Epistemic justification puzzle
The thesis explores the semantics of epistemic justification discourse, a very important part of overall epistemic discourse. It embarks from a critical examination of referentialist theories to arrive at a certain nonreferential, expressivist approach to the semantics of epistemic justification discourse. That is, it criticizes the main referentialist theories and then goes on to argue for an expressivist approach on the basis of its theoretical capacity to outflank the problems referentialist theories meet. In the end, I also identify some problems for a prominent expressivist theory and, as a response to these problems, propose a novel norm-expressivist approach that seems to evade these problems. In particular, in Ch.1 I introduce what I call âthe epistemic justification puzzleâ and then in Chs.2-4 criticize naturalistic referential theories: analytic naturalistic reductionism, synthetic naturalistic reductionism and epistemic kinds realism. In Ch.5 I criticize nonnaturalist referential theories: what I call ânaiÌveâ nonnaturalism and J.McDowellâs (1994) more sophisticated quietist version of nonnaturalism. Next, in Ch.6 I introduce the semantic programme of expressivism and go on to construct
Kyriacou, Christos
realism ; antirealism ; expressivism ; supervenience ; semantics
Epistemic justification puzzle. The thesis explores the semantics of epistemic justification discourse, a very important part of overall epistemic discourse. It embarks from a critical examination of referentialist theories to arrive at a certain nonreferential, expressivist approach to the semantics of epistemic justification discourse. That is, it criticizes the main referentialist theories and then goes on to argue for an expressivist approach on the basis of its theoretical capacity to outflank the problems referentialist theories meet. In the end, I also identify some problems for a prominent expressivist theory and, as a response to these problems, propose a novel norm-expressivist approach that seems to evade these problems. In particular, in Ch.1 I introduce what I call âthe epistemic justification puzzleâ and then in Chs.2-4 criticize naturalistic referential theories: analytic naturalistic reductionism, synthetic naturalistic reductionism and epistemic kinds realism. In Ch.5 I criticize nonnaturalist referential theories: what I call ânaiÌveâ nonnaturalism and J.McDowellâs (1994) more sophisticated quietist version of nonnaturalism. Next, in Ch.6 I introduce the semantic programme of expressivism and go on to construct
epistemic_justification puzzle explores semantics epistemic_justification discourse important_part overall epistemic discourse critical_examination theory arrive certain expressivist semantics epistemic_justification discourse criticize main theory argue expressivist basis theoretical capacity problem theory meet end also_identify problem prominent expressivist theory response_problem propose_novel norm expressivist seem evade problem particular introduce call epistemic_justification puzzle chs criticize naturalistic referential theory analytic naturalistic reductionism synthetic naturalistic reductionism epistemic kind realism criticize referential theory call mcdowell sophisticate version next introduce semantic programme expressivism construct