“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 role of empirical work in informing our philosophical theories, as I see it, is not that it gives us a better view of our folk concepts, but that it gives us a better view of knowledge, and the mind, and so on.” GivingMindViewsRolesTheoryConceptsPhilosophicalFolksInforming Author:Hilary Kornblith
“Internalist approaches to epistemology, I believe, have a great deal of intuitive appeal. Internalists believe that the features in virtue of which a belief is justified must somehow be internal to the agent. On some views, this amounts to the claim that these features must be accessible to introspection and armchair reflection. On others, it amounts only to the claim that they must be mental features.” BelieveBeliefI BelieveViewsDealsVirtueAmountApproachReflectionClaimsAgentsAppealsFeaturesInternalsIntrospectionJustifiedIntuitiveEpistemologyArmchairs 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
“The worry that unreflective belief acquisition may be unreliable, after all, applies equally to reflective belief acquisition: it too may be unreliable. To my mind, the plausibility of internalist views about justification is dramatically decreased when one becomes vividly aware of what introspection and reflection actually achieve.” MindMayBeliefViewsWorryAchieveReflectionJustificationIntrospectionAcquisitionUnreliable 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
“What we need to do, however, is figure out what our best available theories of the mind suggest about epistemological issues, while we recognise that we may need to change our views on these questions as new evidence comes in.” NeedsMindMayViewsIssuesFiguresTheoryEvidenceAvailableRecogniseNeed A Change Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I am quite wedded to the view that epistemologists should concern themselves with knowledge rather than our concept of knowledge. The analogy I like to draw here is with our understanding of (other) natural kinds.” ShouldKindUnderstandingNaturalViewsDrawsConceptsConcernAnalogies Author:Hilary Kornblith
“One of the goals of scientific theorising is to develop concepts which are adequate to the phenomena under study. In my view, things should work the same way in epistemology. We want to know what knowledge actually amounts to, not what our folk concept of knowledge is, since, just as with our pretheoretical concept of acidity, it might contain all sorts of misunderstandings and leave out all manner of important things.” KnowsWayWantShouldImportantMightGoalViewsStudyAmountConceptsImportant ThingsFolksMisunderstandingAdequateEpistemology Author:Hilary Kornblith
“In my view, since the case can be made that knowledge too is a natural kind, the role of pretheoretical intuitions is similarly diminished in epistemology.” KindMadeNaturalViewsRolesCasesIntuitionEpistemology 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
“But there is no doubt that my own views on this are, in quite a number of ways, very different from those of Quine.” WayDifferentMy OwnViewsNumbersDoubtNo Doubt Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I argue is that philosophers have had a tendency to present a kind of mystical view of the powers of reflection. Unreflective belief acquisition is seen in mechanistic terms, but when philosophers talk about reflection, it is as if reflective processes are not bound by the kinds of limitations which inevitably arise from being embedded within the same causal structure which governs unreflective belief acquisition.” IfsKindBeliefProcessTermViewsReflectionStructureBoundsPhilosopherArguingAriseTendenciesLimitationMysticalAcquisitionEmbedded Author:Hilary Kornblith
“When reflection is thereby demystified, I believe that the temptation to view human knowledge as different in kind from animal knowledge is undermined.” BelieveHumansKindDifferentI BelieveAnimalViewsReflectionTemptationHuman Knowledge 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
“In my view, philosophers have shown a great deal more respect for the first-person point of view than it deserves. There's a lot of empirical work on the various psychological mechanisms by way of which the first-person point of view is produced, and, when we understand this, I believe, we can stop romanticising and mythologising the first-person perspective.” WayFirstsBelievePersonsI BelieveViewsDealsPerspectiveDeservePhilosopherVariousPoint Of ViewPsychologicalMechanismFirst PersonThis I Believe Author:Hilary Kornblith
“By putting the first-person point of view in a naturalistic perspective, I believe that we may genuinely come to understand it for the first time.” FirstsBelieveMayPersonsI BelieveViewsPerspectiveFirst TimePoint Of ViewFirst Person Author:Hilary Kornblith
