Understanding in Epistemology Epistemology is often defined as the theory of knowledge, and talk of propositional knowledge (that is, “S knows that p”) has dominated the bulk of modern literature in epistemology. However, epistemologists have recently started to turn more attention to the epistemic state or states of understanding, asking questions about its nature, relationship to knowledge, connection with explanation, and potential status as a

Hedonism The term “hedonism,” from the Greek word ἡδονή (hēdonē) for pleasure, refers to several related theories about what is good for us, how we should behave, and what motivates us to behave in the way that we do. All hedonistic theories identify pleasure and pain as the only important elements of whatever phenomena they are designed to describe.  If hedonistic theories identified pleasure and

Applied Ethics Under what conditions is an abortion morally permissible?  Does a citizen have a moral obligation to actively participate (perhaps by voting) in the democratic process of one’s nation (assuming one is living in a democracy)?  What obligations, if any, does one have to the global poor?  Under what conditions is female genital excision morally permissible?  If there are conditions under which it is

Resource Bounded Agents Resource bounded agents are persons who have information processing limitations. All persons and other cognitive agents who have bodies are such that their sensory transducers (such as their eyes and ears) have limited resolution and discriminatory ability; their information processing speed and power is bounded by some threshold; and their memory and recall is imperfect in some way. While these general facts

Religious Disagreement The domain of religious inquiry is characterized by pervasive and seemingly intractable disagreement. Whatever stance one takes on central religious questions—for example, whether God exists, what the nature of God might be, whether the world has a purpose, whether there is life beyond death—one will stand opposed to a large contingent of highly informed and intelligent thinkers. The fact of extensive religious disagreement

Feng Youlan (Fung Yu-lan, 1895—1990) Feng Youlan (romanized as Fung Yu-lan) was a representative of modern Chinese philosophy. Throughout his long and turbulent life, he consistently engaged the problem of reconciling traditional Chinese thought with the methods and concerns of modern Western philosophy. Raised by a modernist family who nonetheless gave him a traditional Confucian education, Feng pursued two great goals during his career: rewriting