[SydPhil] Robert Audi at UNSW, 27 May

[Markos Valaris]

Hi everyone,


Robert Audi will be giving a talk that the UNSW Philosophy Seminar on 27 May. The venue is Morven Brown 310, and the time 2:30 to 4:00. Title and abstract:

Understanding, Justification, and Self-Evidence: Adequate Understanding as a Basis of A Priori Justification
Self-evidence is widely taken to be a status that marks propositions as capable of being justifiedly believed (and known) on the basis of understanding.  This paper explicates and defends that view.  The paper shows that the broadly linguistic kind of understanding implied by semantic comprehension of a formulation of a self-evident proposition does not entail being justified in believing it; that the kind of understanding adequate to yield such justification is multi-dimensional; and that there are many variables partly constitutive of adequate understanding-all having philosophical interest in themselves-which contribute to the kind and degree of understanding that a theory of self-evidence must account for.  The paper also shows why self-evident propositions need not be obvious, need not be unprovable, and, far from being beyond dispute, can be a subject of rational disagreement. The concluding section shows how knowledge of self-evident propositions is possible even if, on the one hand, they are abstract and causally inert and, on the other, beliefs constituting knowledge must meet both causal and reliability conditions connected with their truthmakers.


Hope to see you there!




Markos Valaris
Lecturer in Philosophy
Associate Editor, Australasian Journal of Philosophy
University of New South Wales
Phone: +(61) 2 9385 2760 (office)
Personal webpage: markosvalaris.net<http://www.markosvalaris.net/>

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