Official Website for Amitabha Palmer
Preamble: I’ve been working on this paper for longer than I care to admit but I have to turn it in at some point. I’ve written about 4 or 5 different versions of it all with different solutions or non-solutions to the puzzle I present. Anyhow, a few notes: (A) For some reason the footnotes […]
Read More Cilantro, Moral Truth, and JustificationResponse to David Coady’s “An Epistemic Defence of the Blogosphere” Preamble/vocab for non-philosophers: I wrote this for a class so, although I’ve tried to avoid it as much as possible, there are a few technical words which I’ll explain here:Epistemic reliability: A source is epistemically reliable if it produces/conveys more true beliefs than false beliefs. […]
Read More The Reliability of Blogs vs Conventional Media: A Response to David CoadyI’ve talked about Gettier before and much of what I say here will overlap with what I’ve already said. It turns out I’m much more comfortable lecturing on something if I write about it the night before. Hopefully this won’t always be the case ‘cuz it takes up a lot of time… Why Should You […]
Read More Gettier RevisitedIntroductionA while back, in an attempt to assuage feelings of doubt, I wrote a post on why the main issues in epistemology matter to Joe and Joanne Shmo. Here, I will address why what appears to be an insignificant esoteric and abstract issue in epistemology has extremely important consequences to our daily lives and especially […]
Read More Why Epistemology Matters: Reason Number 2I been having this weird experience of questioning the value of studying philosophy. Well, not so much for me personally, but for people who are not already interested. Here’s the thing: I, like pretty much anyone who teaches and studies philosophy, am passionate about it. There’s clearly no need to sell me on it. The […]
Read More Why Study Philosophy? Epistemology EditionIntroduction and ContextGettier’s “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” is considered to be one of–if not the most–important articles of 20th Century philosophy. Pre-Gettier, the standard definition of knowledge (since at least Aristotle) was “justified true belief”. Pretty much everyone we’ve studied so far held this account of knowledge to be correct (with the exception of Goldman who wrote post-Gettier […]
Read More Gettier: The Challenge to the Traditional Conception of KnowledgeIntroduction and Context“A topic that ain’t given no ‘spect” —Renowned Philosopher D. GurneyIntroduction and ContextSo far we’ve been looking at Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley’s account of what is possible for us to know. Common to all their accounts is that in order for our beliefs to be justified, we have to be able to offer […]
Read More What is a Justified Belief? Goldman and ReliablismIntroduction to Descartes Meditation IDescartes’ Meditations is one of the most important works in modern philosophy (i.e., 17th Century philosophy). It is the point of departure for many philosophical issues and debates up to and including the present. The overall aim of his project is to determine what we can know beyond any possible doubt; […]
Read More Descartes and the First Meditation: What Can We Know for Sure?Locke’s Complex Ideas Most of what we’ve talked about so far (in relation to ideas) concerns ideas, generally considered, and simple ideas. Recall that all ideas have as their source either perception or reflection on the operations of the mind; and in the case of simple ideas the mind is always passive (II. xii. […]
Read More Why Are Locke’s ‘Complex Ideas’ Easier to Comprehend than his ‘Simple Ideas’?The Prolem: Are All Locke’s Ideas Necessarily Imagistic? Those of you who are facebook friends know I that I recently posted about a little issue I’m having wif my Locke paper. Here’s the prolem: most of my analysis and criticisms of Locke’s epistemology rest on the premise that, for Locke, all ideas are images […]
Read More What Does "Bigger Than" Look Like in the Mind? Part 1 Locke’s Ideas
Wrestling with Philosophy 