The Exclusive Character of Knowledge as a Conscious Mental State

Oxford Studies in Epistemology 4

In the philosophical literature on mental states, the paradigmatic examples of mental states are beliefs, desires, intentions, and phenomenal states such as being in pain. The corresponding list in the psychological literature on mental state attribution includes one further member: the state of knowledge. This article examines the reasons why develop¬mental, comparative and social psychologists have classified knowledge as a mental state, while most recent philosophers--with the notable exception of Timothy Williamson-- have not. The disagreement is traced back to a difference in how each side under¬stands the relationship between the concepts of knowledge and belief, concepts which are under¬stood in both disciplines to be closely linked. Psychologists and philosophers other than Williamson have generally have disagreed about which of the pair is prior and which is derivative. The rival claims of priority are examined both in the light of philosophical arguments by Williamson and others, and in the light of empirical work on mental state attribution.

The intuition that knowledge is more valuable than true belief generates the value problem in epistemology. The aim in this paper is to focus on the intuitive notion of knowledge itself, in the context of the value problem, and to attempt to bring out just what it is that we intuitively judge to be valuable. It seems to me that the value problem brings to the fore certain commitments we have to the intuitive notion of knowledge, which, if we take seriously, reveal that we actually think of knowledge as an irreducible factive mental state.

Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 1998

Inquiry, 2019

Does knowledge entail belief? This paper argues that the answer depends on how one interprets 'belief'. There are two different notions of belief: belief as such and belief for knowledge. They often differ in their degrees of conviction such that one but not both might be present in a particular case. The core of the paper is dedicated to a defence of this overlooked distinction. The first two sections present the distinction. Section 3 presents two cases which are supposed to back up the claim that there is an important distinction here while section 4 offers some explanations concerning the structure of these cases. Section 5 adds further considerations in support of the core thesis, and section 6 discusses objections. The distinction is important as such but also has interesting implications concerning the much discussed 'entailment thesis' according to which knowledge entails belief. It is argued here that even if knowledge entails belief-for-knowledge, it does not entail belief-as-such. This constitutes an interesting middle position and compromise in the philosophical debate about the entailment thesis. One further implication of this paper is that the discussion about the entailment thesis needs to take degrees of conviction seriously. Still another implication is that epistemic contextualists can deal very well with the relevant phenomena.

This paper motivates two bases for ascribing propositional semantic knowledge (or something knowledgelike): first, because it's necessary to rationalize linguistic action; and, second, because it's part of an empirical theory that would explain various aspects of linguistic behavior. The semantic knowledge ascribed on these two bases seems to differ in content, epistemic status, and cognitive role. This raises the question: how are they related, if at all? The bulk of the paper addresses this question. It distinguishes a variety of answers and their varying philosophical and empirical commitments.

A paper from 2006 arguing that psychological studies can give partial confirmation of knowledge first epistemology

Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development, vol. 4 No.2, 2021, pp. 119-128, 2021

Mental operations are indeed operations that touch on mental contents. Thus, the human mind is seen as a cluster of functions that spring from the interaction between man and his social environment. By that we mean that it possesses a set of faculties that aid the acquisition and processing of knowledge. This paper is therefore about to cast a look at the cognitive activity of the human intellect in the acquisition of knowledge. The novelty of its approach consists in looking at the approach taken by the human intellect as it acquires knowledge in a broader philosophical context. The main thesis of the study is to x-ray the processes that will be undergone in order to ascertain a belief to be true knowledge. From the standpoint of scholastics and other competencies, having an indebt understanding of such epistemic procedures is not only important but timely.

Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, 2016

Contemporary philosophy in the west has begun with emphasizing "subjectivism" and the theory of "knowledge". Discussing the nature of knowledge leads inevitably to investigating the nature of "belief". However, it is important to note that knowledge is always something more than mere belief. To demarcate between truthful and untruthful belief we must have certain criteria. In this essay, an analytical approach has been adopted to first present a historical review of the meanings of "knowledge" and then to discuss the three parameters of knowledge (belief, truth, justification) in contemporary epistemology. The main ideas with regard to truthful belief and epistemological justification are investigated within the framework of two approaches: foundationalism and coherentism.

Gilbert Ryle paid close attention to the difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how" in his book "The Concept of Mind." In this study, I focus primarily on the definition of “knowing that”, with the remark that the two concepts of knowledge, in my view, form a strongly dual epistemic relationship. The curiosity of the chosen philosophical problem is given by the talk of lively philosophical-logical debates that emerged after Edmund L. Gettier's short article published in 1963. . (Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?) The "information theory" foundations of knowledge in my view - which have significant ontological implications - are as follows: - Information is not just a socio-cultural phenomenon, but primarily a physical quantity. - The static part of information can be characterized as the Shannon information quantity. - The dynamic of information is generated by the stability and complexity of the space-time structures. - Information is therefore an ’emergent’ quantity. - Information-performance (strength) as a physical quantity can be represented by in the human-social region also as a ‘multivector’ that has components of ‘real-knowledge’ and ‘emotional-impact’. - The knowledge is the ’time-invariant part’ of information-strength. - The ‘separation criteria’ between the ‘real-knowledge’ and the ‘emotional-impact’ can be the stability/instability of the information source, and the evaporation time of the emotional content.

History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis, 2020