Published by De Gruyter

Epistemic Studies

Philosophy of Science, Cognition and Mind

Edited by: Michael Esfeld, Stephan Hartmann and Albert Newen
Scientific consultation: Katalin Balog, Claus Beisbart, Craig Callender, Tim Crane, Katja Crone, Ophelia Deroy, Mauro Dorato, Alison Fernandes, Jens Harbecke, Vera Hoffmann-Kolss, Max Kistler, Beate Krickel, Anna Marmodoro, Alyssa Ney, Hans Rott, Wolfgang Spohn and Gottfried Vosgerau

ISSN: 2512-5168

Formerly up to volume 34 under the title "Epistemische Studien / Epistemic Studies"

e-ISSN 2512-5575

Übersicht
Volumes

This series is devoted to publishing books in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. The series aims at being an outstanding platform for state of the art contributions in these areas. The studies should be carried out in an argumentative style and advance current debates in a significant manner. While the main publication language is English, we also welcome German language manuscript submissions. All books are peer-reviewed.

Author / Editor information

Michael Esfeld, University of Lausanne, Stephan Hartmann, LMU Munich, and Albert Newen, Ruhr-University Bochum.

Topics

Book Ahead of Publication 2025

Voicing Identities

The Uses of Inner Speech for Self-Understanding

Francesco Fanti Rovetta

Volume 53 in this series

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We are often asked to describe ourselves. In response, one might propose a few adjectives, or possibly even a brief account of how they became the person they are today. How we develop such self-understanding is a complicated matter involving various cognitive and social processes. Fanti Rovetta contributes to the comprehension of these processes by exploring the role of inner speech, or verbal thought, in self-understanding. Drawing from sociolinguistics, he proposes and applies a novel theoretical framework, a situated approach to inner speech, which emphasizes individual variation, and suggests that each person has a style of inner speaking. Such style of inner speaking constrains the linguistic hermeneutic resources a person can access in thinking about themselves and in making sense of their experiences. Additionally, he investigates the role of inner speech in narrative thinking and in verbal rumination, which are two key mental phenomena related to self-understanding. Throughout the book, the approach adopted is multidisciplinary, integrating philosophical discussion with recent developments in cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111555904
ISBN:: 9783111555904
ISBN:: 9783111556284
ISBN:: 9783111555379
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Language
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2024

Konstitutive Bedingungen mentaler Repräsentation

Adrian Wieczorek

Volume 52 in this series

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The paradigm of mental representation plays a crucial role in determining how the mind is understood in philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and AI. Wieczorek develops a systematic answer to the question of how such environmental models can be understood and realized. With respect to perception, he analyzes leading theories, sheds light on their insights and deficits, and develops an approach that can be integrated into the current debate.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111380551
ISBN:: 9783111380551
ISBN:: 9783111381060
ISBN:: 9783111380537
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: Philosophy of the Natural Sciences
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

The Metaphysics of Bohmian Mechanics

A Comprehensive Guide to the Different Interpretations of Bohmian Ontology

Vera Matarese

Volume 51 in this series

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The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive guide to the metaphysics of Bohmian mechanics. Bohmian mechanics is a quantum theory that describes the motion of particles following trajectories that are determined by the quantum wave-function. The key question that the theory has to face relates to the ontological interpretation of the quantum wave-function. The main debate has mostly centered around two opposing views, wave-function realism on the one hand, and the nomological view on the other hand. The supporters of the former believe that the wave-function is a physical field living in a high-dimensional space; the supporters of the latter regard the wave-function as just an entity that appears in the laws of nature and lacks physical status. This monograph discusses both views open-mindedly, illuminating their tacit problems and providing new insight into how they can be overcome. Moreover, it discusses the structuralist view, which is often neglected and which can be regarded as a reconciliation of the two main opposing camps.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110793871
ISBN:: 9783110793871
ISBN:: 9783111627274
ISBN:: 9783110793741
ISBN:: 9783110794236
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: Philosophy of the Natural Sciences
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

The Paradox of False Belief Understanding

The Role of Cognitive and Situational Factors for the Development of Social Cognition

Julia Wolf

Volume 50 in this series

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Our ability to understand others is one of the most central parts of human life, but explaining how this ability develops remains a controversial issue, exercising psychologists and philosophers alike. Within this literature the Paradox of False Belief Understanding remains one of the main open challenges. Based on an up to date overview of the empirical and theoretical literature, this book highlights the significance of this paradox for our understanding of the development of social cognition and provides a new explanation of it in the form of the Situational Mental File Account. Central features of the account are, firstly, identitfying three distinct stages in the development of belief understanding and, secondly, elaborating the role of both cognitive and situational factors as well as their interaction in the development of belief understanding. This account is also applied to the related phenomenon of pretend play, demonstrating the potential for a wider application of the account. This account generates both new empirical predications and a framework for further theoretical work, thereby providing a fruitful ground for further interdisciplinary research in this area.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110758610
ISBN:: 9783110758610
ISBN:: 9783111280080
ISBN:: 9783110758320
ISBN:: 9783110758658
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: Philosophy of the Natural Sciences
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Talking About Thinking

Language, Thought, and Mentalizing

Leda Berio

Volume 49 in this series

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Our ability to attribute mental states to others ("to mentalize") has been the subject of philosophical and psychological studies for a very long time, yet the role of language acquisition in the development of our mentalizing abilities has been largely understudied. This book addresses this gap in the philosophical literature.

The book presents an account of how false belief reasoning is impacted by language acquisition, and it does so by placing it in the larger context of the issue, how language impacts cognition in general. The work provides the reader with detailed and critical literature reviews, and draws on them to argue that language acquisition helps false belief reasoning by boosting the ability to create schemata that facilitate processing of information in some social contexts. According to this framework, it is a combination of syntactic clues and cultural narratives that helps the child to solve the classic false belief task.

The book provides a novel, original account of how language helps false belief reasoning, while also giving the reader a broad, precise and well-documented picture of the debate around some of the most fundamental issues in social cognition.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110748475
ISBN:: 9783110748475
ISBN:: 9783111277066
ISBN:: 9783110748550
ISBN:: 9783110748437
Subject:: Linguistics and Semiotics
Subject:: Theoretical Frameworks and Disciplines
Subject:: Cognitive Linguistics
Subject:: Philosophy of Language
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Self-Fulfilling Science

Charles Lowe

Volume 48 in this series

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Claims that science may becoming 'self-fulfilling' through its impact on objects of study have recently risen to prominence. Despite radical statements about the supposed consequences of such accounts, however, the central notion of scientific self-fulfillment has remained obscure, leading to skewed views of its actual prevalence and significance.

Self-Fulfilling Science illuminates this underexplored phenomenon, drawing on insights from philosophy of science to address questions of its conceptualization, prevalence, and significance. The book critically engages with the popular notion that economic theories of homo economicus exhibit self-fulfillment, and explores its relevance to various metaphysical, ethical, and epistemic issues. Extreme claims of fundamental incompatibility with our usual notions of scientific success are ill-founded. Instead, self-fulfillment’s true epistemic significance lies in more local, nuanced philosophical issues such as theory evaluation and the thesis of underdetermination.

In presenting a novel framework, this book facilitates deeper engagement with the developing field of self-fulfilling science, and is of interest to philosophers of science, social scientists, and social constructionists.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110746402
ISBN:: 9783110746402
ISBN:: 9783111274744
ISBN:: 9783110746532
ISBN:: 9783110746334
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: General Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Epistemic Defeat

A Treatment of Defeat as an Independent Phenomenon

Jan Constantin

Volume 47 in this series

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A number of well-developed theories shed light on the question, under what circumstances our beliefs enjoy epistemic justification. Yet, comparatively little is known about epistemic defeat—when new information causes the loss of epistemic justification. This book proposes and defends a detailed account of epistemic defeaters. The main kinds of defeaters are analyzed in detail and integrated into a general framework that aims to explain how beliefs lose justification. It is argued that defeaters introduce incompatibilities into a noetic system and thereby prompt a structured re-evaluation process that makes a justified reinstatement of the defeated belief impossible. The account is then applied to the topic of disagreement, where it is used in an argument for conciliationism, as well as a new explanation for higher-order defeat. Throughout the book, the notion of defeat is the center of attention, while a number of new issues are discussed at the intersections of defeat and justification. Specifically, new problems are raised for broadly internalist accounts of defeat, a fully descriptive reliabilist account of defeat is provided, and the case for normative defeat is revisited.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730548
ISBN:: 9783110730548
ISBN:: 9783111269993
ISBN:: 9783110730685
ISBN:: 9783110735352
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Context Dependence in Language, Action, and Cognition

Tadeusz Ciecierski, Paweł Grabarczyk

Volume 46 in this series

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The phenomenon of context dependence is so multifaceted that it is tempting to classify it as hetergenous. It is especially evident in the case of the difference between context dependence as understood in the philosophy of language and context dependence as understood in the philosophy of mind. One of the aims of the present volume is to show that as varied as the phenomenon of context dependence is, the similarities between its different manifestations are profound and undeniable. More importantly, as evidenced in a number of papers presented on the subsequent pages of this volume, a broad perspective on the phenomenon of context dependence helps us to re-apply theories devised for one of the subfields of philosophy to the other subfields. Since the connections and analogies between many uses of contextualism may not be initially obvious, keeping an open perspective and the willingness to learn from the work of others may sometimes be crucial for finding new, satisfactory solutions.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110702286
ISBN:: 9783110702286
ISBN:: 9783110702330
ISBN:: 9783110702071
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Language
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Expressiveness

Perception and Emotions in the Experience of Expressive Objects

Marta Benenti

Volume 45 in this series

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A natural landscape can look serene, a shade of colour cheerful and a piece of music might sound heartrending. Why do we ascribe affective qualities to objects that can't entertain psychological states?

The capacity that objects, and especially artworks, have to express affective states is a bizarre phenomenon that needs to be clarified in numerous respects. Philosophers are still struggling with the phenomenon of expressiveness being a matter of imagination, perception, or mnemonic association, and usually do not agree on the role that emotions and human bodily expressions play in it. Benenti questions the main theories that populate the aesthetics domain using the tools of philosophy of mind. This study deals with crucial debates concerning seeing-in, cognitive penetration, the relation between phenomenal character and representational content and between emotions and expressions. It aims at providing a viable account of the experience we have of expressive properties by casting light on its fundamentally perceptual nature. The outcome is an empirically informed and critical overview of a topic which has been rather neglected in the philosophy of mind.

The book will be of interest to scholars of the philosophy of mind, aesthetics, the cognitive sciences, and psychology.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110670011
ISBN:: 9783110670011
ISBN:: 9783110996753
ISBN:: 9783110670141
ISBN:: 9783110669565
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Aesthetics
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Experiencing Pain

A Scientific Enigma and Its Philosophical Solution

Sabrina Coninx

Volume 44 in this series

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Although pain is one of the most fundamental and unique experiences we undergo in everyday life, it also constitutes one of the most enigmatic and frustrating subjects for many scientists. This book provides a detailed analysis of why this issue is grounded in the nature of pain itself. It also offers a philosophically driven solution of how we may still approach pain in a theoretically compelling and practically useful manner. Two main theses are defended: (i) Pain seems inscrutable because there exists no property that is commonly shared by all types of pain and that is at the same time particular to pain, setting it apart from other bodily sensations. This applies irrespective of whether we consider the psychological dimensions, neural networks, causal relations or biological functions of pain. Consequently, it is impossible to refer to ideal far-reaching and ideal distinct generalizations on the matter of pain. (ii) Despite this challenge, by focusing on the resemblance relations that hold across pains, we can generate scientific progress in explaining, predicting and treating pain. In doing so, the book aims to provide a clear conceptual basis for interdisciplinary communication and a useful heuristic for future research.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688405
ISBN:: 9783110688405
ISBN:: 9783110688474
ISBN:: 9783110688375
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Understanding Physicalism

Gregor M. Hörzer

Volume 43 in this series

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Physicalism is a metaphysical thesis easily presented in slogan form – there is nothing over and above the physical – but notoriously difficult to formulate precisely. Understanding physicalism combines insights from contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics to present a new account of physical properties and metaphysical dependence and, on this foundation, develop a more rigorous and illuminating formulation of the thesis of physicalism

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688429
ISBN:: 9783110688429
ISBN:: 9783111125008
ISBN:: 9783110688467
ISBN:: 9783110688368
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

New Approaches to Scientific Realism

Wenceslao J. Gonzalez

Volume 42 in this series

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Scientific realism is at the core of the contemporary philosophical debate on science. This book analyzes new versions of scientific realism. It makes explicit the advantages of scientific realism over alternatives and antagonists, contributes to deciding which of the new approaches better meets the descriptive and the prescriptive criteria, and expands the philosophico-methodological field to take in new topics and disciplines.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664737
ISBN:: 9783110664737
ISBN:: 9783110662672
ISBN:: 9783110662467
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: General Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Doing Things Together

A Theory of Skillful Joint Action

Judith Martens

Volume 41 in this series

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To understand many of our everyday joint actions we need a theory of skillful joint action.

In everyday contexts we do numerous things together. Philosophers of collective intentionality have wondered how we can distinguish parallel cases from cases where we act together. Often their theories argue in favor of one characteristic, feature, or function, that differentiates the two. This feature then distinguishes parallel actions from joint action. The approach in this book is different.

Three claims are developed: (1) There are several functions that help human agents coordinate and act together. (2) This entails that joint action should be understood through these different, interrelated, types of coordination. (3) A multidimensional conceptual space, with three levels of control and coordination, will allow us to connect these different forms of coordination and their interdependencies. This allows us to understand the jointness of an action in a more differentiated and encompassing way.

This approach has ramifications for several distinctions that are typically understood to be binary, including those between action and mere bodily movement, joint action and parallel action, and action together and not together.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110671315
ISBN:: 9783110671315
ISBN:: 9783110996777
ISBN:: 9783110670172
ISBN:: 9783110671339
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Political Philosophy and Social Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Fault-Tracing: Against Quine-Duhem

A Defense of the Objectivity of Scientific Justification

Sam Mitchell

Volume 40 in this series

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It is widely believed in philosophy of science that nobody can claim that any verdict of science is forced upon us by the effects of a physical world upon our sense organs and instruments. The Quine-Duhem problem supposedly allows us to resist any conclusion. Views on language aside, Quine is supposed to have shown this decisively.

But it is just false. In many scientific examples, there is simply no room to doubt that a particular hypothesis is responsible for a refutation or established by the observations.

Fault Tracing shows how to play independently established hypotheses against each other to determine whether an arbitrary hypothesis needs to be altered in the light of (apparently) refuting evidence. It analyses real examples from natural science, as well as simpler cases. It argues that, when scientific theories have a structure that prevents them from using this method, the theory looks wrong, and is subject to serious criticism. This is a new, and potentially far-reaching, theory of empirical justification.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110685046
ISBN:: 9783110685046
ISBN:: 9783110996784
ISBN:: 9783110685091
ISBN:: 9783110684995
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: General Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

The Realm of Facts

Aspects of Philosophical Realism

Nicholas Rescher

Volume 39 in this series

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Knowledge of facts is essential for the management of life. Most studies of the subject examine how we go about trying to obtain it; they describe the processes and proceedings of rational inquiry. The present work steps back from this to inquire into the limits and limitations of such processes and to identify the assets and the limitabilities of what they are able to supply for us. It examines how knowledge of facts is secured and consolidated as such, and what the resulting information can and cannot provide. It argues that the unavoidable incompleteness of our factual information also endows it with an element of incorrectness. By looking also at the negative side of human inquiry the book’s perspective clarifies the nature of our grip on the facts that constitute our view of the reality of things.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110670028
ISBN:: 9783110670028
ISBN:: 9783110777758
ISBN:: 9783110669350
ISBN:: 9783110670110
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2018

Philosophy of Psychology: Causality and Psychological Subject

New Reflections on James Woodward’s Contribution

Wenceslao J. Gonzalez

Volume 38 in this series

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Contemporary philosophy of science analyzes psychology as a science with special features, because this discipline includes some specific philosophical problems – descriptive and normative, structural and dynamic. Some of these are particularly relevant both theoretically (casual explanation) and practically (the configuration of the psychological subject and its relations with psychiatry).

Two central aspects in this book are the role of causality, especially conceived as intervention or manipulation, and the characterization of the psychological subject. This requires a clarification of scientific explanations in terms of causality in psychology, because characterizations of causality are quite different in epistemological and ontological terms. One of the most influential views is James Woodward’s approach to causality as intervention, which entails an analysis of its characteristics, new elements and limits. This means taking into account the structural and dynamic aspects included in causal cognition and psychological explanations.

Psychology seen as special science also requires us to consider the scientific status of psychology and the psychological subject, which leads to limits of naturalism in psychology.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110576054
ISBN:: 9783110576054
ISBN:: 9783110573985
ISBN:: 9783110574081
ISBN:: 9783110573930
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2017

Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience

Causal Explanations, Mechanisms and Experimental Manipulations

Lena Kästner

Volume 37 in this series

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How do cognitive neuroscientists explain phenomena like memory or language processing? This book examines the different kinds of experiments and manipulative research strategies involved in understanding and eventually explaining such phenomena. Against this background, it evaluates contemporary accounts of scientific explanation, specifically the mechanistic and interventionist accounts, and finds them to be crucially incomplete. Besides, mechanisms and interventions cannot actually be combined in the way usually done in the literature. This book offers solutions to both these problems based on insights from experimental practice. It defends a new reading of the interventionist account, highlights the importance of non-interventionist studies for scientific inquiry, and supplies a taxonomy of experiments that makes it easy to see how the gaps in contemporary accounts of scientific explanation can be filled. The book concludes that a truly empirically adequate philosophy of science must take into account a much wider range of experimental research than has been done to date. With the taxonomy provided, this book serves a stepping-stone leading into a new era of philosophy of science—for cognitive neuroscience and beyond.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110530940
ISBN:: 9783110530940
ISBN:: 9783110653915
ISBN:: 9783110529203
ISBN:: 9783110527377
Subject:: Life Sciences
Subject:: Neurobiology
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2017

The Natural Problem of Consciousness

Pietro Snider

Volume 36 in this series

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The “Natural Problem of Consciousness” is the problem of understanding why there are presently conscious beings at all. Given a non-reductive naturalist framework taking consciousness as an ontologically subjective biological phenomenon, how can we rationally explain the fact that the actual world has turned out to be one where there are presently living beings that can feel, rather than having developed as a zombie-world in which there would be no conscious experiences of any kind?

This book introduces the Natural Problem by relating it to central problems in the philosophy of mind (metaphysical mind-body problem, Hard Problem of consciousness) and emphasizing the distinctive interest of its diachronic dimension. Ranging from philosophy to biology and neuroscience, it offers a thorough analysis aimed at better understanding what could explain why phenomenal consciousness has been preserved throughout evolution by natural selection. This is an original, engaging, and thought provoking philosophical study of a neglected but fundamental question regarding the nature and origin of consciousness.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110525571
ISBN:: 9783110525571
ISBN:: 9783110653670
ISBN:: 9783110524697
ISBN:: 9783110526967
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Modern Philosophy
Subject:: 20th and 21st Century Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2017

Refurbishing Epistemology

A Meta-Epistemological Framework

Dominique Kuenzle

Volume 35 in this series

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Even though important developments within 20th and 21st century philosophy have widened the scope of epistemology, this has not yet resulted in a systematic meta-epistemological debate about epistemology’s aims, methods, and criteria of success. Ideas such as the methodology of reflective equilibrium, the proposal to "naturalize" epistemology, constructivist impulses fuelling the "sociology of scientific knowledge", pragmatist calls for taking into account the practical point of epistemic evaluations, as well as feminist criticism of the abstract and individualist assumptions built into traditional epistemology are widely discussed, but they have not typically resulted in the call for, let alone the construction of, a suitable meta-epistemological framework.
This book motivates and elaborates such a new meta-epistemology. It provides a pragmatist, social and functionalist account of epistemic states that offers the conceptual space for revised or even replaced epistemic concepts. This is what it means to "refurbish epistemology": The book assesses conceptual tools in relation to epistemology’s functionally defined conceptual space, responsive to both intra-epistemic considerations and political and moral values.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110525458
ISBN:: 9783110525458
ISBN:: 9783110524659
ISBN:: 9783110519419
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter