Volume 3 (2010): Issue 28 (May 2010)

Journal & Issue Details

Journal Details
Format: Journal
eISSN: 2182-2875
First Published: 01 Dec 1996
Publication timeframe: 4 times per year
Languages: English, Portuguese

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Epistemology neutralized

Published Online: 31 Dec 2018
Page range: 259 - 274

Abstract

The thesis that knowledge is a partly evaluative concept is now a widespread view in epistemology, informing some prominent debates in the field. Typically, the view is embraced on the grounds that justification is a necessary condition for knowledge and a normative concept — a reasonable motivation. However, the view also has counterintuitive implications, which have been neglected. In particular, it implies that J.L. Mackie’s error-theory of value entails global epistemic scepticism and that any true knowledge claim suffices to prove the error-theory is false. In this paper, I elaborate these difficulties and address objections at length.

Keywords

Definition of knowledge
epistemic justification
epistemic scepticism
error-theory of value
J.L. Mackie

: Open Access

Os limites da racionalidade: auto-engano e acrasia

Vasco Correia

Published Online: 31 Dec 2018
Page range: 275 - 291

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that ordinary cases of self-deception and akrasia derive from the phenomenon of motivated irrationality. According to the ‘motivational’ account, self-deception is typically induced by the influence that desires and emotions exert upon our cognitive faculties, and thereby upon the process of belief formation. Crucially, I show that this hypothesis is consistent with the empirical research carried out by social psychologists, and that it avoids a number of paradoxes that undermine the ‘intentionalist’ account. But motivated irrationality also seems to account for most cases of akrasia, insofar as desires are equally liable to affect the evaluative judgments through which we assess feasible options. This analysis thus set the premises for a unified account of irrationality.

Keywords

Akrasia
self-deception
irrationality
intentionalism
cognitive bias

: Open Access

Stage universalism, voints and sorts

Marta Campdelacreu

Published Online: 31 Dec 2018
Page range: 293 - 307

Abstract

In the current debate on how ordinary objects persist through time, more than one philosopher has endorsed the following two theses: stage theory and diachronic universalism. In this paper, I would like to offer a solution to the problem (related to lingering properties) that Balashov poses to the joint acceptance of these theses. I will also offer a number of reasons why, even if it is not necessary to undermine Balashov’s counterexamples, stage theorists can, without making their theory less appealing, reject Balashov’s understanding of sorts, which plays a crucial role in his criticisms of stage universalism.

Keywords

Stage theory
diachronic universalism
stage universalism
sorts

: Open Access

Sutrop on literary fiction-making: defending Currie

Jukka Mikkonen

Published Online: 31 Dec 2018
Page range: 309 - 315

Abstract

In her study Fiction and Imagination: The Anthropological Function of Literature (2000), Margit Sutrop criticizes Gregory Currie’s theory of fiction-making, as presented in The Nature of Fiction(1990), for using an inappropriate conception of the author’s ‘fictive intention.’ As Sutrop sees it, Currie is mistaken in reducing the author’s fictive intention to that of achieving a certain response in the audience. In this paper, I shall discuss Sutrop’s theory of fiction-making and argue that although her view is insightful in distinguishing the illocutionary effect and the perlocutionary effect in the author’s fictive intention, there are flaws in it. My aim is to show that, first, Sutrop’s critique of Currie’s view is misguided and, second, her own definition of fiction as the author’s expression of her imagination is problematic in not distinguishing literary fiction-making from other discursive functions and in dismissing the literary practice which regulates the production of literary fictions.