What is Knowledge?

What is Knowledge?
Author: Jose Ortega y Gasset
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780791451724

Appearing in English for the first time, this book comprises two of Ortega’s most important works, ¿Qué es conocimiento? and the essay “Ideas y creencias.” This is Ortega’s attempt to systematically present the foundations of his metaphysics of human life and, on that basis, to provide a radical philosophical account of knowledge. In so doing, he criticizes idealism and overcomes it. Accordingly, this book goes well beyond a treatise on epistemology; in fact, as understood in modern philosophy, this discipline and its questions are shown to be derivative and, in that sense, they are transcended here by Ortega’s systematic effort. Written during the time of his maturity, these works are representative of his fruitful and radical period. Both ¿Qué es conocimiento? and “Ideas y creencias” are equally decisive not only for the understanding and radical completion of Ortega’s work, but also for their relevance to the work of continental philosophers during the same period and for years to come (e.g., Husserl, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre, and others).

The Concept of Meaninglessness

The Concept of Meaninglessness
Author: Edward Erwin
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2019-12-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1421431068

Originally published in 1970. Many contemporary philosophers have thought that certain philosophic disputes could be settled by using the concept of meaninglessness. To solve philosophic problems in this way, however, it seemed necessary to provide a reliable criterion for deciding when a particular sentence or statement is meaningless. But devising such a criterion has proved to be very difficult. In fact, in recent years many philosophers have become quite skeptical about the adequacy of the standard criteria of meaninglessness. Some of the more radical skeptics have even argued that the concept of meaninglessness, as it is used by philosophers, is itself defective and would be even if an adequate criterion could be found. Professor Erwin, in a systematic study of the concept of meaninglessness, begins by examining the standard criteria of meaninglessness proposed by philosophers. These criteria include operationalist, verificationist, and type or category criteria. Each of these criteria, he argues, is inadequate. Erwin then turns to the question, What kinds of items, if any, should be said to be meaningless? Most philosophers concerned with this question have claimed that only sentences, not statements or propositions, can be meaningless. Erwin argues, however, that this is wrong: statements (and propositions) can be meaningless. Once this is demonstrated, it can then be shown that the more radical skepticism about the philosophic use of the concept of meaninglessness is misguided. In particular, Erwin shows that the following assertions of the radical skeptic are false: that what is meaningless is relative to a given language or to a given time, and that the concept of meaninglessness forces us to condemn as nonsense metaphors comprehensible to competent speakers of English. In his concluding chapter, Erwin considers the implications of there not being any adequate general criterion of meaninglessness. He then tries to show how the concept of meaninglessness, when interpreted in the manner he suggests, can be profitably used by philosophers, despite the many persuasive objections to its use that philosophers have raised in their disputes over it.

Arithmetic

Arithmetic
Author: Charles Davies
Publisher:
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1847
Genre: Arithmetic
ISBN:

The Intellectual Powers

The Intellectual Powers
Author:
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1444332473

The Intellectual Powers is a philosophical investigation into the cognitive and cogitative powers of mankind. It develops a connective analysis of our powers of consciousness, intentionality, mastery of language, knowledge, belief, certainty, sensation, perception, memory, thought, and imagination, by one of Britain’s leading philosophers. It is an essential guide and handbook for philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. The culmination of 45 years of reflection on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the nature of the human person No other book in epistemology or philosophy of psychology provides such extensive overviews of consciousness, self-consciousness, intentionality, mastery of a language, knowledge, belief, memory, sensation and perception, thought and imagination Illustrated with tables, tree-diagrams, and charts to provide overviews of the conceptual relationships disclosed by analysis Written by one of Britain’s best philosophical minds A sequel to Hacker’s Human Nature: The Categorial Framework An essential guide and handbook for all who are working in philosophy of mind, epistemology, psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience

The Theory of the Knowledge Square: The Fuzzy Rational Foundations of the Knowledge-Production Systems

The Theory of the Knowledge Square: The Fuzzy Rational Foundations of the Knowledge-Production Systems
Author: Kofi Kissi Dompere
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2012-08-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642311199

The monograph is about a meta-theory of knowledge-production process and the logical pathway that connects the epistemic possibility to the epistemic reality. It examines the general conditions of paradigms for information processing and isolates the classical and fuzzy paradigms for comparative analysis. The sets of conditions that give rise to them are defined, stated and analyzed to abstract the corresponding sets of laws of thought. The fuzzy paradigm with its corresponding logic and mathematics is related to inexact symbolism for the defective information structure where the results of the knowledge production must satisfy the epistemic conditionality, composed of fuzzy conditionality and fuzzy-stochastic conditionality under the principle of logical duality with continuum. The classical paradigm with its corresponding logic and mathematics is related to exact symbolism for exact information structure where the vagueness component of the defectiveness is assumed away, and where the results of the knowledge production must satisfy no epistemic conditionality or at the maximum only the stochastic conditionality under the principle of logical dualism with excluded middle. It is argued that the epistemic path that links ontological space to the epistemological space is information. The ontological space is taken as the primary category of reality while the epistemological space is shone to be a derivative. Such information is universally defective and together with assumptions imposed guides the development of paradigms with their laws of thought, logic of reasoning, mathematics and computational techniques. The relational structure is seen in terms of logical trinity with a given example as matter-information-energy transformational trinity which is supported by the time trinity of past-present-future relationality. The book is written for professionals, researchers and students working in philosophy of science, decision-choice theories, economies, sciences, computer science, engineering, cognitive psychology and researchers working on, or interested in fuzzy paradigm, fuzzy logic, fuzzy decisions, and phenomena of vagueness and ambiguities, fuzzy mathematics, fuzzy-stochastic processes and theory of knowledge. It is further aimed at research institutions and libraries. The subject matter belongs to extensive research and development taking place on fuzzy phenomena and the debate between the fuzzy paradigm and the classical paradigm relative to informatics, synergetic science and complexity theory. The book will have a global appeal and across disciplines. Its strength, besides the contents, is the special effort that is undertaken to make it relevant and accessible to different areas of sciences and knowledge production.

The Global Public Square

The Global Public Square
Author: Os Guinness
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-05-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830895655

Recognizing that tyranny takes on secular as well as traditional guises, Os Guinness seeks a return to the first principles of religious and political freedom. Hearkening back to the "soul liberty" of English Puritan Roger Williams, Guinness argues that a society's greatest bulwark against abuse lies in its people's freedom of conscience.

Finding Square Holes

Finding Square Holes
Author: Anita Houghton
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2005-06-17
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 184590320X

If you're in a fix in your career, trying to decide what to do or JUST disgruntled with your current job, this is the book for you. Starting with the premise that you can't achieve happiness in anything if you don't know what you want in life, the book uses an engaging approach to take you on a journey of self-discovery.