The authors provide a comprehensive treatment of the major questions of epistemology in an intelligible and non-partisan way, while at the same time exhibiting full knowledge of contemporary publications. Rather than offering an eclectic treatment of disparate problems, the merits of the many different types of approach to epistemology are clearly explained and judiciously assessed. Cartesian and Humean scepticism are also carefully described and distinguished, and fuller treatment than usual is given of rational belief and of Gettier’s problem. – Chapter I, Scepticism and certainty (Introduction; Descartes and Hume; The appeal to ordinary language; The grounds of uncertainty; Basic knowledge); – Chapter II, Belief (Theories of belief; Belief as mental act; Belief behavioural disposition; Belief as mental state); – Chapter III, The analysis of knowledge (Kinds of knowledge; The Platonic definition of knowledge: Is knowledge analysable ?; The truth conditions of knowing; Alternative approaches; The Gettier problem; Defeasibility and causality); – Chapter IV, Perception (The common sense view of perception; The argument from illusion; Sense data; Primary and secondary qualities; The phenomenalist alternative; The realist alternative; Sensing and perceiving); – Chapter V, Memory (The ways of remembering; The representative theory of memory; The role of imagery; The realist theory of memory; Memory, perception, and scepticism; Are perception and memory necessarily reliable ?; The concept of the past; Conclusion); – Chapter VI, A priori knowledge (Knowing without experience; Some distinctions; Theories of the A priori; Scepticism and the A priori; Critics of analyticity); – Chapter VII, Truth (Theories of truth; Correspondence as the nature of truth; The semantic theory; Redundancy theories).– Concluding remarks. – Bibliography p. 204-208. M.-M. V.

Eleven contributions : 1: Personalistic Bayesianism; C. Howson. 2: On Higher Order Beliefs; N.-E. Sahlin. 3: On the Logic of Relevance; P. Gr̃denfors. 4: Diverging Distributions; D. Miller. 5: Inductive Logic Revisited; J.-P. Dubucs. 6: Probability and Utility; J.M. Vickers. 7: What has Probability to Do with Strength of Belief; L.J. Cohen. 8: Randomness, Unpredictability and Absence of Order: the Identification by the Theory of Recursivity of the Mathematical Notion of Random Sequence; J.-P. Delahaye. 9: A Glance at Non-Standard Models and Logics of Uncertainty and Vaguness; D. Dubois, H. Prade. 10: Causal Laws are Objectifications of Inductive Schemes; W. Spohn. 11. Probabilistic Inference in Artificial Intelligence: the Method of Bayesian networks; J.-L. Golmard. – They intend to provide a comprehensive introduction to theoretical issues that occupy a central position in disciplines ranging from philosophy of mind and epistemology to cognitive science, decision theory and artificial intelligence. Some contributions shed new light on the standard conceptions of probability (such as Bayesianism, logical and computational theories); others offer detailed analyses of two important topics in the field of cognitive science : – the meaning and the representation of (partial) belief, and – the management of uncertaincy . This multidisciplinary approach to probability (the authors are philosophers as well as computer scientists) is designed to illuminate the intricacies of the problems in the domain of cognitive inquiry. M.-M. V.

Première édition en langue française, Paris : Payot, 1926 (Coll. Bibliothèque scientifique). La présente édition en est une réimpression à l’identique. – Il s’agit d’une tentative de concilier deux tendances différentes, et apparemment inconciliables, l’une caractérisant la psychologie, l’autre la physique. La conception susceptible de réaliser une telle conciliation entre la tendance matérialiste de la psychologie moderne et la tendance anti-matérialiste de la physique (qui réduit le monde à un ensemble de forces, d’énergies, de points théoriques, d’événements abstraits) est la conception de William James et des néo-réalistes américains, selon lesquels la substance du monde ne serait ni mentale ni matérielle, mais neutre, et c’est de cette substance neutre que seraient faits aussi bien le monde mental que le monde matériel. – Chap. I, Récentes critiques de la« conscience»; – II, Instinct et habitude; – III, Désir et sentiment; – IV, Influence de l’histoire passée sur l’état actuel des organismes vivants; – V, Lois causales psychologiques et physiques; – VI, Introspection; – VII, Définition de la perception; – VIII, Sensations et images; – IX, Le souvenir; – X, Mots et sens des mots; – XI, Idées générales et pensée; – XII, Croyance; – XIII, Vérité et fausseté; – XIV, Émotions et volonté; – XV, Traits caractéristiques des phénomènes mentaux. M.-M. V.

Cet ouvrage est la première tentative philosophique majeure pour reformuler le problème de la connaissance rationnelle dans une autre perspective que celle du consensus tacite de “loi de la Nature”, jusqu’alors prévalent dans la tradition philosophique rationaliste. Posant le caractère irréductible du probabilisme dans la science actuelle, l’A. suggère de faire l’économie du concept de lois de la Nature au profit d’une nouvelle conception de la connaissance et de la formation de l’opinion et des croyances. L’argumentation utilise les ressources de la logique, de l’épistémologie de la physique et de l’histoire de la philosophie pour tracer une voie intermédiaire entre les résurgences actuelles du relativisme sceptique et de ce que Kant appelait la métaphysique dogmatique. – Le livre est organisé selon deux mouvements, – un mouvement critique, et – un mouvement constructif. Chacun se divise selon deux directions, – la critique de la métaphysique, et – la critique de la théorie de la connaissance. – Chap. I, Introduction. – Partie I, «Y a-t-il des lois de la Nature ?» : Chap.II, Qu’est-ce que les lois de la Nature ?; Chap.III, La science idéalisée : la notion de loi chez David Lewis; Chap.IV, Nécessité. Le hasard et les mondes; Chap.V, Universalité. Les fondations naturalistes de la loi. – Partie II, «La croyance peut être rationnelle sans les lois» : Chap.VI, L’inférence à la meilleure explication : le salut par les lois ?; Chap.VII, Vers une nouvelle théorie de la connaissance et de l’opinion; Chap.VIII, Manifeste pour le cas où il n’y aurait pas de lois. – Partie III, «Les symétries comme guides des théories» : Chap.IX, Introduction à l’approche sémantique; Chap.X, Arguments de symétrie dans les sciences et dans la métaphysique; Chap.XI, Les symétries dans la science moderne. – Partie IV, «Les symétries et l’illusion de la probabilité logique» : Chap.XII, Les symétries de la probabilité; Chap.XIII, Les symétries de la cinématique des probabilités. M.-M. V.

This book is intended to provide a philosophically, and historically-based introduction to modal logic, offering to every reader, even those with little specific background, a conceptually clear path through the labyrinth of contemporary modal logic. This is done by emphasizing the notion of multimodality while delineating the formal side of the semantics and proof theory behind the topics in a smooth and gentle pace. The conceptual thread which ties the book together passes through topics like the development of modal logic from standard logic; the syntax and semantics of normal modal systems; the seminal ideas behind completeness, incompleteness, canonicity and finite models; the temporal logics, the logics of knowledge and belief; the generalized syntactical and semantical treatment of multimodalities and finally the pleasures and difficulties of quantified modal logic. – Multimodality is the notion which stands behind the most fertile investigations in modal logic, such as temporal logics, epistemic logics, dynamic logics and so on. By focusing on multimodal logic this book provides common ground for philosophers, logicians, linguists, mathematicians and computer scientists. The book is also designed to provide a repertoire of ideas and techniques for students interested in progressive inquiry in modal and multimodal logic. Each chapter is relatively independent, complemented with exercises and followed by a short bibliographical commentary intended for historically-minded readers. – Table of contents : Preface. - 1. Modal logic and standard logic. - 2. The syntax of normal modal systems. - 3. The semantics of normal modal systems. - 4. Completeness and canonicity. - 5. Incompleteness and finite models. - 6. Temporal logics. - 7. Epistemic logic: knowledge and belief. - 8. Multimodal logics. - 9. Towards quantified modal logic. M.-M. V.

Sont ici réunis pour la première fois en un volume trois textes sur le thème de la croyance. Que vaut le «besoin de croire» ? Est-il rationnel d’avoir des croyances dont on ne peut rendre raison ? Toutes les croyances religieuses sont-elles respectables du seul fait d’être crues ? Les débats sur la foi et la raison valent mieux que les simplifications et les amalgames contemporains. C’est pour en retrouver les lignes de partage que l’A. engage une discussion serrée où sont convoqués Nietzsche, Renan, James, Russell, Freud, et quelques autres. – On trouve successivement : – «La puissance du faux et la valeur du vrai», texte d’une conférence qui a été donnée, sous le titre «Robert Musil, la puissance du faux et la valeur du vrai», dans le cadre du colloque organisé par l’Université de Genève sur «Robert Musil, ironie, satire, faux sentiments» (9-11 décembre 2005). Cette contribution paraîtra en allemand dans le volume des actes du colloque; – «Faut-il défendre la religion ?» a pour origine une conférence faite, sous le titre «Croyance, foi et langage», au colloque organisé par l’Institut catholique de Paris sur le thème «L’intelligence de la foi parmi les rationalités contemporaines» (4-6 mars 2004), et publiée dans l’ouvrage intitulé Dieu et la raison. L’intelligence de la foi parmi les rationalités contemporaines, sous la direction de François Bousquet et Philippe Capelle (Paris : Bayard, 2005), III-127 p. Le texte initial a été considérablement augmenté et développé; – «Wittgenstein et les chemins de la religion» a paru pour la première fois dans la revue Europe, numéro spécial «Wittgenstein» (2003). Il est publié ici sous une forme un peu plus développée. M.-M. V.

Without Abstract

According to Fred Dretske’s externalist theory of knowledge a subject knows that p if and only if she believes that p and this belief is caused or causally sustained by the information that p. Another famous feature of Dretske’s epistemology is his denial that knowledge is closed under known logical entailment. The author argues that, given Dretske’s construal of information, he is in fact committed to the view that both information and knowledge are closed under known entailment. This has far-reaching consequences. For if it is true that, as Dretske also believes, accepting closure leads to skepticism, he must either embrace skepticism or abandon his information theory of knowledge. The latter alternative would seem to be preferable. But taking this route would deprive one of the most powerfully developed externalist epistemologies of its foundation.

A number of virtue epistemologists endorse the following thesis: Knowledge is true belief resulting from intellectual virtue, where Ss true belief results from intellectual virtue just in case S believes the truth because S is intellectually virtuous. This thesis commits one to a sort of contextualism about knowledge attributions. This is because, in general, sentences of the form X occurred because Y occurred require a contextualist treatment. This sort of contextualism is contrasted with more familiar versions. It is argued that the position: (a) yields a better solution to the lottery problem, and (b) may be grounded in a more general theory of virtue and credit.

In this paper I discuss the relation between various properties that have been regarded as important for determining whether or not a belief constitutes a piece of knowledge: its stability, strength and sensitivity to truth, as well as the strength of the epistemic position in which the subject is with respect to this belief. Attempts to explicate the relevant concepts more formally with the help of systems of spheres of possible worlds (à la Lewis and Grove) must take care to keep apart the very different roles that systems of spheres can play. Nozicks sensitivity account turns out to be closer to the stability analysis of knowledge (versions of which I identify in Plato, Descartes, Klein and Lehrer) than one might have suspected.

In this commentary on Rott’s paper “Stability, Strength and Sensitivity: Converting Belief into Knowledge”, the author discusses two problems of the stability theory of knowledge which are pointed out by Rott. She concludes that these problems offer no reason for rejecting the stability theory, but might be grounds for deviating from the standard AGM account of belief revision which Rott presupposes.

Alvin Goldman contends that, in addition to the familiar sense or use of the term “knowledge” according to which knowledge is at least true justified belief, there is a weaker yet strict sense or use of the term “knowledge” according to which knowledge amounts to nothing more than information-possession or mere true belief. In this paper, I argue that Goldman has failed to show that there is such a weaker sense, and that, even if he had shown this, he has not shown that this putative weaker sense is a strict one by his own criterion for strictness.

In this paper an empirical theory about the nature of intention is sketched. After stressing the necessity of reckoning with intentions in philosophy of action a strategy for deciding empirically between competing theories of intention is exposed and applied for criticizing various philosophical theories of intention, among others that of Bratman. The hypothesis that intentions are optimality beliefs is defended on the basis of empirical decision theory. Present empirical decision theory however does not provide an empirically satisfying elaboration of the desirability concepts used in these optimality beliefs. Based on process theories of deliberation two hypotheses for filling this gap are developed.

In this essay, I assess Keith Lehrer's case against Foundationalism, which consists of variations on three objections: The Independent Information or Belief Objection, The Risk of Error Objection, and the Hidden Argument Objection. I conclude that each objection fails for reasons that can be endorsed – indeed, I would say for reasons that should be endorsed – by antifoundationalists and foundationalists alike.

Scientific realism is a doctrine that was both in and out of fashion several times during the twentieth century. I begin by noting three presuppositions of a succinct characterization of scientific realism offered initially by the foremost critic in the latter part of the century, Bas van Fraassen. The first presupposition is that there is a fundamental distinction to be made between what is “empirical” and what is “theoretical”. The second presupposition is that a genuine scientific realism is committed to their being “a literally true story of what the world is like”. The third presupposition is that there are methods for justifying a belief in the empirical adequacy of a theory which do not also suffice to justify beliefs in its literal truth. Each of these presuppositions raises a number of problems, some of which are quite old and others rather newer. In each case, I briefly review some of the old problems and then elaborate the newer problems.

In order to examine the fit between realism and science, one needs to address two issues: the unit of science question (realism about which parts of science?) and the contents of realism question (which realism about science?). Answering these questions is a matter of conceptual and empirical inquiry by way local case studies. Instead of the more ordinary abstract and global scientific realism, what we get is a doubly local scientific realism based on a bottom-up strategy. Representative formulations of the former kind are in terms of the truth and reality of the posits of current science, in terms of warranted belief, in terms of mind-independent unobservable entities. Using illustrations mainly from the social sciences, doubly local scientific realism denies the global applicability of such formulations and seeks to make adjustments in their elements in response to information about local units of science: It is sufficient for a realist to give the existence of an entity (and the truth of a theory) a chance, while in some areas we may be in s position to make justified claims about actual existence (and truth). Logical inquiry-independent existence is sufficient for the social and human sciences, while mind-independence will be fine for many other domains. It should not be insisted that the theoretical posits of realist science be strict unobservables in all areas: most theoretical posits of the social sciences are idealized commonsensibles, such as elements in folk psychology. Unsurprisingly, this sort of local strategy will create space for realism that is able to accommodate larger areas of science without sacrificing traditional realist intuitions.

This paper develops a descriptive and normative account of how people respond to testimony. It postulates a default pathway in which people more or less automatically respond to a claim by accepting it, as long as the claim made is consistent with their beliefs and the source is credible. Otherwise, people enter a reflective pathway in which they evaluate the claim based on its explanatory coherence with everything else they believe. Computer simulations show how explanatory coherence can be maximized in real-life cases, taking into account all the relevant evidence including the credibility of whoever is making a claim. The explanatory-coherence account is more plausible both descriptively and normatively than a Bayesian account.

One of the main targets of Barry Stroud’s criticism in his recent book ‚The Quest for Reality. Subjectivism and the Metaphysics of Colour’ are eliminativist theories of colour which he regards as a version of the metaphysical project of the unmasking of colours (Stroud, 2000). According to this view, no physical objects have any of the colours we see them or believe them to have. However, although this error theory describes all our colour perceptions as illusory, and all our colour beliefs as false, it cannot deny that we actually perceive colours and that we do believe that physical objects are coloured. Therefore, it has to account for these psychological facts without relying on any assumptions about the colours of things. Thus, the central question for the unmasking project is whether it is possible to acknowledge someone’s perceiving a certain colour or having beliefs about the colours of things without holding that anything anywhere has any colour at all. Contrary to Stroud, this paper defends the view that we can acknowledge that people believe in colours without having ourselves to accept their existence.

What is the relation between entailment and reasons for belief? In this paper, I discuss several answers to this question, and I argue that these answers all face problems. I then propose the following answer: for all propositions p 1,…,p n and q, if the conjunction of p 1,…, and p n entails q, then there is a reason against a person’s both believing that p 1,…, and that p n and believing the negation of q. I argue that this answer avoids the problems that the other answers to this question face, and that it does not face any other problems either. I end by showing what the relation between deductive logic, reasons for belief and reasoning is if this answer is correct.

Epistemic minimalism affirms that mere true belief is sufficient for propositional knowledge. I construct a taxonomy of some specific forms of minimalism and locate within that taxonomy the distinct positions of various advocates of minimalism, including Alvin Goldman, Jaakko Hintikka, Crispin Sartwell, Wolfgang Lenzen, Franz von Kutschera, and others. I weigh generic minimalism against William Lycan’s objection that minimalism is incompatible with plausible principles about relations between knowledge, belief, and confidence. I argue that Lycan’s objection fails for equivocation but that some specific forms of minimalism are better able than others to articulate that defense.

This paper offers two new arguments for a version of Reflection, the principle that says, roughly, that if one knew now what one would believe in the future, one ought to believe it now. The most prominent existing argument for the principle is the coherence-based Dutch Strategy argument advanced by Bas van Fraassen (and others). Evnine’s two arguments are quite different. The first is a truth-based argument. On the basis of two substantive premises, that people’s beliefs generally get better over time and that being a person requires having knowledge of this fact, it concludes that it is rational to treat your future selves as experts. The second argument is a transcendental one. Being a person requires being able to engage in plans and projects. But these cannot be meaningfully undertaken unless one has Reflection-like expectations about one’s future beliefs. Hence, satisfaction of Reflection is necessary for being a person. Together, the arguments show that satisfaction of Reflection is both rational and necessary for persons.

La tradition philosophique s’accorde avec le sens commun pour subordonner toute explication de l’action intentionnelle d’un indvidu à un principe normatif de rationalité. L’une des versions de ce principe est le principe de charité de Davidson : il recommande que la plus grande partie possible des croyances que nous attribuons à un sujet soient des croyances que nous jugeons vraies. David Papineau (1987) combat cet «antiréalisme de la croyance», qui tend à minimiser la divergence entre les personnes ou les communautés, et propose de remplacer le principe de charité par un principe d’humanité selon lequel une théorie de l’interprétaton est adéquate si elle permet d’attribuer à l’indigène des croyances qu’il est plausible qu’il ait. Le présent article confronte cette suggestion de Papineau à la position qu’il adopte sur le problème général de l’interprétation psychologique, i.e. la question de savoir à quelles conditions on peut attribuer des contenus mentaux à un organisme ou, plus généralement, à un «dispositif».

La question centrale de la théorie de la connaissance est celle de savoir à quelles conditions une croyance mérite d’être qualifiée de connaissance. Le présent article plaide pour une conception dualiste dans laquelle la connaissance est factorisée en deux composantes : l’un des facteurs est le lien causal entre l’environnement et les croyances; l’autre facteur est constitué par les relations de justification rationnelle que les différentes croyances appartenant à un système s’apportent mutuellement. Sur le plan formel, ce point de vue dualiste se traduit par un dédoublement des constantes logiques, rendant possible la coexistence d’une interprétation classique (ou réaliste) et d’une interprétation intuitionniste (ou constructiviste) des propositions de la logique épistémique.

Introduction; – Nonmonotonicity on Classical Base; – Nonmonotonicity on Intuitionistic Base; – Generalization.

Are perceptual experiences reasons for perceptual beliefs? The act/content ambiguity of the term ‘belief’ carries over to this question. It is argued, following Popper, that experiences are reasons as well as causes for belief-acts, but not for belief-contents. This involves rejecting justificationism, the mistaken view that a reason for a belief-act must be a reason for its content. Popper's many critics presuppose justificationism, and so miss the main point of his solution to the problem of the empirical basis of science.