Knowledge as a mental state? [Elektronische Ressource] : a study on Oxford realism / von Jens Kohne

Sujets

• Soziologie

Informations

• Publié par: technische_universitat_kaiserslautern
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 26
• Langue: English

Extrait

Knowledge as a Mental State?
– A study on Oxford Realism –
Vom Fachbereich
Sozialwissenschaften der
Technischen Universit¨at Kaiserslautern
zur Verleihung des akademischen Grades
Doktor der Philosophie (Dr. phil.)
genehmigte
Dissertation
von
J e n s K o h n e, M.A.
D 386
Kaiserslautern 20102Contents
Preface iii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The starting point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Road map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 An analysis of knowledge 7
2.1 Epistemic orthodoxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Dimensions of knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Different meanings of ‘knowledge’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 Various kinds of knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.3 Ways of acquiring knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3 Knowledge and the first person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 Fallible knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3 Knowledge as mental state 39
3.1 John Cook Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1.2 The notion of apprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1.3 Cook Wilson’s ‘theory’ of knowledge . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.1.4 Some criticism’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2 Harold A. Prichard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.2.2 Apprehension reviewed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.3 Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.2.4 Some criticisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
3.3 John L. Austin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
iii
3.3.2 Austin’s theory of knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.3.3 Some criticism’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4 Summary 121
4.1 Knowledge as a mental state! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
References 125Preface
On perception Harold A. Prichard wrote:
Perception as a subject of discussion seems to need no apology.
For,hackneyed thoughitmaybe,itisoneofthosesubjectswhich
strike us as more puzzling the more we consider it, and the books
which deal with it, [...], are apt to be unconvincing and give
the impression that the key to the subject has still to be found.
(Prichard 1950: 52)
I think the same is true for the subject of knowledge, especially if these
“books which deal with” knowledge are written by those philosophers who
are standing in an analytic tradition. The unconvincing thing here is that
those philosophers are unable to handle the so-called ‘Gettier-problem’ in an
appropriate way, which leads them into a dead end: the unfruitful external-
ism/internalism debate. This is the reason why it appears to me “that the
key to the subject has still to be found”.
To quote again Prichard 1950: 52,
this [book] is an attempt to formulate a line of thought to which
I have been driven in the endeavour to clear up my own mind on
the subject [of knowledge], andinthe main to putforwardatany
rate for discussion [an argument] which run counter to current
views.
This is what I call the MS thesis: knowledge has to be understood as mental
state, thereforeitisnotaspecies ofjustified truebelief. Indeed, knowledge is
nobeliefatall. That’sit,thepointofsubstanceofthiscurrentconsideration.
iiiivChapter 1
Introduction
12
1.1 The starting point
Subject of this book is an epistemological consideration—a consideration
which could be characterised as a main theme—maybe the main theme—of
thatpartofphilosophyweallknowasepistemology: thenatureofknowledge.
But other than the most essays on the subject of knowledge, here I am going
to deal with a largely overlooked account to try to find an answer to the
epistemological question of knowledge. This is the mental state account of
knowledge (Price 2002: 45 used in his Belief the formulation “mental acts”
and Williamson 1995, 2001 talks about a “state of mind”). Or to put it into
the question I chose as title: is knowledge a mental state?
At first glance the question whether knowledge is a mental state seems
itself questionable. What kind of thing is a ‘mental state‘? And why should
we treat knowledge as such a thing? Finally, what is the value of an account
which isbased ontheideathatknowledge isamental state? Afurtherdoubt
about the value of a mental state thesis—in the following I will call it MS
thesis—is the fact that this kind of thinking upon the nature of knowledge
did not take a leading part through epistemological thinking in the history
of philosophy. In fact, the main (and most successful) account to explain
knowledge since Plato is the thesis—I will call it JTB thesis for short—that
knowledge has to be understood in terms of justified true belief. Thus, liv-
ing in the shadows is a correct way in order to characterise the existence
of the MS thesis as an epistemological theory. The advocates of an MS
thesis attempting to explain the nature of knowledge nowadays are Timo-
thy Williamson 1995, especially his Knowledge and its Limits 2001, Keith
Hossack 2007, Sayre 1997: 139n5 too “agrees [...] in treating knowledge as
cognitively basic”, and during the history of philosophy the so-called ‘Ox-
fordRealists’, philosophers like John Cook Wilson 1969in his Statement and
Inference, Harold A. Prichard 1907 and especially his Knowledge and Per-
ception 1950 and as a descendant of both John L. Austin in his Other Minds
1979.
Evenafewphilosophersoutsidethetraditionofthe‘OxfordRealists’have
mentioned the possibility to explain knowledge as mental state, for example:
Ayer 1979: 14-26 in the short chapter Does knowing consist in being in a
special state of mind? of his The Problem of Knowledge, Price 2002: 42-46 a
small subchapter in the second lecture of his Belief, Travis 2005 an approach
of the Cook Wilsonian view, Tufts 2000, White 1982: 107-111 and Sayre
1997. And normally the result of this poor attention is a rejection of the MS
thesis (see Ayer 1979, Tufts 2000 and White 1982).
Sowehavetoconcede firstthatthereisonlyasmallgroupofphilosophers
who used to explain knowledge in terms of a mental state, particularly the3
‘Oxford Realists’. And secondly, the acceptance of the MS thesis is low and
negative. There is an interesting detail here: unlike the poor interest in an
epistemic theory such as the MS thesis, philosophers like Prichard or Austin
(and their philosophical thinking) are not really living in the shadows of
philosophicalconsideration. Indeedtheirphilosophicalimpactishighlevel, if
weconsiderforinstancePrichard’s moralwritings(seee.g. Prichard2002)or
Austin’stheoryofspeechacts(1962a). Ithinkwecanconcludefromthisfact
that the reason of the ‘negative’ ignorance in respect of their epistemological
point of view was not caused by a negative quality of their philosophy.
Now, the question we are faced with (and that should be answered here)
is: what is wrong with the MS thesis even though it is held by high class
philosophers? Why is the epistemic thinking of Cook Wilson, Prichard and
Austin afflicted with such ignorance? I will try to explain this later on with
thenotionofanunreflectedPlatonianheritageduring2000yearsofepistemic
thinking—a notion which is similar to a point Hetherington 2001 has called
“epistemic absolutism”.
So, there are three main purposes which I am pursuing in this considera-
tion:
1. To explain the reasons why there is such an ignorance towards an as-
sertion of the MS thesis. I am going to pursue this through an analysis
of knowledge which will demonstrate the inappropriateness of the JTB
thesis as an adequate analysis of knowledge.
2. To describe that it is a mistake to ignore or at least underestimate the
MS thesis in the discussion of an appropriate definition of knowledge
and to maintain that the MS thesis is the key to a general theory of
knowledge.
3. Conclusion: If the first two steps are correct, the JTB thesis is insuffi-
cient in order to give an account of the nature of knowledge in general.
Aconsequence fromthis is: alltheepistemic theories which aredealing
with the JTB thesis are based on deficient assumptions. Hence their
results—notably the well-known externalism/internalism debate—are
insufficient, too. So, there is a need for a new theory of knowledge
based on the MS thesis.
In the course of my consideration I am going to justify the following three
theses:4
• The JTB thesis as a definition of knowledge in general is deficient, as
the JTB thesis describes the propositional aspect of knowledge only.
But the propositional knowledge—the so-called ‘knowledge that’—is
merely one element among others that has to be recognized in search
of a theory of knowledge.
• The status of the ‘knowledge that’ is derivative and not ultimate. It
is derived from the n