Epistemic Reasoning And The Mental (Palgrave Innovations In Philosophy) Hardcover

Mikkel Gerken

Epistemic Reasoning and the Mental integrates the epistemology of reasoning and philosophy of mind. The book contains introductions to basic concepts in the epistemology of inference and to important aspects of the philosophy of mind. By examining the fundamental competencies involved in reasoning, Gerken argues that reasoning's epistemic force depends on the external environment in ways that are both surprising and epistemologically important. For example, Gerken argues that purportedly deductive reasoning that exhibits the fallacy of equivocation may nevertheless transmit epistemic warrant from its premise-beliefs to its conclusion-belief. This view is contrary to orthodoxy according to which such reasoning must be valid. But Gerken shows how this novel and unorthodox view is integrated in a psychologically plausible account of our reasoning competencies and a general epistemological framework.

9781137025517

English

Palgrave Macmillan

340

Mikkel Gerken is Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He works in epistemology and philosophy of mind but has broad research interests which include philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of language, philosophy of science and philosophical methodology.

(Gerken)...displays obvious mastery of both the philosophy of mind and epistemology, and his treatment is extremely thorough... ...he convincingly makes a case for the importance of the methodology or pursuing questions in the philosophy of mind and epistemology in tandem. Anyone interested in these areas of philosophy, and their intersection, would do well to read this book.B.J.C. Madison, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews