There is a difference between having reasons for believing and believing for reasons. This difference is often fleshed out via an epistemic basing relation, where an epistemic basing relation obtains between beliefs and the actual reasons for which those beliefs are held. The precise nature of the basing relation is subject to much controversy, and one such underdeveloped issue is whether beliefs can be based on brain processing. In this paper I answer in the negative, providing reasons that the basing relation must be a specific psychological level relation between mental states, rather than being a brain process.

2005

The concept of an extended cognitive system is central to contemporary studies of cognition. In the paper I analyze the place of the epistemic subject within the extended cognitive system. Is it extended as well? In answering this question I focus on the differences between the first and the second wave of arguments for the extended mind thesis. I argue that the position of Cognitive Integration represented by Richard Menary is much more intuitive and fruitful in analyses of cognition and knowledge than the early argument formulated by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. Cognitive Integration is compatible with virtue epistemology of John Greco's agent reliabilism. The epistemic subject is constituted by its cognitive character composed of an integrated set of cognitive abilities and processes. Some of these processes are extended, they are a manipulation of external informational structures and, as such, they constitute epistemic practices. Epistemic practices are normative; to conduct them correctly the epistemic subject needs to obey epistemic norms embedded in the cultural context. The epistemic subject is not extended because of the casual coupling with external informational artifacts which extend his mind from inside the head and into the world. Rather, cognitive practices constitute the subject's mind, they transform his cognitive abilities, and this is what makes the mind and epistemic subject "extended".

2010

The internalism/externalism debate is of interest in epistemology since it addresses one of the most fundamental questions in the discipline: what is the basic nature of knowledge and epistemic justification? It is generally held that if a positive epistemic status obtains, this is not a brute fact. Rather if a belief is, for example, justified, it is justified in virtue of some further condition(s) obtaining. What has been called epistemic internalism holds, as the label suggests, is that all the relevant factors that determine justification must be “internal” (in a sense that needs to be specified). Epistemic externalism is the denial of internalism. Epistemic internalism about justification is the subject of this article. After introducing the central intuitive considerations that have tended to motivate internalism, this paper will explore different ways of construing the internalist position (or family of positions). In addition to classical formulations, more recent formulations will be discussed, concluding with a discussion of an emerging position known as “Epistemological Disjunctivism”, which its advocates claim preserves the most important features of more traditional forms of internalism, while avoiding their difficulties. Epistemological Disjunctivism is particularly worthy of attention since if true, it promises to bridge internalist and externalist epistemologies, bringing a rapprochement to two sides of what may otherwise appear a deep and intractable debate about the fundamental nature of epistemology.

Episteme

The topic of this paper is the relationship between epistemology and radically extended cognition. Radically extended cognition (REC)—as advanced by Clark and Chalmers (1998)—is cognition that is partly located outside the biological boundaries of a cognizing subject. Recently, philosophers have argued that REC is actual; however, even critics allow that REC is at least possible. Epistemologists have now begun to wonder whether REC has any consequences for theories of knowledge. For instance while Pritchard (2010) suggests that REC might have implications for which virtue epistemology is acceptable, Carter (2013) wonders whether REC threatens anti-luck epistemology. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of REC has no systematic consequences for theorizing in epistemology. I illustrate my point by considering the discussion of Pritchard (2010) and Carter (2013). I suggest an alternative relationship between epistemology and REC: epistemology can play a role in diagnosing cases of REC. By establishing that entities partially located outside biological boundaries play certain epistemic roles, one can establish that they play cognitive roles as well. Similarly, by establishing that entities partially located outside biological boundaries don't play certain epistemic roles, one can establish that they don't play the related cognitive roles either. I conclude the paper by illustrating this last point.

Among the phenomena that make up the mind, cognitive psychologists and philosophers have postulated a puzzling one that they have called “epistemic feelings”. This paper aims to 1) characterize these experiences according to their intentional content and phenomenal character, 2) describe the nature of these mental states as nonconceptual in the case of animals and infants, and as conceptual mental states in the case of adults living beings. Finally, 3) the paper will contrast three accounts of the causes and mechanisms of epistemic feelings: the doxastic account, the mental scanner and the heuristic-based account. The paper will argue in favor of the heuristic based account.

Synthese, 2005

The reason why, since Descartes, nobody has found a solution to the mind-body problem seems to be that the problem itself is a false or pseudo-problem. The discussion has proceeded within a pre-Cartesian conceptual framework which itself is a source of the difficulty. Dualism and all its alternatives have preserved the same pre-Cartesian conceptual framework even while denying Descartes' dualism. In order to avoid this pseudo-problem, I introduce a new perspective with three elements: the subject, the observed object, and the conditions of observation (given by the internal and external tools of observation). On this new perspective, because of the conditions of observation, the mind and the brain belong to epistemologically different worlds.

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.

Internalist approaches to epistemic justification are, though controversial, considered a live option in contemporary epistemology. Accordingly, if ‘active’ externalist approaches in the philosophy of mind—e.g. the extended cognition and extended mind theses—are in principle incompatible with internalist approaches to justification in epistemology, then this will be an epistemological strike against, at least the prima facie appeal of, active externalism. It is shown here however that, contrary to pretheoretical intuitions, neither the extended cognition nor the extended mind theses are in principle incompatible with two prominent versions of epistemic internalism—viz., accessibilism and mentalism. In fact, one possible diagnosis is that pretheoretical intuitions regarding the incompatibility of active externalism with epistemic internalism are symptomatic of a tacit yet incorrect identification of epistemic internalism with epistemic individualism. Thus, active externalism is not in principle incompatible with epistemic internalism per se and does not (despite initial appearances to the contrary) significantly restrict one’s options in epistemology.