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JournalISSN: 1358-2461

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 

Cambridge University Press
About: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement is an academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Argument & Action (philosophy). It has an ISSN identifier of 1358-2461. Over the lifetime, 908 publications have been published receiving 9537 citations. The journal is also known as: Royal Institute of Philosophy supplements.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The primacy of unmediated self-knowledge is attested by the fact that we distrust the exceptions until they can be reconciled with the unmediated as discussed by the authors, and we distrust exceptions only rarely in the case of beliefs about my own states of mind.
Abstract: I know, for the most part, what I think, want, and intend, and what my sensations are. In addition, I know a great deal about the world around me. I also sometimes know what goes on in other people's minds. Each of these three kinds of empirical knowledge has its distinctive characteristics. What I know about the contents of my own mind I generally know without investigation or appeal to evidence. There are exceptions, but the primacy of unmediated self-knowledge is attested by the fact that we distrust the exceptions until they can be reconciled with the unmediated. My knowledge of the world outside of myself, on the other hand, depends on the functioning of my sense organs, and this causal dependence on the senses makes my beliefs about the world of nature open to a sort of uncertainty that arises only rarely in the case of beliefs about my own states of mind. Many of my simple perceptions of what is going on in the world are not based on further evidence; my perceptual beliefs are simply caused directly by the events and objects around me. But my knowledge of the propositional contents of other minds is never immediate in this sense; I would have no access to what others think and value if I could not note their behaviour.

307 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors offer themselves as a nature guide, exploring for values, and offer to look the world over, to find the value of a life in an unexamined world.
Abstract: I offer myself as a nature guide, exploring for values. Many before us have got lost and we must look the world over. The unexamined life is not worth living; life in an unexamined world is not worthy living either. We miss too much of value.

251 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Anthropocene is the successor geological period to the Holocene as mentioned in this paper, which is characterized by relatively stable and temperate climatic and environmental conditions that were conducive to the development of human societies.
Abstract: Nobel-price winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen introduced in 2000 the concept of the Anthropocene as the name for the successor geological period to the Holocene. The Holocene started about 12,000 years ago and is characterized by the relatively stable and temperate climatic and environmental conditions that were conducive to the development of human societies. Until recently, human development had relatively little impact on the dynamics of geological time. Although disagreement exists over the exact birth date of the Anthropocene, it is indisputable that the impact of human activity on the geo-climatic environment became more pronounced from the industrial revolution onwards, leading to a situation in which humans are now widely considered to have an eco-geologically critical impact on the earth's bio-physical system. The most obvious example is the accumulation of greenhouse gases like CO2 and Methane (CH4) in the atmosphere and the changes this induces in climatic dynamics. Others are the growing homogenization of biodiversity as a result of human-induced species migration, mass extinction and bio-diversity loss, the manufacturing of new (sub-)species through genetic modification, or the geodetic consequences resulting from, for example, large dam construction, mining and changing sea-levels.

206 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A theory of knowledge that can explain why knowledge is distinctively valuable has been proposed in the post-Gettier literature as mentioned in this paper, where the authors argue that it is not knowledge itself which is necessarily valuable but rather justified true belief.
Abstract: It is a widespread pre-theoretical intuition that knowledge is distinctively valuable. If this were not so, then it would be simply mysterious why knowledge has been the focus of so much of epistemological theorising, rather than some other epistemic standing like justified true belief. Given this fact, however, it is obviously important to a theory of knowledge that it is able to offer a good explanation of why we have this intuition. Indeed, some, such as Jonathan Kvanvig (2003) and Timothy Williamson (2000), have argued that if a theory of knowledge does not make it transparent why knowledge is distinctively valuable then this is a decisive strike against it. We do not need to go this far, however. What is important is just that a theory of knowledge is able to adequately account for this intuition. One very direct way of accounting for the intuition would be to offer a theory of knowledge which demonstrated why knowledge is distinctively valuable in the manner that we intuitively suppose. We will call proposals of this sort validatory, since they aim to validate our pre-theoretical intuitions about the value of knowledge. Positions of this sort have been offered by, for example, Linda Zagzebski (1996; 1999; 2003) and John Greco (2002; 2007; forthcominga), and we will consider one such proposal in this respect below. Notice, however, that one does not need to validate an intuition in order to account for it. One could instead put forward a theory of knowledge on which knowledge is not distinctively valuable, but which could explain why we might pre-theoretically think that knowledge is distinctively valuable. We will call proposals of this sort revisionist, since they revise our pre-theoretical intuitions about the value of knowledge. Mark Kaplan (1985), for example, famously argued that the moral of the post-Gettier literature was that it is not knowledge which is distinctively valuable but rather justified true belief – knowledge being justified true belief plus an anti-Gettier condition – but that since justified true belief usually sufficed for knowledge, the mistake was entirely natural. A second proposal

146 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The moral is a sphere of the practical and the practical itself only a sphere or the normative as discussed by the authors, and normative words guide us in all we believe, feel and do. But do these normative words then have a specifically moral sense? If so can it be defined?
Abstract: We use such terms as good, bad, right, wrong, should, ought, in many ways other than moral: good evidence and bad argument, right answers and wrong notes, novels which should be read and policies which ought not to be adopted. The moral is a sphere of the practical and the practical itself only a sphere or the normative. Norms guide us in all we believe, feel and do. Do these normative words then have a specifically moral sense? If so can it be defined?

143 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202330
202267
202129
202024
201922
201846