“I don't know whether I can say that having a career in philosophy has turned out as I imagined, since in many ways I had little idea of what such a life would be like. But philosophy is still tremendously exciting to me, and the opportunity to think, and talk, and write about these issues has been wonderful.” ThinkingKnowsWayWritingLittlesHas BeensStillsI CanIdeasPhilosophyWould BeOpportunityCareersIssuesWonderfulExciting Author:Hilary Kornblith
“It started becoming clear to me how one might have views about the nature of mind and of knowledge which are empirically informed. This way of thinking about philosophical theorizing makes sense of how philosophy might be a legitimate intellectual activity, in a way that a good deal of the armchair philosophy, I believe, cannot.” ThinkingWayMindBelievePhilosophyMightI BelieveViewsDealsClearBecomingActivityIntellectualPhilosophicalMake SenseWay Of ThinkingArmchairs Author:Hilary Kornblith
“The experimentalists think that we can only get at our concepts by way of empirical investigation, while the armchair philosophers think that we can skip the experiments and figure things out from our armchairs. What they have in common, however, is regarding our concepts as the targets of philosophical theorising, and I just don't think that, in the vast majority of cases, the subject matter of philosophy has our concepts as its target.” ThinkingWayMatterPhilosophyCommonCasesSubjectsFiguresConceptsPhilosophicalMajorityPhilosopherExperimentsTargetInvestigationSubject MatterSkipArmchairs Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I am concerned about epistemic normativity, and I don't think that it is just a hangover from a priori and armchair approaches. Some ways of forming beliefs are better than others, and epistemologists of all stripes, I believe, have a legitimate interest in addressing the issue of what makes some of these ways better than others.” ThinkingWayBelieveBeliefI BelieveInterestIssuesApproachConcernedHangoverStripesArmchairs Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I believe, that empirically informed approaches to the question have issued in more illuminating answers than the old armchair approaches. But I think that it would be a terrible mistake to give up on addressing normative questions in epistemology.” ThinkingGivingBelieveWould BeI BelieveAnswersMistakeTerribleGiving UpApproachEpistemologyIlluminatingArmchairs Author:Hilary Kornblith
“Externalists reject any such view. I think that the idea that we can tell, simply by way of reflection, whether our beliefs are justified, is deeply commonsensical. More than that, the idea that responsible epistemic agents ought to reflect on their beliefs, and hold them only if they somehow pass muster, is utterly natural.” IfsThinkingWayIdeasBeliefNaturalViewsOughtReflectionResponsibleAgentsRejectsJustifiedMuster Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I do think that an understanding of contemporary work in the cognitive sciences has a profound effect on how one views the workings of the mind. It doesn't work the way we pretheoretically think it does. Such an understanding, of course, should have a large effect on one's views in philosophy of mind, but also in epistemology.” ThinkingWayShouldMindDoePhilosophyCoursesUnderstandingViewsEffectsShould HaveProfoundContemporaryCognitiveEpistemologyCognitive Science Author:Hilary Kornblith
“The great philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries did not think that epistemological questions floated free of questions about how the mind works. Those philosophers took a stand on all sorts of questions which nowadays we would classify as questions of psychology, and their views about psychological questions shaped their views about epistemology, as well they should have.” ThinkingShouldMindWellsViewsPsychologyCenturyShould HavePhilosopherPsychologicalEpistemology18th CenturyGreat Philosophers Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I think that when I first suggested the idea that knowledge should be viewed as a natural kind, many people thought this was just crazy.” PeopleThinkingShouldFirstsKindIdeasNaturalCrazy Author:Hilary Kornblith
“Bealer has a number of reasons for thinking that a naturalistic epistemology is self-undermining. Let me focus on one of these. (I've tried to take on all of them in the first chapter of Knowledge and Its Place in Nature.)” ThinkingFirstsSelfReasonNumbersFocusLet MeChaptersEpistemologyUndermining Author:Hilary Kornblith
“Bealer argues that the kind of naturalistic view which Quine holds will rob him of the ability to make the normative claims which (many) naturalists wish to make in epistemology. I don't think this is right about Quine, but I'm certain it's not right about my own view. To the extent that I can show that talk of knowledge is firmly rooted within empirical theories where it plays an important explanatory role, I thereby demonstrate its naturalistic credentials.” ThinkingKindI CanImportantPlayShowsCertainWishMy OwnAbilityViewsRolesTheoryClaimsArguingRootedEpistemologyNaturalistCredentials Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I largely defer to the cognitive ethologists. I believe that the arguments that they make on this score are extremely persuasive. More than this, I do think as well that a priori objections by philosophers to successful research programs in the sciences have a very bad track record.” ThinkingBelieveWellsI BelieveSuccessfulRecordsResearchProgramArgumentTrackPhilosopherScoreObjectionsCognitivePersuasiveTrack Record Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I do think that it is legitimate to talk of goals and functions in nature, and that these things can be made sense of in naturalistic terms. There is nothing at all contrary to naturalism in the idea of goal-directed systems.” ThinkingMadeIdeasGoalTermFunctionContraryNaturalism Author:Hilary Kornblith
“For one thing, I think that there are questions which philosophers raise which, although science bears on them, are not typically the central focus of those who work in the sciences. At the same time, I don't have a view of philosophy which marks it out as different in kind from scientific work” ThinkingKindDifferentPhilosophyViewsFocusOne ThingBearsMarkRaisesPhilosopher Author:Hilary Kornblith
“When I think about discussions at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, a group which includes not only philosophers and psychologists, but also computer scientists and linguists, it is noteworthy that one can't always tell just from the content of particular contributions from the audience, whether a given questioner is a philosopher or an empirical scientist.” ThinkingPhilosophyGivenAudiencePsychologyGroupsParticularComputerScientistPhilosopherDiscussionContributionPsychologistLinguists Author:Hilary Kornblith
“No one worries terribly much about who the questions belong to, or whether a given contribution is really philosophy or, instead, properly nothing but science. Perhaps another way to put this is that, although I think that knowledge is a natural kind, I don't think that philosophy is.” ThinkingWayKindPhilosophyGivenNaturalWorryContributionAnother Way Author:Hilary Kornblith
“There has certainly been a great deal of work addressing the relationship between naturalism and the first-person perspective. Quite a number of philosophers have suggested that there are features of the first-person perspective that naturalism just cannot accommodate, whether it be qualitative character, or consciousness, or simply the ability we have to think of ourselves in a distinctively first-person manner.” ThinkingFirstsPersonsCharacterAbilityDealsNumbersConsciousnessPerspectivePhilosopherFeaturesFirst PersonAccommodateNaturalismQualitative Author:Hilary Kornblith
