(UN)HOLY GRAIL OF EPISTEMOLOGY

• Authors: Paweł Ziȩba
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

As formulated by Duncan Pritchard and John McDowell, epistemological disjunctivism is the claim that perceptual experience can provide the subject with epistemic justification that is reflectively accessible and externally grounded at the same time. Pritchard calls this thesis ‘the holy grail of epistemology’, since it reconciles two traditionally rival theories of justification, namely epistemic internalism and epistemic externalism. The main objection against epistemological disjunctivism thus understood is that it does not do justice to the well-known internalist intuitions expressed in The New Evil Demon and Brain-in-a-Vat scenarios. The author defends epistemological disjunctivism from this objection by indicating that those who apply to such scenarios commit themselves to implausible views in the philosophy of mind. He concludes that epistemological disjunctivism accurately expresses the epistemological attitude of a non-reductive materialist regarding the body-mind problem.

Keywords

EN

ACCESSIBILISM; BRAIN-IN-A-VAT; EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION; EPISTEMOLOGY; INTERNALISM; EXTERNALISM; MENTALISM; NEW EVIL DEMON

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic
• Journal: Organon F. medzinárodný časopis pre analytickú filozofiu
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 21 - 33

Contributors

author

Paweł Ziȩba

• Institute of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Grodzka 52, 31-044 Cracow, Poland