Thematic
Inference to the best explanation
Inference to the best explanation is the procedure of choosing the hypothesis or theory that best explains the available data. The factors that make one explanation better than ...
Search Results 1 - 25 of 43. Results contain 57 matches
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Thematic
Innate knowledge
If innate knowledge exists, there must be innate beliefs and those beliefs must count as knowledge. In consequence, the problem of clarifying the concept of innate knowledge divides ...
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Thematic
Other Minds
It has traditionally been thought that the problem of other minds is epistemological: how is it that we know other people have thoughts, experiences and emotions? After all, ...
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Thematic
Scientific realism and antirealism
Traditionally, scientific realism asserts that the objects of scientific knowledge exist independently of the minds or acts of scientists and that scientific theories are true of that objective ...
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Thematic
Archaeology, philosophy of
Questions about the scientific status of archaeology have been central to field-defining debates since the late nineteenth century and have frequently involved appeals to philosophical sources. With the ...
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Thematic
Non-monotonic logic
A relation of inference is ‘monotonic’ if the addition of premises does not undermine previously reached conclusions; otherwise the relation is non-monotonic. Deductive inference, at least according to ...
Thematic
Extended Cognition
Extended cognition takes the idea that your mind is ‘on’ your smartphone literally. It says that human cognitive states and processes sometimes spill outside our heads and into ...
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Thematic
Mind, computational theories of
The computational theory of mind (CTM) is the theory that the mind can be understood as a computer or, roughly, as the ‘software program’ of the brain. It ...
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Thematic
Causation
Two opposed viewpoints raise complementary problems about causation. The first is from Hume: watch the child kick the ball. You see the foot touch the ball and the ...
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Thematic
Knowledge and justification, coherence theory of
Coherence theories of justification represent one main alternative to foundationalist theories of justification. If, as has usually been thought, possessing epistemic justification is one necessary condition (along ...
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Thematic
Testimony
In contemporary epistemology, ‘testimony’ is used as an umbrella term to refer to all those instances where we form a belief, or acquire knowledge, on the basis of ...
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Thematic
Justification, epistemic
The term ‘justification’ belongs to a cluster of normative terms that also includes ‘rational’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘warranted’. All these are commonly used in epistemology, but there is no ...
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Thematic
Risk assessment
Probabilistic or quantitative risk assessment (QRA) aims to identify, estimate and evaluate a variety of threats to human health and safety. These threats arise primarily from particular technologies ...
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Thematic
Empiricism
In all its forms, empiricism stresses the fundamental role of experience. As a doctrine in epistemology it holds that all knowledge is ultimately based on experience. Likewise an ...
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Thematic
Simulation theory
Mental simulation is the simulation, replication or re-enactment, usually in imagination, of the thinking, decision-making, emotional responses or other aspects of the mental life of another person. According ...
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Thematic
Timelessness, metaphysics of
The metaphysics of timelessness focuses on the idea that time does not exist. To understand what this means, it is important to first gain a conceptual grip on ...
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Vision
Vision is the most studied sense. It is our richest source of information about the external world, providing us with knowledge of the shape, size, distance, colour and ...
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Thematic
Inductive inference
According to a long tradition, an inductive inference is an inference from a premise of the form ‘all observed A are B’ to a conclusion of ...
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Thematic
Understanding
Understanding has recently become a focus of epistemological interest. Some, including Kvanvig (2003) and Pritchard (2010) maintain that it is intrinsically or finally valuable – that is, valuable ...
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Thematic
Animal minds
By examining the mind across species, we can make better progress on questions about the nature of the mind generally. While this has been acknowledged since ancient times, ...
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Thematic
Natural theology
Natural theology aims at establishing truths or acquiring knowledge about God (or divine matters generally) using only our natural cognitive resources. The phrase ‘our natural cognitive resources’ identifies ...
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Thematic
Scepticism
Simply put, scepticism is the view that we fail to know anything. More generally, the term ‘scepticism’ refers to a family of views, each of which denies that ...
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Thematic
Introspection, epistemology of
If we wish to know what is going on in someone else’s mind, we must observe their behaviour; on the basis of what we observe, we may sometimes ...
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Thematic
Intuitions, philosophical appeals to
Intuitions are, according to many philosophers, treated as a primary source of evidence in much distinctively philosophical inquiry. While some contest this claim, if it is true, then ...
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Biographical
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 BC)
Cicero, pre-eminent Roman statesman and orator of the first century bc and a prolific writer, composed the first substantial body of philosophical work in Latin. Rising from ...
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