The Reliability of Sense Perception

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Release : 2018-07-05
Genre : Philosophy
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Book Rating : 546/5 ( reviews)

The Reliability of Sense Perception - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Reliability of Sense Perception write by William P. Alston. This book was released on 2018-07-05. The Reliability of Sense Perception available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Why suppose that sense perception is an accurate source of information about the physical environment? More generally, is it possible to demonstrate that our basic ways of forming beliefs are reliable? In this book, a leading analytic philosopher confronts this classic problem through detailed investigation of sense perception, the source of beliefs in which we place the most confidence. Carefully assessing the available arguments, William P. Alston concludes that it is not possible to show in any noncircular way that sense perception is a reliable source of beliefs. Alston thoroughly examines the main arguments that have been advanced for the reliability of sense perception, including arguments from the various kinds of success we achieve by relying on the sense perception, arguments that some features of our sense experience are best explained by supposing that it is an accurate guide, and arguments that there is something conceptually incoherent about the idea that sense perception is not reliable. He concludes that all of these arguments that are not disqualified in other ways are epistemically circular, for they use premises based upon the very source in question. Alston then suggest that the most appropriate response to the impossibility of showing that our basic sources of beliefs are reliable is an appeal to the practical rationality of engaging in certain socially established belief-forming practices. The Reliability of Sense Perception will be welcome by epistemologists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers of science.

Perceiving God

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Release : 2014-01-21
Genre : Philosophy
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Book Rating : 257/5 ( reviews)

Perceiving God - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Perceiving God write by William P. Alston. This book was released on 2014-01-21. Perceiving God available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In Perceiving God, William P. Alston offers a clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience. He argues that the "perception of God"—his term for direct experiential awareness of God—makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God among laypersons and famous mystics, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on the basis of mystical experience. Through the perception that God is sustaining one in being, for example, one can justifiably believe that God is indeed sustaining one in being. Alston offers a detailed discussion of our grounds for taking sense perception and other sources of belief—including introspection, memory, and mystical experience—to be reliable and to confer justification. He then uses this epistemic framework to explain how our perceptual beliefs about God can be justified. Alston carefully addresses objections to his chief claims, including problems posed by non-Christian religious traditions. He also examines the way in which mystical perception fits into the larger picture of grounds for religious belief. Suggesting that religious experience, rather than being a purely subjective phenomenon, has real cognitive value, Perceiving God will spark intense debate and will be indispensable reading for those interested in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, as well as for theologians.

Moral Perception

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Release : 2013-02-24
Genre : Philosophy
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Book Rating : 484/5 ( reviews)

Moral Perception - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Moral Perception write by Robert Audi. This book was released on 2013-02-24. Moral Perception available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. We can see a theft, hear a lie, and feel a stabbing. These are morally important perceptions. But are they also moral perceptions--distinctively moral responses? In this book, Robert Audi develops an original account of moral perceptions, shows how they figure in human experience, and argues that they provide moral knowledge. He offers a theory of perception as an informative representational relation to objects and events. He describes the experiential elements in perception, illustrates moral perception in relation to everyday observations, and explains how moral perception justifies moral judgments and contributes to objectivity in ethics. Moral perception does not occur in isolation. Intuition and emotion may facilitate it, influence it, and be elicited by it. Audi explores the nature and variety of intuitions and their relation to both moral perception and emotion, providing the broadest and most refined statement to date of his widely discussed intuitionist view in ethics. He also distinguishes several kinds of moral disagreement and assesses the challenge it poses for ethical objectivism. Philosophically argued but interdisciplinary in scope and interest, Moral Perception advances our understanding of central problems in ethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and the theory of the emotions.

The Problem of Perception

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Release : 2005
Genre : Perception (Philosophy)
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Book Rating : 241/5 ( reviews)

The Problem of Perception - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Problem of Perception write by A. D. Smith. This book was released on 2005. The Problem of Perception available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In a major Contribution to the theory of perception, A.D.Smith presents a truly original defense of direct realism the view that in perception we are directly aware of things in a physical world. It offers two arguements against direct realism-one conceening illusion, and one concerning hallueination that upto now no theory of perception could adequately rebut.At the heart of Smiths theory is a new way of drawing the distinction between perception and sensation alone with an unusual treatment of the nature of object of halluecination .

Sense Perception and Reality

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Release : 2014
Genre : Perception (Philosophy)
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Book Rating : 118/5 ( reviews)

Sense Perception and Reality - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Sense Perception and Reality write by Rochelle Forrester. This book was released on 2014. Sense Perception and Reality available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.