Specter of Reason

I want to consider the idea that there are three different common uses for each the following sentences: (1) God does not exist. (2) God exists.  I will outline a version of theological noncognitivism (TN), which is normally taken to entail the belief that (1) and (2) are neither true nor false.  The idea of noncognitivism in general (be it theological, moral, or what have you) is that the concepts in question are not propositional, which is another way of saying that they cannot be evaluated as either true or false.  TN implies that (1) and (2) are non-truth-evaluable under religious usages of (1) and (2).  However, what I will argue is that TN can acknowledge truth-evaluable versions of (1) and (2), and that noncognitivists can even assent to common uses of (1) which are truth-evaluable. It might look like I'm trying to mix noncognitivism with cognitivism, but that's not entirely true.  It also might look like I'm trying to tweak noncognitivism to make ...

Jason Stanley says that we must understand the need for practical ways of thinking if we are going to understand what it means to know how to do something.  His thesis ( Know How , 2011, p. 130) is this:  "What happens when I acquire skill in the activity of catching fly balls?  What happens is that I come to the realization that a certain way of catching a fly ball, which I think of practically, is a way that will give me counterfactual success in fly ball catching."  Thus, one must not simply have a properly practical way of thinking about catching a fly ball; one must also realize that they have this practical way of thinking about that way.  One must thereby come to the conclusion that the way is a good way of doing it. Stanley's account implies two ways of thinking:  The first way is the practical one, and the second is the way of thinking  about  the practical way of thinking  such that it is about a good way of acting.   Is thi...

In a recent piece for  The Stone , Jason Stanley rejects the common distinction between theoretical knowledge and practical skill.  His goal, apparently, is to liberate society from a false and oppressive elitism. He says: "The distinction between the practical and the theoretical is used to warehouse society into groups. It alienates and divides. It is fortunate, then, that it is nothing more than a fiction."  I'm not sure why that would be fortunate.  I rather think it would be fortunate if the warehousing turned out to be for the better.  If there was a problem, the fact that it was based on a fiction would not make me feel better.  In any case, Stanley does not draw our attention to any documented evidence of any alienation or division resulting from the folk conception of a practical/theoretical distinction.  I'm not convinced the folk conception is a problem at all.  But that's not what I want to write about right now. Stanley's piece i...

Interesting philosophical issues can arise when we investigate what it is we know or perceive about our actions while we are acting intentionally.  It should probably go without saying that, when we are acting intelligently, we know what we are doing, at least to some extent and in some sense of the verb, "to know."  I'm going to try to motivate the thesis that what we know is not obviously propositional in nature. Consider the following question: (1) What is she doing? It goes without saying that, in many normal situations, a proper response to (1) is a description or identification of an action.  However, (1) has an idiomatic usage.  It can be used to communicate fear or anxiety about what somebody is doing.  It can communicate a desire for an explanation for an action.  Context usually makes it clear which usage is intended. Now consider what happens when (1) is embedded in the following knowledge ascription: (2) She knows what she is doing. It...

My first video performance, and it's by no means flawless.  But it's the best I can offer for now.  A short improvisation followed by an imperfect rendition of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu:

In Chapter 8 of Know How (2011), Jason Stanley discusses whether or not there can be Gettier cases for knowledge how, and whether or not this means knowledge how is not propositional knowledge.  He accepts the following proposition: (P1) Gettier cases for know-how, if they exist, require that the subject intelligently and successfully F, where F ranges over actions. (P1) is supposed to be self-evident, but this surely depends on how we understand "intelligently."  What counts as an intelligent action, in the sense that makes P1 self-evidently true?  Is it enough for the action to have been consciously decided upon? We might be tempted to read P1 as only requiring that F be successfully performed with the conscious decision to F, which would entail the following proposition: (P1*) Gettier cases for know-how, if they exist, require that the subject consciously decide to and successfully F, where F ranges over actions. However, (P1*) does not seem self-...

Helen Dragas has spoken in defense of her and the Board of Visitor's decision to force Terry Sullivan to resign from the position of President of the University of Virginia.  No reason was given for the move, and Sullivan had been a highly respected and appreciated leader.  Her resignation was a shock, but the most poignant demands were not that she had to be reinstated, but that the decision to remove her had to be explained.  Without transparency, only the most careless and vile motivations (e.g., corporate greed) can be supposed. Dragas apologizes for this. She says, "our actions too readily lent themselves to perceptions of being opaque and not in keeping with the honored traditions of this University. For that reason, let me state clearly and unequivocally: you - our U.VA. family - deserved better from this Board, and we have heard your concerns loud and clear." So you'd think she would try to close the gap and offer transparency, at least some. But she doesn...