Musings on Gettier and the definition of knowledge

by Coel Hellier Philosophers have traditionally defined knowledge as a belief that is both true and justified, a definition that sufficed until, 50 years ago, Edmund Gettier pointed out that the conditions could be fulfilled by accident, in ways that didn’t amount to what we would intuitively regard as knowledge. Gettier pointed to scenarios such …

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Why Phi Needs XPhi

by Mark O’Brien Humans are alone in the natural world (as far as we know) in the richness of our dealings with other members of our own species and in the fact that we have a complex language with which to negotiate these interactions. We have evolved a sophisticated suite of concepts and intuitions, and …

Staking positions amongst the varieties of scientism

by Massimo Pigliucci I have never understood why there is so much confusion about the definition of scientism. I just looked it up in my basic Apple dictionary, and it is crystal clear: “Excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.” The devil, and much of the discussion, of course, is in the …

New clothes for Shakespeare and Sondheim: on the arrogance of ignorance

by Steven Paul Leiva “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” 
-Charles Darwin I was once driving around with a colleague, an actor of sorts who I will call Harry Hotdoggen, when the subject of William Shakespeare came up. “Shakespeare is the Emperor’s New Clothes,” Harry said in a statement so definitive that I …