Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Knowledge and the Flow of Information.

The morality of freedom

1. Introducing the Puzzle 2. Contextualism and the Puzzle 3. Invariantist Treatments 4. Sensitive Moderate Invariantism Bibliography

Knowledge and lotteries

THE distinguished author of “Why the Mind has a Body” is one of the most original and fearless philosophers of the school which labels itself “Critical Realism.” The present short volume, though it is written with all the freshness and vigour we associate with his work, is frankly disappointing. This is because, instead of stating his theory and advancing his argument from his own point of view, he develops it by means of a rather tedious criticism of Mr. Bradley, Mr. Russell, M. Bergson, and other philosophers. His own theory rests, he tells us, on two assumptions: first, that there is a world; second, that there is a self. Nature, he is convinced, is really what it appears to be, and the self is an outgrowth of nature, though in some of its manifestations rising above it. It seems to us that the primary difficulty of such assumptions is that they conflict with physical science and are irreconcilable with the scientific concepts of nature and self. In philosophy, assumptions in the premises have a curious knack of turning up in the conclusion so that no real progress can be made, but they are otherwise harmless enough. Scientific reality is a question of real metaphysical interest at the present time, but it finds no place in this theory, which is mainly concerned with the question of sense-data.A Theory of Knowledge.Charles AugustusStrongBy. Pp. xii+103. (London, Bombay and Sydney: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1923.) 6s. net.

Theory of Knowledge

Introduction 1. The Nature of Testimony 2. Rejecting Transmission 3. A Defense of Learning from Words 4. Norms of Assertion and Testimonial Knowledge 5. A Critique of Reductionism and Non-Reductionism 6. Dualism in the Epistemology of Testimony 7. Positive Reasons, Defeaters, and the Infant/Child Objection 8. Trust and Assurance: The Interpersonal View of Testimony Appendix. Memory as a Generative Epistemic Source

Learning From Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge

Norms of assertion

I. TESTIMONY AND THOMAS REID II. TESTIMONY AND ITS PLACE IN EPISTEMOLOGY III. REDUCTIONISM AND NON-REDUCTIONISM IN THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TESTIMONY IV. TESTIMONY AND THE EXTENT OF OUR DEPENDENCE ON OTHERS V. NEW AREAS AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TESTIMONY

The Epistemology of Testimony

A view of knowledge—what I call the Deserving Credit View of Knowledge(DCVK)—found in much of the recent epistemological literature, particularly among so-called virtue epistemologists, centres around the thesis that knowledge is something for which a subject deserves credit. Indeed, this is said to be the central difference between those true beliefs that qualify as knowledge and those that are true merely by luck—the former, unlike the latter, are achievements of the subject and are thereby creditable to her. Moreover, it is often further noted that deserving credit is what explains the additional value that knowledge has over merely lucky true belief. In this paper, I argue that the general conception of knowledge found in the DCVK is fundamentally incorrect. In particular, I show that deserving credit cannot be what distinguishes knowledge from merely lucky true belief since knowledge is not something for which a subject always deserves credit.

Why we don’t deserve credit for everything we know

We often talk about knowledge being transmitted via testimony. This suggests a picture of testimony with striking similarities to memory. For instance, it is often assumed that neither is a generative source of knowledge: while the former transmits knowledge from one speaker to another, the latter preserves beliefs from one time to another. These considerations give rise to a stronger and a weaker thesis regarding the transmission of testimonial knowledge. The stronger thesis is that each speaker in a chain of testimonial transmission must know that p in order to pass this knowledge to a hearer. The weaker thesis is that at least the first speaker must know that p in order for any hearer in the chain to come to know that p via testimony. I argue that both theses are false, and hence testimony, unlike memory, can be a generative source of knowledge.

Jennifer Lackey

Papers

Learning From Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge

Norms of assertion

The Epistemology of Testimony

Why we don’t deserve credit for everything we know

Testimonial Knowledge and Transmission