By Jessica Brown
Modern philosophy of brain is ruled by means of anti- individualism, which holds subject's options are made up our minds not just through what's inside of her head but additionally through elements of her atmosphere. regardless of its dominance, anti-individualism is topic to a frightening array of epistemological objections: that it truly is incompatible with the privileged entry every one topic has to her innovations, that it undermines rationality, and, absurdly, that it offers a brand new path to a priori wisdom of the realm. during this rigorous and persuasive learn, Jessica Brown defends anti- individualism from those epistemological objections. The dialogue has vital outcomes for key epistemological concerns comparable to skepticism, closure, transmission, and the character of data and warrant.According to Brown's research, one major reason behind pondering that anti-individualism is incompatible with privileged entry is that it undermines a subject's introspective skill to distinguish varieties of innovations. So clinically determined, the normal specialize in a subject's reliability approximately her concepts presents no enough answer. Brown defuses the objection by way of attract the epistemological proposal of a suitable substitute. extra, she argues that, given a formal figuring out of rationality, anti- individualism is suitable with the inspiration that we're rational matters. even though, the dialogue of rationality presents a brand new argument that anti-individualism is in stress with Fregean experience. eventually, Brown indicates that anti-individualism doesn't create a brand new path to a priori wisdom of the area. whereas rejecting recommendations that limit the transmission of warrant, she argues that anti-individualists should still deny that we have got the kind of wisdom that might be required to take advantage of a priori wisdom of notion content material to achieve a priori wisdom of the international.
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Extra info for Anti-Individualism and Knowledge (Contemporary Philosophical Monographs)
Sample text
Consider again the Twin Earth thought experiments discussed in the last chapter. In the actual situation, a subject has a certain thought content, p, which is partly individuated by the nature of her environment. The counterfactual situation differs in some factor that, according to anti-individualism, partly individuates thought. As a result, if the subject had been brought up in the counterfactual environment, she would have lacked the thought she has in the actual environment. However, the counterfactual situation is set up in such a way that things would seem subjectively just the same to the subject if she were in that environment.
We have already seen that the slow switch subject, Sally, cannot make correct judgments about whether her thought contents have changed unless she is given the empirical information that she has been switched to a different 50 Chapter 2 environment. 5 Further, she cannot pass some simple tests that require her to act differentially with respect to the two kinds of thought. Suppose that before she is switched, we introduce her to the philosophical arguments for anti-individualism and explain that she will undergo a slow switch that will change her thought contents.
She too forms the correct perceptually based belief that the bird is a crow. However, unlike the first subject, the second can visually distinguish crows from other birds that are abundant in the area, and also from similar birds rarely found in the area. We would judge that the bird-watcher does know that the bird is a crow. Such intuitions have led a number of philosophers to suppose that it is not sufficient for the belief that p to be knowledge that it is true and caused by the fact that p. , Goldman 1976, 1986; McGinn 1984).