Blome-Tillmann puts forth an innovative account of epistemic contextualism based on the idea that pragmatic presuppositions play a central role in the semantics of knowledge attributions. Using the resulting theory, he establishes its significance for a variety of issues within epistemology and the philosophy of language.

This book presents the first analysis and critique of the idea of practice as it has developed in the various theoretical traditions of the social sciences and the humanities. The concept of a practice, understood broadly as a tacit possession that is 'shared' by and the same for different people, has a fatal difficulty, the author argues. This object must in some way be transmitted, 'reproduced', in Bourdieu's famous phrase, in different persons. But there is no plausible mechanism by which such a process occurs. The historical uses of the concept, from Durkheim to Kripke's version of Wittgenstein, provide examples of the contortions that thinkers have been forced into by this problem, and show the ultimate implausibility of the idea of the interpersonal transmission of these supposed objects. Without the notion of 'sameness' the concept of practice collapses into the concept of habit. The conclusion sketches a picture of what happens when we do without the notion of a shared practice, and how this bears on social theory and philosophy. It explains why social theory cannot get beyond the stage of constructing fuzzy analogies, and why the standard constructions of the contemporary philosophical problem of relativism depend upon this defective notion.

Jonathan Ichikawa synthesizes two prominent ideas in epistemology: contextualism about knowledge ascriptions, and the 'knowledge first' emphasis on the theoretical primacy of knowledge. He argues that in thinking clearly about knowledge, epistemologists must also think about the dynamic aspects of the words we use to talk about knowledge.

Knowledge and Presuppositions develops a novel account of epistemic contextualism based on the idea that pragmatic presuppositions play a central role in the semantics of knowledge attributions. According to Blome-Tillmann, knowledge attributions are sensitive to what is pragmatically presupposed at the context of ascription. The resulting theory--Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism (PEC)--is simple and straightforward, yet powerful enough to have far-reaching and important consequences for a variety of hotly debated issues in epistemology and philosophy of language. In this book, Blome-Tillmann first develops Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism and then explores its ability to resolve various sceptical paradoxes and puzzles. Blome-Tillmann also defends PEC against familiar and widely discussed philosophical and linguistic objections to contextualism. In the final chapters of the book PEC is employed to illuminate a variety of concerns central to contemporary discussions of epistemological issues, such as Gettier cases, Moorean reasoning, the nature of evidence, and other current problems and puzzles.

The second edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory presents a comprehensive introduction to cutting-edge research in contemporary theoretical and computational semantics. Features completely new content from the first edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory Features contributions by leading semanticists, who introduce core areas of contemporary semantic research, while discussing current research Suitable for graduate students for courses in semantic theory and for advanced researchers as an introduction to current theoretical work

Some key aspects of contemporary epistemology deserve to be challenged, and How to Know does just that. This book argues that several long-standing presumptions at the heart of the standard analytic conception of knowledge are false, and defends an alternative, a practicalist conception of knowledge. Presents a philosophically original conception of knowledge, at odds with some central tenets of analytic epistemology Offers a dissolution of epistemology’s infamous Gettier problem — explaining why the supposed problem was never really a problem in the first place. Defends an unorthodox conception of the relationship between knowledge-that and knowledge-how, understanding knowledge-that as a kind of knowledge-how.

Philosophy and Christianity make truth claims about many of the same things. They both claim to provide answers to the deep questions of life. But how are they related to one another? Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy introduces readers to four predominant views on the relationship between philosophy and the Christian faith and their implications for life. Each author identifies the propositional relation between philosophy and Christianity along with a section devoted to the implications for living a life devoted to the pursuit of wisdom. The contributors and views include: Graham Oppy--Conflict: Philosophy Trumps Christianity K. Scott Oliphint--Covenant: Christianity Trumps Philosophy Timothy McGrew--Convergence: Philosophy Confirms Christianity Paul Moser--Conformation: Philosophy Reconceived Under Christianity General editors Paul M. Gould and Richard Davis explain the background to the discussion and provide some historical background in the introduction, as well as helpful summaries of each position in the conclusion. In the reader-friendly Counterpoints format, this book helps readers to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of each view and draw informed conclusions in this much-debated topic.

This resource offers “coach-leaders” tools and strategies for guiding staff to continuously grow and improve, maximize their potential, and create productive school cultures.

The academic world has been plagued in recent years by scepticism about truth and knowledge. Paul Boghossian, in his long-awaited first book, sweeps away relativist claims that there is no such thing as objective truth or knowledge, but only truth or knowledge from a particular perspective. He demonstrates clearly that such claims don't even make sense. Boghossian focuses on three different ways of reading the claim that knowledge is socially constructed - one as a thesis about truth and two about justification. And he rejects all three. The intuitive, common-sense view is that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion, and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reasonable, binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant evidence regardless of their social or cultural perspective. Difficult as these notions may be, it is a mistake to think that recent philosophy has uncovered powerful reasons for rejecting them. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; it will prove provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond.

When this book was originally published in 2006, Epistemetrics was not as yet a scholarly discipline. With regard to scientific information there was the discipline of scientometrics, represented by a journal of that very name. Science, however, had a monopoly on knowledge. Although it is one of our most important cognitive resources, it is not our only one. While scientometrics is a centerpiece of epistemetrics, it is not the whole of it. Nicholas Rescher's endeavor to quantify knowledge is not only of interest in itself, but is also instructive in bringing into sharper relief the nature of and the explanatory rationale for the limits that unavoidably confront our efforts to advance the frontiers of knowledge. In particular, his book demonstrates the limitations of human knowledge and will be of great value to scholars working in this area.