Sorry for the paucity of posting this month. However judging by many of the blogs I read regularly I'm not alone. It'll probably continue for at least an other week. Then I have lots of other things to talk about. (Including the most recent issue of Element which arrived last week). In the mean time the latest Philosopher's Carnival is up. Here are some brief comments:
First up in Crooked Timber's post about irresponsible academic specialization by analytic philosophers. It ended up in a debate about Derrida, as these things often do. However the comments actually became quite good with some very nice discussion about Derrida. Often I notice these are usually slam fests by analytic philosophers for whom Derrida is their ultimate boogey-man. People actually familiar with Derrida (as opposed to the "I had to read On Grammatology for a class" kind of exposure) made an appearance. And were actually allowed to speak. Even if you read this post last month when I first linked to it it's worth reading again.
Duck Rabbit's excellent post on Kant and the "two world issue" is worth reading. (He's reacting to a post at the Kant blog. This divide is often between metaphysical readings of Kant and the epistemological ones (i.e. the neo-Kantians) Duckrabbit suggests that the two versus one world reading shouldn't be put into this shape. It sounds to me like Duckrabbit is injecting a bit of Davidsonian "realms of discourse" type critique. That is can we translate kinds of discourse. This is an intriguing approach to Kant, I must say. Anyway it's well worth reading and relates somewhat to my post from last month on Heidegger and Kuhn. (Really Heidegger's externalist take on Kant versus the neo-Kantian)
Related to this is a discussion of science and the issue of the "spectator" problem. This is up at The Hanged Man, a blog that I thouhgt was dead for a while. I guess it is alive again. One way of looking at this question is that passive spectator views of knowledge are the idea of internalist views of knowledge. (Thus the relavance of the externalist/internalist debate)
Kevin's post on Heidegger and the utility of philosophy made the cut. Undoubtedly relevant to Kevin as he heads towards a career in philosophy. Me, I think it interesting and useful in a certain way, but tend to disagree over how useful it is. Thus my day job.
Also related to the earlier discussion about interenalism is a good post on epistemic internalism. (Although the author undermines their efforts by writing in white text on a black background) Anyway I think they make a good point when they suggest that ultimately the issue in epistemology is whether we can be held responsible for bad reasoning if the justifications for our beliefs aren't cognitively accessable. That is, I think, the old view that ultimately epistemology is significant on ethical grounds. How ought we act? And that ought entails can. So can the externalist deal with this? (Not in the post, but relevant) The traditional way is by reliability. That is we might not be able to understand our whole justification process but we can tell if it is reliable. I tend to distrust reliability approaches, although I do favor the broader pragmatic approach. That is a belief is justified to the degree it is stable to the community's attempts to falsify it and continue inquiring. But there are, as interpreters of Peirce have noted, problems even in this approach. I think the ultimate answer is one of the relationship between ethics and risk. And that's the approach that I see the Heideggarians offering.
So certain approaches in epistemology are attempting to avoid risk. That's part of the attractiveness, I think, towards more passive approaches towards knowing. (i.e. spectator theories) If knowledge arises within experience in a way that isn't just passive, then I think the kind of responsibility that arises is one that essentially involves risk. So they are polar opposites.
There are a few more very interesting posts. This was one of the better Carnivals. Probably, I suspect, because it wasn't limited just to self-submitted posts. I'll make a few more comments later when (if?) I get some time.
Thanks for the plug (you can link directly if you want). I should point out that it was Bader, at Transcendental Idealism, who made the point that two vs. one doesn't line up with ontological vs. epistemological, and I'm just agreeing with him. And you can call me Duck (interestingly, I tend to see the rabbit first).
Fixed that. My bad. I've been rather busy and wrote this up quickly. Somehow the link didn't get included.
I must admit that I still find the two world vs. one world reading of Kant problematic. Not on philological grounds but just because I think Kant has some problems here. But I think your discussion points the way to the right reading. While I wouldn't ever say Heidegger's reading is philologically a correct one, it is a very interesting one although I seriously wonder what is left with things-in-themselves. I think Heidegger moves more towards Peirce's rethinking of Kant.
Many apologies for the stylishly dark -- though, perhaps, difficult to read -- format of the blog.
Anyway, thanks for the plug. I think you are absolutely right that the future for epistemology lies in plumbing the resources of value theory/action theory.
You might enjoy checking out Nishi Shah's stuff on epistemic responsibility. He doesn't address questions of responsibility for risky activity, but he makes the claim that the heart of an account of epistemic responsibility should be Kantian. He plugs for what might called "epistemic autonomy" (as opposed to what might be called "epistemic freedom"). Interesting stuff indeed.
-Idris
Don't worry. It's just my pet peeve. (Mainly because I find it hard with my work monitor to read reversed text) So I've made it my quest to get everyone to use easier to read text on blogs.
If I can ever find some time this month I ought write up a bit on Peirce and Kantian ethics as applied to epistemology.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
and Theology
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