Abstract
I defend the view that Cicero writes the Academica from the perspective of an aspirationalist radical skeptic. In section 2 I examine the textual evidence regarding the nature of Cicero’s skeptical stance in the Academica. In section 3 I consider the textual evidence from the Academica for attributing aspirationalism to Cicero. Finally, in section 4 I argue that while aspirationalist radical skepticism is open to a number of philosophical objections, none of those objections is decisive.
Abstract
According to Plato’s Apology of Socrates, a humanly wise person is distinguished by her ability to correctly assess the epistemic status and value of her beliefs. She knows when she has knowledge or has mere belief or is ignorant. She makes no unjustified knowledge claims and considers her knowledge to be limited in scope and value. This means: A humanly wise person is intellectually modest. However, when interpreted classically, Socratic wisdom cannot be modest. For in classical epistemic logic, modelling second-order knowledge of knowing something or not, i.e. positive and negative introspection, requires a degree of self-transparency that would at most be attributed to an omniscient and infallible agent. If intellectual modesty is part of Socratic wisdom, we have to look for another epistemic model. I will offer three proposals and argue that an intuitionist reading of the classical concept of knowledge is best suited for this purpose.
Within the broad framework of processual hermeneutics, this monograph studies rationality by investigating what are the fundamental cognitive mechanisms required for the cultural development of rational constructions. It analyses the basic cognitive competences through which the human being connects categories and operations in a manner that allows it to orient itself in the world. If both understanding and explaining are forms of human-specific orientation, what does asking the question “how” imply cognitively? This monograph focuses therefore on the human-specific array of cognitive mechanisms, here referred to as enarrativity.
In diesem Buch wird dafür argumentiert, dass es einen konzeptionellen Kern der Methode des Überlegungsgleichgewichts gibt, der alle Interpretationen miteinander verbindet und über den sie definiert werden kann. Bei paradigmatischen Konzeptionen der Methode lassen sich zwar Unterschiede und Eigenheiten feststellen, aber auch ein methodologischer Grundkonsens: Vier miteinander verbundene Regeln müssen stets eingehalten werden. Ob die Methode selbst gerechtfertigt ist, ist eine weitergehende Frage, die ebenfalls untersucht wird.