The Epistemology of Reading and Interpretation
Abstract
Reading and textual interpretation are ordinary human activities, performed inside as well as outside academia, but precisely how they function as unique sources of knowledge is not well understood. In this book, René van Woudenberg explores the nature of reading and how it is distinct from perception and (attending to) testimony, which are two widely acknowledged knowledge sources. After distinguishing seven accounts of interpretation, van Woudenberg discusses the question of whether all reading inevitably involves interpretation, and shows that although reading and interpretation often go together, they are distinct activities. He goes on to argue that both reading and interpretation can be paths to realistically conceived truth, and explains the conditions under which we are justified in believing that they do indeed lead us to the truth. Along the way, he offers clear and novel analyses of reading, meaning, interpretation, and interpretative knowledge.
Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces. Three perspectives are compared: liberalism (which ascribes authorship to ChatGPT), conservatism (which denies ChatGPT's authorship for normative and metaphysical reasons), and moderatism (which treats ChatGPT as if it possesses authorship without committing to the existence of mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention). We conclude that conservatism provides a more nuanced understanding of authorship in AI than liberalism and moderatism, without denying the significant potential, influence, or utility of AI technologies such as ChatGPT.
Victorians read a lot, and they reflected on reading: Why read? What to read? Reading to what goal? After some stage setting, this article discusses four of John Ruskin’s thoughts on reading as expounded in Sesame and Lilies (1865) and that have never received much attention. (1) There are two species of books, “books of the hour” and “books of all time.” (2) The selection of which books to read is an ethical matter. (3) The norm for reading that readers should aim to comply with is the author’s meaning. (4) Readers should love the authors they are reading in order to understand them truly. This article discusses these claims and argues for a qualified endorsement of (1) in favor of (2), argues that (3) constitutes the commonsense view of reading, and defends it against various criticisms. The article finally argues against (4).
This study explores the transformative potential of the Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) learning strategy in enhancing student engagement and learning outcomes. Through two carefully executed cycles, the study delves into the dynamic interplay between educators and students and its impact on the learning landscape. Drawing from constructivist principles, the CIRC strategy emphasizes collaborative discourse and active knowledge construction, fostering cognitive and affective growth. The research reveals a significant shift in student engagement, with average scores climbing from 3.37 to 4.12 across cycles, substantiating the strategy's efficacy in promoting meaningful learning experiences. Furthermore, applying the CIRC strategy demonstrated a notable increase in post-test scores, from 69.64 to 75.04, along with a rise in the proportion of students mastering the subject matter, from 60% to 80%. While the strategy boasts transformative potential, its implementation challenges include time investment and creating conducive group discussion environments. This study underscores the importance of dynamic learning approaches that empower students to actively construct knowledge and apply it in real-world contexts, reinforcing the role of educators in catalyzing this evolution. The CIRC strategy is powerful in bridging theory and practice, offering a holistic educational experience that resonates far beyond the classroom.
The humanistic disciplines aim to offer explanations of a wide variety of phenomena. Philosophical theories of explanation have focused mostly on explanations in the natural sciences; a much discussed theory of explanation is the causal theory of explanation. Recently it has come to be recognized that the sciences sometimes offer respectable explanations that are non-causal. This paper broadens the discussion by discussing explanations that are offered in the fields of history, linguistics, literary theory, and archaeology that do not seem to fit the causal theory of explanation. We conducted an exploratory survey in acclaimed humanities textbooks to find explicitly so-called explanations and analyze their nature. The survey suggests that non-causal explanations are an integral part of the humanities and that they are of distinct kinds. This paper describes three kinds that are suggested by our survey: teleological, formal, and normative explanations. We suggest that such humanistic explanations strengthen the case for explanatory pluralism.
This paper presents and discusses various strategies that have been wielded against scientism, roughly the claim that only science can give us knowledge. The strategies identified are: (1) the counter example strategy, (2) the denying of claimed entailments of science strategy, (3) the self-undermining strategy, (4) the presupposition strategy, and (5) the limits of science strategy. In addition, two proposals are discussed that aim to recast the debate about scientism in a way that renders these strategies obsolete. It is argued that these proposals are misguided.
Some philosophers, like Alex Rosenberg, claim that natural science delivers epistemic values such as knowledge and understanding, whereas, say, literature and, according to some, literary studies, merely have aesthetic value. Many of those working in the field of literary studies oppose this idea. But it is not clear exactly how works of literary art embody knowledge and understanding and how literary studies can bring these to the light. After all, literary works of art are pieces of fiction, which suggests that they are not meant to represent the actual world. How then can they deliver knowledge and understanding? I argue that literature and literary studies confer knowledge and understanding in at least five ways: they give us insight into the work and the world of the work of art in question, they shape our intellectual virtues, they invite us to apply various hypotheses, they deliver moral propositional knowledge, and they increase or bring about full understanding with respect to meaning, virtue, and significance. In the course of my argument, I refer at several junctures to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Edith Wharton’s Summer, in order to illustrate each of these claims.
What is reading? Seeing and comprehending a contentful, written text counts as reading, of course, but that is simply the paradigm; it is not reading itself. Blind people, e.g., often read using Braille. So, my project in this paper is to address this question: What is the proper analysis of person S reads text W? Surprisingly, no philosophical attempts to analyze reading exist; this question has (to my knowledge, anyway) yet to be tackled. Can other sensory modalities be used to read? What more can be said about the nature of the objects of reading, viz., texts? After critically assessing a few proposals, I defend a final analysis of reading according to which a person reads a text when she uses some sensory modality to cognitively attend to the word structures embedded in that text for the purposes of ultimately grasping its content. Moreover, S must not relentlessly fail to map W to some of W’s contents, and S’s comprehension of W’s contents must be a causal result of W (and not vice-versa).
The theory of evolution continues to be a bone of contention among certain groups of theistic believers. This paper aims to bring some light to the debate about it, by introducing a framework for epistemic appraisal which can provide a realistic and sober assessment of the epistemic credentials of the various parts of evolutionary theory. The upshot is a more nuanced epistemic appraisal of the theory of evolution, which shows that there are significant differences in epistemic standing between its various parts. Any serious conversation about the theory of evolution ought to reflect these facts.
The present article examines the question of who was the first to have allegorically interpreted Homer. The fragmentary and indirect character of the extant testimonies on the beginnings of allegoresis makes it very difficult to adjudicate between the candidates Theagenes of Rhegium and Pherecydes of Syros. This paper argues that while the surviving testimonies suggest that Theagenes was the first allegorist of Homer, Pherecydes' appropriation of mythology is likely to have created premises for allegorical interpretation of poetry. Thus, it is argued that both Theagenes and Pherecydes be considered as important figures in the emergence of allegoresis.
Whistle blowers play an important role diagnosing research misconduct, but often experience severe negative consequences. That is also true for incorrectly accused scientists. Both categories are vulnerable and deserve protection. Whistle blowers must proceed carefully and cautiously. Anonymous whistle blowing should be discouraged but cannot be ignored when the allegations are specific, serious and plausible. When accused of a breach of research integrity it's important to be as transparent as possible. Sometimes accusations are false in the sense that the accuser knows or should know that the allegations are untrue. A mala fide whistle blower typically does not act carefully and we postulate a typology that may help in detecting them. Striking the right balance between whistle blower protection and timely unmasking false and identifying incorrect accusations is a tough dilemma leaders of research institutions have to face.
Degree-sentences, i.e. sentences that seem to refer to things that allow of degrees, are widely used both inside and outside of philosophy, even though the metaphysics of degrees is much of an untrodden field. This paper aims to fill this lacuna by addressing the following four questions: [A] Is there some one thing, such that it is degree sensitive? [B] Are there things x, y, and z that stand in a certain relation to each other, viz. the relation that x has more y than z? [C] In those cases in which degree sentences do not refer to phenomena that are degree sensitive, what is responsible for their prima facie seeming to do so? [D] If there are degree sensitive things, to which ontological categories do they belong? We answer each of these questions by arguing that there are, metaphysically speaking, different phenomena that degree sentences refer to: some refer to determinates that emanate from a certain determinable, others to tokens that are instantiations of a certain type, and yet others to what we call ‘complex, resultant properties that are constituted by stereotypical properties’. Finally, we show the relevance of our answers by applying them to the notions of freedom and belief.
Our project in this essay is to showcase nonnaturalistic moral realism’s resources for responding to metaphysical and epistemological objections by taking the view in some new directions. The central thesis we will argue for is that there is a battery of substantive moral propositions that are also nonnaturalistic conceptual truths. We call these propositions the moral fixed points. We will argue that they must find a place in any system of moral norms that applies to beings like us, in worlds similar to our own. By committing themselves to true propositions of these sorts, nonnaturalists can fashion a view that is highly attractive in its own right, and resistant to the most prominent objections that have been pressed against it.
This introduction presents an overview of the articles in this special issue, within the framework of an argument for the conclusion that there are various roads leading from imagination to knowledge.
In this paper it is argued that sensitivity theory suffers from a fatal defect. Sensitivity theory is often glossed as: (1)
S knows that p only if S would not believe that p if p were false. As Nozick showed in his pioneering work on sensitivity
theory, this formulation needs to be supplemented by a further counterfactual condition: (2) S knows that p only if S would
believe p if p were true. Nozick further showed that the theory needs a qualification on the method used to form the belief.
However, when these complications are spelled out in detail, it becomes clear that the two counterfactuals are in irresolvable
tension. To jibe with the externalist intuitions that motivate sensitivity theory in the first place, (1) needs a fine-grained
grouping of belief-formation methods, but (2) needs coarse-grained grouping. It is therefore suggested that sensitivity theory
is in dire straits: either its proponents need to provide a workable principle of method individuation or they must retrench
and give up their claims to providing sufficient conditions for knowledge.
In this paper I aim to state the nature of the humanities, contrasting them with the natural sciences. I argue that, compared with the natural sciences, the humanities have their own objects, their own aims, and their own methods.
Where are the borders of mind and where does the rest of the world begin? There are two standard answers possible: Some philosophers argue that these borders are defined by our scull and skin. Everything outside the body is also outside the mind. The others argue that the meanings of our words "simply are not in our heads" and insist that this meaning externalism applies also to the mind. The authors are suggesting a third position, i.e. quite another form of externalism. Their so called active externalism implies an active involvement of the background in controlling the cognitive processes.
Many philosophers and theologians have accepted the following proposition:
(P) If a perfectly good moral agent created any world at all, it would
have to be the very best world that he could create.
L'A. analyse la formation des croyances en soulignant l'importance des «dispositions a croire», des «croyances implicites» qui conduisent a un sentiment d'evidence. Il etudie les modalites psychologiques et epistemiques de ces attitudes propositionnelles
“Interpretation” according to Nietzsche, has always been the actual — if generally unacknowledged — activity of philosophers and other thinkers, at least to the extent that they have been more than mere philosophical and intellectual “laborers” content to work within and with the framework of interpretations developed by others. And it is his further contention that genuine philosophers — including the “new philosophers” he envisions and calls for — will not and should not abandon interpretation in favor of some more “exact” form of thinking and reasoning, but rather must engage more self-consciously and deliberately and less dogmatically in it. So he characterizes his own philosophical activity as interpretive, despite the fact that this would appear to place his own positions on a par with those he rejects and brands as “lies,” “errors,” and “fictions.” “Supposing that this also is only interpretation — and you will be eager enough to make this objection? — well, so much the better” (BGE 22).
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In a 2010 article Turri puts forward some powerful considerations which suggest that Williamson's view of knowledge as the most general factive mental state is false. Turri claims that this view is false since it is false that if S sees that p, then S knows that p. Turri argues that there are cases in which (A) S sees that p but (B) S does not know that p. In response I offer linguistic evidence to suppose that in propositional contexts “see” does not have the sort of meaning (a purely perceptual meaning) which would sustain Turri's claims about the cases he offers (specifically, the (A) verdicts).
Looking out the window, I see that it’s raining outside. Do I know that it’s raining outside? According to proponents of the Entailment Thesis, I do. If I see that p, I know that p. In general, the Entailment Thesis is the thesis that if S perceives that p, S knows that p. But recently, some philosophers (McDowell, in Smith (ed.) Reading McDowell on mind and world, 2002; Turri, Theoria 76(3):197–206, 2010; Pritchard, Philos Issues (Supplement to Nous) 21:434–455, 2011; Pritchard, Epistemological disjunctivism, 2012) have argued that the Entailment Thesis is false. On their view, we can see p and not know that p. In this paper, I argue that their arguments are unsuccessful.
In this paper I shall presuppose that:
(1) logic and epistemology are disciplines which supply us with normative statements pertaining to states of belief.
(2) as such, logic and epistemology have implications concerning what we ought and ought not to believe.
(3) as such, logic and epistemology presuppose that there is some sense in which a person controls what he believes — some sense in which ‘can’ has a place in contexts where one comes to believe things.
The paper examines the relation between interpretation and the objects of interpretation, principally, but not exclusively, in the realm of art. Several theses are defended: that interpretation cannot proceed without prior determination of the kind of thing being interpreted; that the mode of interpretation is determined by the nature of its object; that interpretation, of a meaning-determining rather than generic kind, focuses at the level of works, not descending to a bedrock of “mere objects”; that because works and their appropriate mode of interpretation are constituted by convention-bound practices, it follows that no clear line can be drawn between properties “in” a work and those “imputed to” it through interpretive procedures endorsed by the practice. The debate over constructivism or “imputationalism”– between Margolis and Krausz, on the one hand, and Stecker and Levinson, on the other – is engaged with an attempt to show a core of truth in each of the conflicting theories, once the right distinction between object, work, and interpretation is in place.
This article accomplishes two closely connected things. First, it refutes an influential view about the relationship between perception and knowledge. In particular, it demonstrates that perceiving does not entail knowing. Second, it leverages that refutation to demonstrate that knowledge is not the most general factive propositional attitude.
Les AA. qui interpretent la quantification au sens substitutionnel donnent les conditions suivantes de verite d'une phrase quantifiee: " 'sigma(quantificateur substitutionnel) X X est un chien' (par ex.) est vrai si et seulement si X est un terme et 'X est un chien' est vrai". Mais l'A. se demande si la condition que la phrase contenant 'sigma' exprime une proposition vraie est suffisante: on pourrait aussi bien dans le schema precedent ecrire " 'L'herbe est verte' est vrai." Le probleme est qu'on ne sait pas quelle proposition expriment les phrases quantifiees substitutionnellement, a la difference des existentielles ordinaires.
In this paper I aim to show that the creation and manipulation of written vehicles is part of our cognitive processing and, therefore, that writing transforms our cognitive abilities. I do this from the perspective of cognitive integration: completing a complex cognitive, or mental, task is enabled by a co-ordinated interaction between neural processes, bodily processes and manipulating written sentences. In section one I introduce Harris’ criticisms of ways in which writing has been said to restructure thought (Goody 1968; McLuhan 1962, 1964; Ong 1982). This will give us a preliminary idea about possible pitfalls for a cognitive integrationist account. The second section outlines, firstly, how integrated cognitive systems function. Secondly, the model is applied to a hybrid mental act where writing allows us to complete complex cognitive tasks. The final section outlines the sense in which, following Harris, there is “a more realistic picture of how writing restructures thought” [Harris, R., 1989. How does writing restructure thought? Language and Communication 9 (2/3) 99–106] that is concealed by the ‘romantic fantasies’ of theorists such as the above. This picture is one of writing providing an autoglottic space in which a new form of theoretical thinking becomes prevalent. The cognitive integrationist understands this in terms of the nature of the written vehicles and how we manipulate them.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Clark University, 1916. "Reprinted from the American journal of psychology, July, 1920, vol. XXXI. Bibliography: p. 271-272.
We are prone to gross error, even in favorable circumstances of extended reflection, about our own ongoing conscious experience, our current phenomenology. Even in this apparently privileged domain, our self-knowledge is faulty and untrustworthy. We are not simply fallible at the margins but broadly inept. Examples highlighted in this essay include: emotional experience (for example, is it entirely bodily; does joy have a common, distinctive phenomenological core?), peripheral vision (how broad and stable is the region of visual clarity?), and the phenomenology of thought (does it have a distinctive phenomenology, beyond just imagery and feelings?). Cartesian skeptical scenarios undermine knowledge of ongoing conscious experience as well as knowledge of the outside world. Infallible judgments about ongoing mental states are simply banal cases of self-fulfillment. Philosophical foundationalism supposing that we infer an external world from secure knowledge of our own consciousness is almost exactly backward.
Among philosophers of science there seems to be a general consensus that understanding represents a species of knowledge, but virtually every major epistemologist who has thought seriously about understanding has come to deny this claim. Against this prevailing tide in epistemology, I argue that understanding is, in fact, a species of knowledge: just like knowledge, for example, understanding is not transparent and can be Gettiered. I then consider how the psychological act of “grasping” that seems to be characteristic of understanding differs from the sort of psychological act that often characterizes knowledge.
• Zagzebski's account
• Kvanvig's account
• Two problems
• Comanche cases
• Unreliable sources of information
• The upper-right quadrant
• So is understanding a species of knowledge?
• A false choice
I want to explore four different exercises of interpretation: (1) the interpretation of texts (or hermeneutics), (2) the interpretation of people (otherwise known as "attribution" psychology, or cognitive or intentional psychology), (3) the interpretation of other artifacts (which I shall call artifact hermeneutics), (4) the interpretation of organism design in evolutionary biology--the controversial interpretive activity known as adaptationism.
The Meaning of Word Sense Disambiguation Research
- Marten Postma
Knowledge by Acquaintance vs. Description
- Ali Hasan
- Richard Fumerton