Alvin Goldman

Alvin Goldman ( born 1938 ) is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. His main areas of research are epistemology, philosophy of mind and the theory of cognitive science.

Prior to his appointment at Rutgers University Goldman has held professorships at the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona.

Work

The Thinker published an early book, A Theory of Human Action, based on his Ph.D. thesis on issues of philosophical theory of action. In the work, the author classes of actions from different areas of human practices tried to classify systematically. It was developed positions, inter alia, rezipiert of John Rawls.

Goldman has become especially his causal theory of knowledge ( epistemology ), which he developed in discussion of the Gettier problem known. Gettier had in the 1963 essay Is Justified True Belief publish Knowledge? Examples developed, which showed that one can not define them as true, justified opinion of the knowledge. To cope with the problem as suggested Goldman raised before to bind knowledge to a reliable causal link. Only if the dispute is caused a situation by suitable processes, can therefore be referred to as "knowledge". Is about the opinion that a cow on the meadow is caused by the perception of a cow on the meadow on a good night, so one can speak of knowledge. Is it, however, caused by a horse or a cow barely visible on the horizon, so the concept of knowledge is inappropriate.

Later, Goldman shifted his academic focus on social theories of knowledge and has his own theory among others applied to right, choice, and media studies areas. In contrast to various cultural studies approaches in the Gereich Goldman used while the formal tools of analytic philosophy, and he has, inter alia, presented the book Knowledge in a Social World set out around the neck. His work on the relationship between Kognitationswissenschaften and philosophy since the mid-1980s were also mainly in book form - submitted - Epistemology and Cognition, Philosophical Applications of Cognitive Science, and Simulating Mind.

Works (selection)

  • Action (1965 )
  • A Causal Theory of Knowing. In The Journal of Philosophy v. 64 (1967 ), pp. 335-372.
  • A Theory of Human Action (1970 )
  • What is Justified Belief? . In Justification and Knowledge (1979 ), pp. 1-23.
  • Epistemology and Cognition (1986 )
  • Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences (1991 )
  • Philosophical Applications of Cognitive Science (1993 )
  • Readings in Philosophy and Cognitive Science (editor ) (1993 )
  • Knowledge in a Social World ( 1999)
  • Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public ( 2004)
  • Simulating Minds (2005)
  • Alvin Goldman: Social Epistemology. In: Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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