1. STRAWSONIAN EPISTEMOLOGY. WHAT EPISTEMOLOGISTS CAN LEARN FROM "FREEDOM AND RESENTMENT".
- Author
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WILLASCHEK, Marcus
- Subjects
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RESENTMENT , *AUTONOMY (Psychology) , *THEORY of knowledge , *RESPONSIBILITY - Abstract
This paper investigates the possibility of applying P. F. Strawson's method in his seminal paper "Freedom and Resentment" (1962) to issues in epistemology. In that paper, Strawson sheds light on our concepts of responsibility and free will by looking at practices in which we employ these concepts not directly-by judging that someone is free or responsible-but rather indirectly by adopting "reactive attitudes" such as resentment and gratitude that presuppose that their targets are free and responsible in relevant respects. In a similar way, we may be able to shed light on the concept of knowledge by looking at aspects of our communicative practice such as assertions and their acceptance. In accepting as true what others assert, the paper argues, we typically attribute knowledge to the asserter. This connection between acceptance and knowledge-attribution can then be used to argue that the concept of knowledge implicitly employed in our communicative practice is externalist in spirit, but also includes internalist elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
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