William P Alston
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 961712 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | William P Alston |
| NOMBRES | William P |
| APELLIDO | Alston |
| FIRMA | ALSTON W P |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Michigan |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 60 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 202 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 60 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1953 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2006 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Beyond "Justification"
Much of the writing in Anglo-American epistemology in the twentieth century focused on the conditions for beliefs being "justified." In a book that seeks to shift the ground of debate within theory of knowledge, William P. Alston finds that the century-long search for a correct account of the nature and conditions of epistemic justification misses the point. Alston calls for that search to be suspended and for talk of epistemic justification to c…
Religious Language
First there is some preliminary clearing of the deck. I argue against Verificationism (what seem like statements about God do have truth-values), and against Wittgensteinians (that religious language is not a totally autonomous sphere with its own unique criteria of intelligibility and truth and that religious terms do not derive all their meaning from religious practice though that is one important source). Then I turn to the main topics and the…
Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning
Sellars and the “Myth of the Given”
Sellars is well known for his critique of the “myth of the given” in his “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”. That text does not make it unambiguous just how he understands the “myth”. Here I take it that whatever else may be involved, his critique is incompatible with the view that there is a nonconceptual mode of “presentation” or “givenness” of particulars that is the heart of sense perception and what is most distinctive of perception as …
Realism & Antirealism
Virtues of the Mind
A Realist Conception of Truth
A Realist Conception of Truth
The Epistemology of Religious Experience
Introduction: is our task impossible or impolite? Part I. The Experimental Data: 1. Religious experience, 'East' and 'West' Some basic epistemological concepts Part II. The Challenge from Ineffability: 3. The outlines of ineffability ineffability relative to particular languages 5. Reasons in ineffability's favour Part III. The Social Science Challenge: 6. Nonepistemic explanation of belief 7. Non-religious explanation of religious belief Part IV…
A realist conception of truth
One of the most important Anglo-American philosophers of our time here joins the current philosophical debate about the nature of truth with a work likely to claim a place at the very center of the contemporary philosophical literature on the subject. William P. Alston formulates and defends a realist conception of truth, which he calls alethic realism (from "aletheia," Greek for "truth"). This idea holds that the truth value of a statement (beli…
The Reliability of Sense Perception
Renewing Philosophy
Precis of Perceiving God
The central thesis of the book is that experiential awareness of God-the of God, as I call it-can provide epistemic justification for certain kinds of beliefs about God. I call such beliefs 'M-beliefs' ('M' for manifestation), beliefs to the effect that God is doing something vis-a-vis the subject-strengthening, guiding, communicating a message, etc-or to the effect that God has some (allegedly) perceivable property-goodness, power, lovingness, e…
Reply to Commentators
Wittgenstein means that the point of the assertion may not be to convey the information that p, but, rather, to let others know under what circumstance the speaker will be right or wrong. Commonly, the assertion I believe that p is an assertion of with an attached indication of guardedness or insecurity, but sometimes the focus of I believe that p is on the speaker and emphasizes his epistemic risk. The same may be said of the unqualified asserti…
Perceiving God
In Perceiving God, William P. Alston offers a clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience. He argues that the of God-his term for direct experiential awareness of God-makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God among laypersons and famous mystics, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on th…
On the Existence and Nature of God
Epistemic Desiderata
Divine Nature and Human Language
Divine Nature and Human Language
The Inductive Argument From Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition
The recent outpouring of literature on the problem of evil has materially advanced the subject in several ways. In particular, a clear distinction has been made between the argument against the existence of God (atheological argument) from evil, which attempts to show that evil is logically incompatible with the existence of God, and the (empirical, probabilistic) argument, which contents itself with the claim that evil constitutes (sufficient) e…
Epistemic Justification
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. By William P. Alston. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1989. Pp. xi + 354. Price $44.95 hardback; $14.95 paperback.) James E. Taylor James E. Taylor Bowling Green State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 41, Issue 163, April 1991, Pages 249–251, https:…
Externalist Theories of Perception
I term externalist theories of perception have been dominant throughout the modern period. Let me explain the term. First, a of as I am using that term, attempts to answer the question, What is it to perceive a certain physical object? It seeks to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for this. Restricting ourselves to reasonably sensible theories, all the contenders hold that one necessary condition for my seeing a certain tree is that I h…
Reply to Daniels
Before responding to challenging points raised by Professor Daniels' paper, let me correct a couple of misinterpretations. Daniels argues that whether a practice Jn, is of very little interest. In support of this judgment he claims that all sorts of we deem superstitious are free of ineradicable inconsistencies and so qualify as Jn (p. 488). However his example of such a superstitious practice putting right shoe on first odd days and my left on f…
Foley's Theory of Epistemic Rationality
Philosophy of Language
The Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification
The terms, 'justified', 'justification', and their cognates are most naturally understood in what we may term a way, as having to do with obligation, permission, requirement, blame, and the like. We may think of requirement, prohibition, and permission as the basic deontological terms, with obligation, and duty as species of requirement, and with responsibility, blameworthiness, reproach, praiseworthiness, merit, being in the clear, etc. as norma…
Epistemic Circularity
An internalist externalism
Epistemic Desiderata
Traits, Consistency and Conceptual Alternatives for Personality Theory
Sellars and the “Myth of the Given”
Sellars is well known for his critique of the “myth of the given” in his “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”. That text does not make it unambiguous just how he understands the “myth”. Here I take it that whatever else may be involved, his critique is incompatible with the view that there is a nonconceptual mode of “presentation” or “givenness” of particulars that is the heart of sense perception and what is most distinctive of perception as …
The Inductive Argument From Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition
The recent outpouring of literature on the problem of evil has materially advanced the subject in several ways. In particular, a clear distinction has been made between the argument against the existence of God (atheological argument) from evil, which attempts to show that evil is logically incompatible with the existence of God, and the (empirical, probabilistic) argument, which contents itself with the claim that evil constitutes (sufficient) e…
What's wrong with immediate knowledge
The Place of the Explanation of Particular Facts in Science
On the critical side it is argued that, contrary to a widespread view, the explanation of particular facts does not play a central role in pure science and hence that philosophers of science are misguided in supposing that the understanding of such explanations is one of the central tasks of the philosophy of science. It is suggested that the view being attacked may stem in part from an impression that the establishing of a general law is tantamo…
Feelings
Ineffability
Pragmatism and the Theory of Signs in Peirce
Virtues of the Mind
Locke on People and Substances
In the famous chapter on identity in the Essay (II.xxvii), Locke notoriously denies that sameness of substance is either necessary or sufficient for sameness of person. In thus denying that the identity of a person is determined by ‘unity of substance’, Locke denies that a person is a substance. If people were substances of some kind, then for me to be the same person through a stretch a time would just be for me to continue to be the same substa…
Identity and Cardinality
The thesis that identity is always relative to. . . a criterion seems to me a truism, like Frege’s connected thesis that a number is always relative to a Begriff. It is as nonsensical to speak of identification apart from identifying some kind of thing, as to speak of counting apart from counting some kind of thing. A numerical word demands completion with a count noun; similarly for ‘the same’ and ‘another’
Meaning and Use
Journal Article Meaning and Use Get access William P. Alston William P. Alston University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 13, Issue 51, April 1963, Pages 107–124, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217187 Published: 01 April 1963
Precis of Perceiving God
The central thesis of the book is that experiential awareness of God-the of God, as I call it-can provide epistemic justification for certain kinds of beliefs about God. I call such beliefs 'M-beliefs' ('M' for manifestation), beliefs to the effect that God is doing something vis-a-vis the subject-strengthening, guiding, communicating a message, etc-or to the effect that God has some (allegedly) perceivable property-goodness, power, lovingness, e…
Divine Nature and Human Language
Externalist Theories of Perception
I term externalist theories of perception have been dominant throughout the modern period. Let me explain the term. First, a of as I am using that term, attempts to answer the question, What is it to perceive a certain physical object? It seeks to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for this. Restricting ourselves to reasonably sensible theories, all the contenders hold that one necessary condition for my seeing a certain tree is that I h…
Speech Acts
Critical Study Get access Speech Acts : An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. By John R. Searle. ( Cambridge University Press. 1969. Pp. viii + 203. Price 45s.) William P. Alston William P. Alston University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 20, Issue 79, April 1970, Pages 172–179, https://doi.org/10.2307/2218090 Published: 01 April 1970
Particulars--Bare and Qualified
Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
Are Positivists Metaphysicians
Christian Faith and the Scientific Attitude
Particulars--Bare and Qualified
Pragmatism and the verifiability theory of meaning
Ineffability
Pragmatism and the Theory of Signs in Peirce
Is a Sense-Datum Language Necessary
The sense-datum theory of perception has been under heavy attack in the last two decades. Recently, by way of counterattack, some of its defenders have accused what they take to be its chief rival, the “theory of appearing”, of various deficiencies. In particular, they have claimed that there are some perceptual, or pseudo-perceptual, situations, such as hallucinations and dreams, of which the theory of appearing can give no adequate account. For…
Faith, Reason, and Existence
Tillich on Idolatry
Words and Images
Man Seeks the Divine
Christian Theology and Natural Science
Christianity and Paradox
The Ontological Argument Revisited
Meaning and Use
Journal Article Meaning and Use Get access William P. Alston William P. Alston University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 13, Issue 51, April 1963, Pages 107–124, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217187 Published: 01 April 1963
Feelings
Speech Acts
Critical Study Get access Speech Acts : An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. By John R. Searle. ( Cambridge University Press. 1969. Pp. viii + 203. Price 45s.) William P. Alston William P. Alston University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 20, Issue 79, April 1970, Pages 172–179, https://doi.org/10.2307/2218090 Published: 01 April 1970
The Place of the Explanation of Particular Facts in Science
On the critical side it is argued that, contrary to a widespread view, the explanation of particular facts does not play a central role in pure science and hence that philosophers of science are misguided in supposing that the understanding of such explanations is one of the central tasks of the philosophy of science. It is suggested that the view being attacked may stem in part from an impression that the establishing of a general law is tantamo…
Pleasure and Desire
Book Reviews Get access Pleasure and Desire : The Case for Hedonism Reviewed. By J. C. B. Gosling. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1969. Pp. vii + 179. Price £1.50) William P. Alston William P. Alston Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 22, Issue 86, January 1972, Pages 86–87, https://doi.org/10.2307/2218613 Published: 01 January 1972
Traits, Consistency and Conceptual Alternatives for Personality Theory
Two Types of Foundationalism
Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology
Pleasures and Pains
What's wrong with immediate knowledge
Philosophy (57 obras) · Epistemology (55 obras) · Contemporary philosophy (22 obras) · Philosophy (19 obras) · Psychology (18 obras) · Analytic philosophy (15 obras) · General interest (15 obras) · Theology and Philosophy of Evil (14 obras) · Computer Science (13 obras) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (12 obras)