Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion

Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion
Author: John Turri
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2016-02-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1783741864

Language is a human universal reflecting our deeply social nature. Among its essential functions, language enables us to quickly and efficiently share information. We tell each other that many things are true—that is, we routinely make assertions. Information shared this way plays a critical role in the decisions and plans we make. In Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion, a distinguished philosopher and cognitive scientist investigates the rules or norms that structure our social practice of assertion. Combining evidence from philosophy, psychology, and biology, John Turri shows that knowledge is the central norm of assertion and explains why knowledge plays this role. Concise, comprehensive, non-technical, and thoroughly accessible, this volume quickly brings readers to the cutting edge of a major research program at the intersection of philosophy and science. It presupposes no philosophical or scientific training. It will be of interest to philosophers and scientists, is suitable for use in graduate and undergraduate courses, and will appeal to general readers interested in human nature, social cognition, and communication.

Assertion

Assertion
Author: Sanford Goldberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2015
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0198732481

Presents an account of the speech act of assertion and defends the view that it is answerable to a constitutive norm and is suited to explaining assertions connections to other philosophical topics.

Assertion

Assertion
Author: M. Jary
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2010-07-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0230274617

Assertion is a term frequently used in linguistics and philosophy but rarely defined. This in-depth study surveys and synthesizes a range of philosophical, linguistic and psychological literature on the topic, and then presents a detailed account of the cognitive processes involved in the interpretation of assertions.

Assertion

Assertion
Author: Jessica Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2011-01-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 019957300X

Assertion is a fundamental feature of language. This volume will be the place to look for anyone interested in current work on the topic. Philosophers of language and epistemologists join forces to elucidate what kind of speech act assertion is, particularly in light of relativist views of truth, and how assertion is governed by epistemic norms.

Contextualising Knowledge

Contextualising Knowledge
Author: Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2017
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199682704

Jonathan Ichikawa synthesizes two prominent ideas in epistemology: contextualism about knowledge ascriptions, and the 'knowledge first' emphasis on the theoretical primacy of knowledge. He argues that in thinking clearly about knowledge, epistemologists must also think about the dynamic aspects of the words we use to talk about knowledge.

Sharing Knowledge

Sharing Knowledge
Author: Christoph Kelp
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2021-11-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1316517136

This book develops a novel account of assertion in terms of its function of sharing knowledge.

The Oxford Handbook of Assertion

The Oxford Handbook of Assertion
Author: Sanford Goldberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 903
Release: 2020
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0190675233

The Oxford Handbook of Assertion explores philosophical themes pertaining to the speech act of assertion: the nature of assertion, assertion's place among the speech acts, empirical issues in theories of assertion, assertion's role in semantics and metasemantics, the place of assertion in the epistemology of testimony, and the social and ethical dimensions of assertion.

Epistemic Norms

Epistemic Norms
Author: Clayton Littlejohn
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2014
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199660026

Epistemic norms play an increasingly important role in current debates in epistemology and beyond. In this volume a team of established and emerging scholars presents new work on the key debates. They consider what epistemic requirements constrain appropriate belief, assertion, and action, and explore the interconnections between these standards.

Learning from Words

Learning from Words
Author: Jennifer Lackey
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2010-03-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191614564

Testimony is an invaluable source of knowledge. We rely on the reports of those around us for everything from the ingredients in our food and medicine to the identity of our family members. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the epistemology of testimony. Despite the multitude of views offered, a single thesis is nearly universally accepted: testimonial knowledge is acquired through the process of transmission from speaker to hearer. In this book, Jennifer Lackey shows that this thesis is false and, hence, that the literature on testimony has been shaped at its core by a view that is fundamentally misguided. She then defends a detailed alternative to this conception of testimony: whereas the views currently dominant focus on the epistemic status of what speakers believe, Lackey advances a theory that instead centers on what speakers say. The upshot is that, strictly speaking, we do not learn from one another's beliefs - we learn from one another's words. Once this shift in focus is in place, Lackey goes on to argue that, though positive reasons are necessary for testimonial knowledge, testimony itself is an irreducible epistemic source. This leads to the development of a theory that gives proper credence to testimony's epistemologically dual nature: both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive epistemic contribution to testimonial knowledge. The resulting view not only reveals that testimony has the capacity to generate knowledge, but it also gives appropriate weight to our nature as both socially indebted and individually rational creatures. The approach found in this book will, then, represent a radical departure from the views currently dominating the epistemology of testimony, and thus is intended to reshape our understanding of the deep and ubiquitous reliance we have on the testimony of those around us.

The Case for Contextualism

The Case for Contextualism
Author: Keith DeRose
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2011-05-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191619744

It's an obvious enough observation that the standards that govern whether ordinary speakers will say that someone knows something vary with context: What we are happy to call "knowledge" in some ("low-standards") contexts we'll deny is "knowledge" in other ("high-standards") contexts. But do these varying standards for when ordinary speakers will attribute knowledge, and for when they are in some important sense warranted in attributing knowledge, reflect varying standards for when it is or would be true for them to attribute knowledge? Or are the standards that govern whether such claims are true always the same? And what are the implications for epistemology if these truth-conditions for knowledge claims shift with context? Contextualism, the view that the epistemic standards a subject must meet in order for a claim attributing "knowledge" to her to be true do vary with context, has been hotly debated in epistemology and philosophy of language during the last few decades. In The Case for Contextualism Keith DeRose offers a sustained state-of-the-art exposition and defense of the contextualist position, presenting and advancing the most powerful arguments in favor of the view and against its "invariantist" rivals, and responding to the most pressing objections facing contextualism.