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Roderick Firth
Roderick Firth (January 30, 1917 – December 22, 1987) was an American philosopher. He was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1953 until his death. Education Firth earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1943. His thesis was entitled ''Sense-Data and the Principle of Reduction''. Career He taught at Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ... before joining the Harvard faculty in 1953. Firth is noted for his defense of the ideal observer theory in ethics and for his exploration of radical empiricism. Firth also defended a form of semantic holism which he referred to as a "coherence theory of concepts" distinct from both the coherence theory of truth and coherence theory of justification. Firth debated his views on the nature of con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemic Privilege
Epistemic privilege or privileged access is the philosophical concept that certain knowledge, such as knowledge of one's own thoughts, can be apprehended by a given person and not by others. This implies one has access to, and direct self-knowledge of, their own thoughts in such a way that others do not. The concept can also refer to the notion of having privileged, non-perspectival access to knowledge of things about reality or things beyond one's own mind.See for example: Epistemic privilege can be characterized in two ways: * ''Positive characterization'': privileged access comes through introspection. * ''Negative characterization'': knowledge derived from privileged access is not based upon evidences. Analysis The still prevailing traditional position argues each of us do in fact have privileged access to our own thoughts. Descartes is the paradigmatic proponent of such kind of view (even though "privileged access" is an anachronic label for his thesis): For Descarte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1987 Deaths
Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader Mohammad Najibullah says that Afghanistan's 1978 Communist revolution is "not reversible," and that any opposition parties will have to align with Communist goals. * January 4 – ** 1987 Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route from Washington, D.C. to Boston collides with Conrail engines at Chase, Maryland, United States, killing 16 people. ** Televangelist Oral Roberts announces to his viewers that unless they donate $8 million to his ministry by March 31, God will "call [him] home." * January 15 – Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, is forced into retirement by political conservatives. * January 16 – León Febres Cordero, president of Ecuador, is kidnapped for 11 hours by followers of imprisoned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1917 Births
Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's Desert Column. * January 10 – Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: Seven survivors of the Ross Sea party are rescued after being stranded for several months. * January 11 – Unknown saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland (modern-day Lyndhurst, New Jersey), one of the events leading to United States involvement in WWI. * January 16 – The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million (equivalent to $ million in ). * January 22 – WWI: United States President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Germany. * January 25 – WWI: British armed merchantman is sunk by mines off Lough Swilly (Ireland), with the loss of 354 of the 475 aboard. * January 26 – The se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brown University Alumni
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used to project colors onto television screens and computer monitors, brown combines red and green. The color brown is seen widely in nature, wood, soil, human hair color, eye color and skin pigmentation. Brown is the color of dark wood or rich soil. In the RYB color model, brown is made by mixing the three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. According to public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, brown is the least favorite color of the public; it is often associated with fecal matter, plainness, the rustic, although it does also have positive associations, including baking, warmth, wildlife, the autumn and music. Etymology The term is from Old English , in origin for any dusky or dark shade of color. The first r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University Department Of Philosophy Faculty
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court, the governing legislature of colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony. While never formally affiliated with any denomination, Harvard trained Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite. Following the American Civil War, under Harvard president Charles William Eliot's long tenure from 1869 to 1909, Harvard developed multiple professional schools, which transformed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenalism
In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist as " things-in-themselves", but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in space. In particular, some forms of phenomenalism reduce all talk about physical objects in the external world to talk about ''bundles of sense data''. History Phenomenalism is a radical form of empiricism. Its roots as an ontological view of the nature of existence can be traced back to George Berkeley and his subjective idealism, upon which David Hume further elaborated. John Stuart Mill had a theory of perception which is commonly referred to as classical phenomenalism. This differs from Berkeley's idealism in its account of how objects continue to exist when no one is perceiving them. Berkeley claimed that an omniscient God perceived all objects and that this was what kept them in existence, whereas Mill claimed that perma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilfrid Sellars
Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (; May 20, 1912 – July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher and prominent developer of critical realism who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in the United States". His work has had a profound impact in virtually all areas of analytic philosophy beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, including in epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of science. His most notable contributions include his critique of foundationalist epistemology (the " Myth of the Given"), a synoptic philosophy aiming to unite what he called the manifest and scientific images, and an inferentialist account of meaning. Life and career His father was the Canadian-American philosopher Roy Wood Sellars, a leading American philosophical naturalist in the first half of the twentieth-century. Wilfrid was educated at the University of Michigan (BA, 1933), the University at Buffalo, and Oriel C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coherence Theory Of Justification
In philosophical epistemology, there are two types of coherentism: the coherence theory of truth, and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism). Coherent truth is divided between an anthropological approach, which applies only to localized networks ('true within a given sample of a population, given our understanding of the population'), and an approach that is judged on the basis of universals, such as categorical sets. The anthropological approach belongs more properly to the correspondence theory of truth, while the universal theories are a small development within analytic philosophy. The coherentist theory of justification, which may be interpreted as relating to either theory of coherent truth, characterizes epistemic justification as a property of a belief only if that belief is a member of a coherent set. What distinguishes coherentism from other theories of justification is that the set is the primary bearer of justification. As an epi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyman John Harvard (clergyman), John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court, the governing legislature of Colonial history of the United States, colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony. While never formally affiliated with any Religious denomination, denomination, Harvard trained Congregationalism in the United States, Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coherence Theory Of Truth
Coherence theories of truth characterize truth as a property of whole systems of propositions that can be ascribed to individual propositions only derivatively according to their coherence with the whole. While modern coherence theorists hold that there are many possible systems to which the determination of truth may be based upon coherence, others, particularly those with strong religious beliefs, hold that the truth only applies to a single absolute system. In general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within the whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple formal coherence. For example, the coherence of the underlying set of concepts is considered to be a critical factor in judging Validity (logic), validity for the whole system. In other words, the set of base concepts in a universe of discourse must first be seen to form an intelligible paradigm before many theorists will consider that the coherence theory of truth is applicable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantic Holism
Semantic holism is a theory in the philosophy of language to the effect that a certain part of language, be it a term or a complete sentence, can only be understood through its relations to a (previously understood) larger segment of language. There is substantial controversy, however, as to exactly what the larger segment of language in question consists of. In recent years, the debate surrounding semantic holism, which is one among the many forms of holism that are debated and discussed in contemporary philosophy, has tended to centre on the view that the "whole" in question consists of an entire language. Background Since the '' use'' of a linguistic expression is only possible if the speaker who uses it understands its ''meaning'', one of the central problems for analytic philosophers has always been the question of meaning. What is it? Where does it come from? How is it communicated? And, among these questions, what is the smallest unit of meaning, the smallest fragment of l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
