October 18th, 2012
The Epistemology Directory
Below is a collection of all my blog posts specifically related to epistemology.- My Evidentialist Epistemology
- Onto-Relationships and Epistemology
- Why Plantinga’s Warrant Cannot Circumvent the Gettier Problem
- A General Rule for Gettier Cases
- Empiricism and Being in the Right Phenomenological Frame of Mind
- Meet Philosopher Linda Zagzebski
- The Connection Between Phenomenology and Existentialism
- A Response to Alvin Plantinga’s “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology”
- Alex Rosenberg on Whether Philosophy Emerges from Science
- Steven Wykstra’s “Toward a Sensible Evidentialism: ‘On the Notion of Needing Evidence.’”
- Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Epistemology
- New Paper: “Epistemological Scientific Realism and the Onto-Relationship of Inferentially Justified and Non-Inferentially Justified Beliefs”
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May 22nd, 2012
CS Lewis and Heaven
Pleasures are to last forever in some form or another. According to Lewis, a pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered.[1] This full knowledge and complete fruition of pleasure will only be in the fulfillment of one’s telos. This lapse in knowledge, the separation between the subject and object (the epistemic gap between the subject and the object of desire that full one’s pleasures) is removed in heaven. In Narnia, The Last Battle is the battle of the real forms—a draw to a close between this epistemic gap. Digory, looking at the new Narnia, seeing that it is a fuller, more real version of the old Narnia, comments that, “It’s all in Plato, all in Plato.”[2] Lewis’ Platonism is one in which ideas becomes concrete forms. In heaven, Lewis says, is where heaven is a place where subject and object come together: thought and form become one when subject experiences object.[3] Thus, the object one predicates pleasure to is in full knowledge and the ignorance–the lapse–is removed.
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May 19th, 2012
CS Lewis’ Sehnsucht and the Epistemic Split
Lewis’ argument from desire posits a certain degree of ignorance as to how the object of desire fulfills that Sehnsucht (literally meaning mind-search, a deep and mysterious longing for something, usually lasting).
- Every natural, innate desire corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.
- But there exists a desire space, time, or anything can satisfy. This desire is not the difference of degree of natural desire but a different kind.
- Therefore, There must exist something more than these natural [natural], which can satisfy this desire.
He ascribes certain subjective pleasures to an object, which rests at an epistemic distance. There is a concrete/abstract dilemma, which keeps us from knowing a thing completely. We can know about it; we can experience it. Both cannot be done simultaneously and each has its limits when isolated. This epistemic problem, or the lapse in knowledge in illicit pleasure, is due to a separation of the subject from the object[1]. Lewis roots the epistemic dilemmas, the loss of concrete thought, in a long process of separation that begins in the fall.
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April 23rd, 2012
CS Lewis’ ‘The Screwtape Letters’ Audio
I originally found this video shared on Justin Taylor’s blog at The Gospel Coalition. This video has John Cleese reading the book, which is very Germane and is, oh, classical?
Then there is, which absolutely recommend, Screwtape. This was a project overseen by Douglas Gresham, Lewis’ step-son, whom I have had the privilege of meeting. This version of the letters is more Rock and Roll, heavy, and real. Please watch the first video posted on their site (you’ll also see Gresham in his Tazmanian naval sweater, which I envy).
I just finished a paper on Lewis’ eudaimonistic ethic and worked quite a bit in Screwtape. Enjoy.
(EDIT 12.37 April 23, 2012: VIDEO REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE)