistemology of testimony. Subsequently, we come back to a discussion between Charbel N. El-Hani and Eduardo Mortimer, on the one hand, and Michael Hoffmann, on the other, striving to strengthen the claim that rather than students’ belief change, understanding should have epistemic priority as a goal of science education. Based on these two lines of discussion, we conclude that the reliance on testimony as a source of knowledge is necessary to the development of a more large and comprehensive scientific understanding by science students.

Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Willard Van Orman Quine (1902-2000) had a decisive role in setting the agenda of the themes, instruments and procedures of contemporary philosophy, providing an original meeting between American thinking and European, as well as in the delimitation of the most significant characteristics of analytical philosophy. Their most well-known theses - refutation of the analytic-synthetic distinction; the indeterminacy of translation; ontological relativity; behaviorism; holism; the naturalization of epistemology - involving fields of ontology, epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind have serve the purpose of eroding borders that were historically prevalent between philosophy and natural science and, in this step, have shaped New Territories to the philosophical investigation. The publication of Quine in Dialogue witness not only the presence of the strong and unshakeable interest for the ideas of Quine, but mainly the strength of an intellectual practice style that has been marked deeply the philosophical English-speaking community; a practice that has as a characteristic mark the wide, open and indeterminate dialogue around themes, issues and concepts and not the worship of personalities, works and theories of the past. This review seeks to highlight that this work presents Quine as a philosopher that not only maintained a rich dialogue with other philosophers, many of them colleagues and ex-students - influencing and being influenced by them - but also as an intellectual who believed that the practice of dialogue is critical to the advancement of thought

This article discusses the notion of transparency condition proposed by Richard Moran in Authority and Estrangement (2001). According to this notion the question in the first-person present tense about our own belief ("Do I believe in p?") is answered in reference with the same reasons that justify the answer to a corresponding question about the world (about the truth of p). Transparency, in this sense, is the fundamental characteristic of self-knowledge in the context of common experience. Understanding this idea helps us to understand the notions which are normally associated to self-knowledge, such as immediacy (we do not need to turn to observation or inference) first-person authority (I have different access to my attitudes than other people do) and the relationship between self-knowledge, rationality and psychic health of a person. Through the presentation of the transparency condition and some objections to this notion, I aim to offer an interpretation of the notion of transparency which favors a modest conception of self-knowledge and rationality.