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Ethics Of Belief
The ethics of belief refers to a cluster of related issues that focus on standards of rational belief, intellectual excellence, and conscientious belief-formation. Among the questions addressed in the field are: * Are there standards of some sort ("epistemic norms") that ought to guide how we form beliefs and pursue intellectual aims, such as the pursuit of truth or the quest for understanding? * If so, what kind of norms? Moral? Purely intellectual? Prudential? * If there are such norms, how strong are they? Are they categorical (i.e., binding regardless of our desires and commitments) or merely hypothetical (applicable only ''if'' we have certain desires and goals?) Do they bind absolutely or only conditionally? * Are beliefs within our voluntary control, or do we more or less automatically believe whatever we think is best supported by the evidence? * What aims should we have as believers? Achieving significant truth? Avoiding significant error? Achieving knowledge? Pleasure? Pea ...
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Intellectual Virtues
Aristotle first used the term ''ethics'' to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato which is devoted to the attempt to provide a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state, which he considered to be the best type of community. Aristotle's writings have been read more or less continuously since ancient times, and his ethical treatises in particular continue to influence philosophers working today. Aristotle emphasized the practical importance of developing excellence (virtue) of character (Greek ''ēthikē aretē''), as the way to achieve what is finally more important, excellent conduct (Greek '' praxis''). As Aristotle argues in Book II of the ''Nicomachean Ethics'', the man who possesses character excellence will tend to do the right thing, at ...
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Allan Hazlett
Allan Hazlett is an American philosopher and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. He is known for his works on skepticism and ethics of belief The ethics of belief refers to a cluster of related issues that focus on standards of rational belief, intellectual excellence, and conscientious belief-formation. Among the questions addressed in the field are: * Are there standards of some sort .... Books *'' A Luxury of the Understanding: On the Value of True Belief'', Oxford University Press, 2013 * '' A Critical Introduction to Skepticism'', Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014 * ''The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism'', Oxford University Press, forthcoming References External links Allan Hazlett at Washington University in St. LouisPersonal website {{DEFAULTSORT:Hazlett, Allan 21st-century American philosophers American philosophy academics Living people Washington University in St. Louis faculty Year of birth missing (living ...
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Intellectual Responsibility
Intellectual responsibility (also known as epistemic responsibility) is the quality of being adequately reflective about the truth of one's beliefs. People are intellectually responsible if they have tried hard enough to be reflective about the truth of their beliefs, aiming not to miss any information that would cause them to abandon those beliefs as false. Intellectual responsibility is related to epistemic justification, or justification of one's beliefs, and to the ethics of belief. Thomas Ash, following Roderick Chisholm, said "that intellectual responsibility can be understood as a matter of fulfilling one's intellectual duties or requirements. And this is just how justification has been understood, on perhaps the most historically prominent conception of it." Ash considered this to be an "important reason to think that intellectual responsibility is both necessary and sufficient for justification". According to Frederick F. Schmitt, "the conception of justified belief as epis ...
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Epistemic Virtue
The epistemic virtues, as identified by virtue epistemologists, reflect their contention that belief is an ethical process, and thus susceptible to intellectual virtue or vice. Some epistemic virtues have been identified by W. Jay Wood, based on research into the medieval tradition. Epistemic virtues are sometimes also called intellectual virtues. Foundations of epistemology The foundation for epistemic virtues is epistemology, the theory of what we know to be true according to our own perception in relation to reality. Philosophers are interested in how the mind relates to reality and the overall nature of knowledge. Epistemology battles with skepticism by trying to come up with a base from which all knowledge and science can be built up. Skepticism promotes an impasse to this because we must doubt what we know in order to know if what we know is indeed true. Epistemic virtues and well-being Virtues in general are characteristic habits or ways of relating to the world that e ...
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Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , ; ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danes, Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, Christianity, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. Kierkegaard's theological work focuses on Christian ethics, the Christian Church, institution of the Church, the differences between purely objective Christian apologetics, proofs of Christianity, the infinite qualitative distinction between man and God, and the individual's subjective relationship to the God-Man Jesus Messiah, Christ, which came ...
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and highly discussed figures in modern Western philosophy. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, Kant argued that space and time are mere "forms of intuition" that structure all experience and that the objects of experience are mere "appearances". The nature of things as they are in themselves is unknowable to us. Nonetheless, in an attempt to counter the philosophical doctrine of Philosophical skepticism, skepticism, he wrote the ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781/1787), his best-known work. Kant drew a parallel to the Copernican Revolution#Immanuel Kant, Copernican Revolution in his proposal to think of the objects of experience as confo ...
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Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (19June 162319August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest mathematical work was on projective geometry; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of conic sections at the age of 16. He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social sciences, social science. In 1642, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator. Like his contemporary René Descartes, Pascal was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. Pascal wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results. He made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clari ...
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John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke's political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic right ...
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René Descartes
René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Dutch Reformed Church, Protestant state and was later counted as a Deism, deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic. Many elements of Descartes's philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the Neostoicism, revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine of Hippo, Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the Scholasticism, schools on two major point ...
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A Critical Introduction To Skepticism
''A Critical Introduction to Skepticism'' is a 2014 book by Allan Hazlett in which the author offers an introduction to skepticism. Reception The book was reviewed in ''Teaching Philosophy'' and ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy The ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of philosophy and "one of the oldest English-language philosophy journals in the world". It was established in 1923 as ''The Australasian Journal of Psychol ...''. References External links * 2014 non-fiction books Epistemology books Works about skepticism Philosophy textbooks {{epistemology-book-stub ...
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Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus (, ; ) was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician with Roman citizenship. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and because of the arguments they contain against the other Hellenistic philosophies, they are also a major source of information about those philosophies. Life Little is known about Sextus Empiricus. He likely lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His Roman name, Sextus, implies he was a Roman citizen. The ''Suda,'' a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, states that he was the same person as Sextus of Chaeronea,Suda, Sextos σ 235. as do other pre-modern sources, but this identification is commonly doubted. In his medical work, as reflected by his name, tradition maintains that he belonged to the Empiric school in which Pyrrhonism was popular. However, at least twice in his writings, Sextus seems to place himself closer to the Methodic school. Philosophy ...
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Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the process of analyzing available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to make sound conclusions or informed choices. It involves recognizing underlying assumptions, providing justifications for ideas and actions, evaluating these justifications through comparisons with varying perspectives, and assessing their rationality and potential consequences. The goal of critical thinking is to form a judgment through the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluation. In modern times, the use of the phrase ''critical thinking'' can be traced to John Dewey, who used the phrase ''reflective thinking,'' which depends on the knowledge base of an individual; the excellence of critical thinking in which an individual can engage varies according to it.Piergiovanni, P. R.Creating a Critical Thinker ''College Teaching'', Vol. 62, No. 3 (July–September 2014), pp. 86-93, accessed 26 January 2023 According to philosopher Richard W. Paul, ...
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