Soochow University Lectures in Philosophy

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is George Lynn Cross Research Professor Emerita and the Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics Emerita at the University of Oklahoma. Her many books include Virtues of the Mind, Exemplarist Moral Theory, and Epistemic Authority. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two simple yet tremendously powerful ideas that shaped virtually every aspect of civilization This book is a breathtaking examination of the two greatest ideas in human history. The first is the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe. The second is the idea that the human mind can grasp itself. Acclaimed philosopher Linda Zagzebski shows how the first unleashed a cultural awakening that swept across the world in the first millennium BCE, giving birth to philosophy, mathematics, science, and virtually all the major world religions. It dominated until the Renaissance, when the discovery of subjectivity profoundly transformed the arts and sciences. This second great idea governed our perception of reality up until the dawn of the twenty-first century. Zagzebski explores how the interplay of the two ideas led to conflicts that have left us ambivalent about the relationship between the mind and the universe, and have given rise to a host of moral and political rifts over the deepest questions human beings face. Should we organize civil society around the ideal of living in harmony with the world or that of individual autonomy? Zagzebski explains how the two greatest ideas continue to divide us today over issues such as abortion, the environment, free speech, and racial and gender identity. This panoramic book reveals what is missing in our conception of ourselves and the world, and imagines a not-too-distant future when a third great idea, the idea that human minds can grasp each other, will help us gain an idea of the whole of reality. "A profoundly insightful and indeed magisterial new book. . . . [The Two Greatest Ideas] is a wild and informative ride through the centuries and up to what may intellectually come next in the human adventure. It was a marvel of an experience."---Tom V. Morris, Plato's Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great " Zagzebski offers a fascinating meta-level view of these two foundational ideas, taking readers on a journey that includes the many connections between cultural developments, not least the current politically polarized situation in the US. The book is well written and should be accessible to intelligent lay readers." "A brilliant, panoramic and original contribution to the history of ideas, providing a new framework that sheds light on many of our current social and political tensions."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer "[A]n ambitious essay in intellectual history. . . . [Zagzebski] has written a highly original study of what it is that makes the modern world modern."---John Crosby, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly "This marvelously lucid book guides readers through a vast intellectual tradition, from Thales to string theory, uncovering nothing less than the history of the human mind. Zagzebski navigates this fascinating terrain with humane insight and a light touch. Ranging across art, philosophy, and science while digging deep into fundamental questions of metaphysics and morality, The Two Greatest Ideas is intellectual history at its best."-Clare Carlisle, author of Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard "Until the Renaissance, the dominant Western view was that a grasp of the world precedes a grasp of the self. Contemporary awareness of the socially constructed character of the self has undermined confidence in both self and the world. In a masterful narrative of breathtaking scope, Zagzebski traces the displacement of the first great idea by the second, and the lineaments of a third that might save us from the predicament in which we have landed ourselves. A tour de force."-Jennifer A. Herdt, autho

Scott Soames is professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. His books include Philosophy of Language, Philosophical Essays, Reference and Description, and Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (all Princeton). The tradition descending from Frege and Russell has typically treated theories of meaning either as theories of meanings (propositions expressed), or as theories of truth conditions. However, propositions of the classical sort don't exist, and truth conditions can't provide all the information required by a theory of meaning. In this book, one of the world's leading philosophers of language offers a way out of this dilemma. Traditionally conceived, propositions are denizens of a "third realm" beyond mind and matter, "grasped" by mysterious Platonic intuition. As conceived here, they are cognitive-event types in which agents predicate properties and relations of things--in using language, in perception, and in nonlinguistic thought. Because of this, one's acquaintance with, and knowledge of, propositions is acquaintance with, and knowledge of, events of one's cognitive life. This view also solves the problem of "the unity of the proposition" by explaining how propositions can be genuinely representational, and therefore bearers of truth. The problem, in the traditional conception, is that sentences, utterances, and mental states are representational because of the relations they bear to inherently representational Platonic complexes of universals and particulars. Since we have no way of understanding how such structures can be representational, independent of interpretations placed on them by agents, the problem is unsolvable when so conceived. However, when propositions are taken to be cognitive-event types, the order of explanation is reversed and a natural solution emerges. Propositions are representational because they are constitutively related to inherently representational cognitive acts. Strikingly original, What Is Meaning? is a major advance. "This is an outstanding book, probably the best philosophy book I have read this year. . . . The book will not only be of great importance to professional philosophers and linguists but it will also be an accessible and invaluable asset to students."---Anthony Everett, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Derived from three lectures at Soochow University, Taipei, this book retains the relatively informal style that must have made those lectures both enjoyable and highly informative." "Soames's excellent book will drive research on this important topic for some time to come."---Brian Ball, Canadian Journal of Philosophy "Scott Soames' new book, What Is Meaning?, is an important book, both in the issues it raises and in its shortcomings. It is the first serious discussion of meaning (not 'semantic content' or some other term designed to sidestep the real issue) by a leading analytic philosopher of language in a long while, and its findings lead to a more realistic understanding of meaning and language."---Sergeiy Sandler, European Legacy "This is a highly original book from a major figure in the philosophy of language. Scott Soames approaches classic problems about intentionality and the unity of the proposition in a new way. The writing and argumentation are admirably clear and straightforward, and there are careful historical discussions. This book makes an important contribution."-Robert Stalnaker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "In this short book, Scott Soames makes a major contribution to the general theory of meaning. Along the way he provides a beautiful, concise critical account of several previous attempts to formulate such a theory. What Is Meaning? will be required reading for serious researchers in philosophical and linguistic semantics. It will also serve as a brief introduction to the theory of meaning for students in both fields."-Gilbert Harman, Princeton University

Ernest Sosa is the Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. In this book, Ernest Sosa explains the nature of knowledge through an approach originated by him years ago, known as virtue epistemology. Here he provides the first comprehensive account of his views on epistemic normativity as a form of performance normativity on two levels. On a first level is found the normativity of the apt performance, whose success manifests the performer's competence. On a higher level is found the normativity of the meta-apt performance, which manifests not necessarily first-order skill or competence but rather the reflective good judgment required for proper risk assessment. Sosa develops this bi-level account in multiple ways, by applying it to issues much disputed in recent epistemology: epistemic agency, how knowledge is normatively related to action, the knowledge norm of assertion, and the Meno problem as to how knowledge exceeds merely true belief. A full chapter is devoted to how experience should be understood if it is to figure in the epistemic competence that must be manifest in the truth of any belief apt enough to constitute knowledge. Another takes up the epistemology of testimony from the performance-theoretic perspective. Two other chapters are dedicated to comparisons with ostensibly rival views, such as classical internalist foundationalism, a knowledge-first view, and attributor contextualism. The book concludes with a defense of the epistemic circularity inherent in meta-aptness and thereby in the full aptness of knowing full well. "[T]his book . . . develops further the ideas about grades of knowledge for which [Sosa] is known. It is interesting, novel, often convincing, and extraordinarily clearly written. I admire it."---Adam Morton, Philosophy Reviews "A leading figure in epistemology for three decades, Sosa's reputation in this field could not rise any higher. This new work condenses his overall views on the traditional point of epistemology, namely the effort to justify a consistent preference for knowledge over mere true belief." "This brilliant book develops and defends the highly influential virtue-theoretic approach to knowledge its author originated three decades ago. An obvious 'must read' for students of contemporary epistemology, the book's breadth and clarity combined with the author's disciplinary stature will make it appealing to a wide range of theorists working outside epistemology, including philosophers of mind and action."---E.J. Coffman, Philosophical Review "Sosa's work has been at the center of many of these debates. Knowing Full Well is the latest and most sophisticated and mature statement of his views on several of the relevant topics. It is a must-read for anyone with an interest in normative epistemology."---Jason Baehr, Mind "A truly excellent book that will be widely praised across contemporary philosophy. It offers a complete statement of Sosa's extremely influential views on epistemic normativity as a kind of performance normativity, something we have not had before. Sosa is without doubt the most influential figure in modern epistemology, and this book will be required reading for anyone who wants to know the current state of play in the field."-Duncan Pritchard, University of Edinburgh "Knowing Full Well is one of the most significant contributions to epistemology in the last twenty years. This is a brilliant book."-Ram Neta, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Duncan Pritchard is professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, where he is the director of Eidyn: The Edinburgh Centre for Epistemology, Mind and Normativity. His books include Epistemic Luck and Epistemological Disjunctivism. Epistemic Angst offers a completely new solution to the ancient philosophical problem of radical skepticism-the challenge of explaining how it is possible to have knowledge of a world external to us. Duncan Pritchard argues that the key to resolving this puzzle is to realize that it is composed of two logically distinct problems, each requiring its own solution. He then puts forward solutions to both problems. To that end, he offers a new reading of Wittgenstein's account of the structure of rational evaluation and demonstrates how this provides an elegant solution to one aspect of the skeptical problem. Pritchard also revisits the epistemological disjunctivist proposal that he developed in previous work and shows how it can effectively handle the other aspect of the problem. Finally, he argues that these two antiskeptical positions, while superficially in tension with each other, are not only compatible but also mutually supporting. The result is a comprehensive and distinctive resolution to the problem of radical skepticism, one that challenges many assumptions in contemporary epistemology. "[An] innovative, clearly written, and wide-ranging book."---Daniel Immerman, Grazer Philosophische Studien "Pritchard is an excellent analytic philosopher and manifests to a high degree the analytic philosophical skills of conceptual sophistication and rigour of reasoning."---Peter Davson-Galle, Science and Education "This is an outstanding book on issues of philosophical skepticism central to epistemology throughout its history. Writing lucidly and engagingly, Duncan Pritchard tackles these issues in the context of recent philosophy, going back to Wittgenstein's On Certainty. Pritchard also lays out and defends an original proposal in dialectic with well-known rivals, such as relativist contextualism, attributor contextualism, contrastivism, dogmatism, and others."-Ernest Sosa, Rutgers University "Epistemic Angst will be a must-read for anyone interested in epistemology or Wittgenstein. I don't think there is anything about Wittgenstein's contribution to current epistemological debates that comes anywhere near this book. It provides a helpful survey of these debates and a very clear introduction to Wittgenstein's epistemology. Pritchard is an excellent writer with a gift for summarizing complicated debates, and his book will have a tremendous impact on the field."-Clayton Littlejohn, King's College London