George Pappas

Last updated

George Sotiros Pappas
Born1942 (age 8081)
AwardsInternational Berkeley Essay Prize (1993), emeritus professor
Era Contemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
Main interests
Epistemology, early modern philosophy, Berkeley scholarship

George Sotiros Pappas (born 1942) is a professor of philosophy at Ohio State University. [1] Pappas specializes in epistemology, the history of early modern philosophy, philosophy of religion and metaphysics. He is of Greek and English origin.

Contents

He is the author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on "Internalist versus Externalist" conceptions of epistemic justification. [2]

He was co-editor (with Marshall Swain) of Essays on Knowledge and Justification (1978), regarded[ by whom? ] as a key anthology of essays relating to the Gettier problem [3] and used as a core text in undergraduate epistemology courses. [4]

Pappas is an editorial consultant of Berkeley Studies. [5]

Studies in Berkeley's philosophy

Pappas is known[ by whom? ] to be a leading Berkeley scholar; his essay "Berkeley and Scepticism" [6] was in 1993 awarded the International Berkeley Prize. [7] Pappas is a regular participant of International Berkeley Conferences. [8] At one such conference, celebrating the 300th anniversary of George Berkeley's birth, Pappas propounded a new approach to the relationship between Berkeley's anti-abstractionism and "esse est percipi" [9] principle. On Pappas' reading, Berkeley's two theses — that there are no abstract ideas and that sensible objects must be perceived in order to exist — entail one another. [10]

Pappas' formulation of the relationship between these two propositions is ingenious and merits his verdict that it is a 'very exciting result' ... So far as I know, his thesis is original. Some writers, to be sure, have some close to suggesting that the first proposition is a necessary condition for the truth of the second, but I cannot think of a commentator who holds that it is both a necessary and sufficient condition.

Avrum Stroll, Two lines of argumentation in Berkeley's Principles: a reply to George Pappas. In Essays and replies 1985, p. 140

Pappas' interpretation of Berkeley's esse is percipi thesis has sparked much discussion. [11] In 1989, the Garland Publishing Company brought out a 15-volume collection of major works on Berkeley; Pappas' paper "Abstract ideas and the 'esse is percipi' thesis" was included in the third volume, [12] as it was considered to be a significant contribution to Berkeley scholarship.

Pappas developed his treatment of Berkeley's "esse est percipi" principle [13] to repudiate the "inherence interpretation of Berkeley", upon which Edwin E. Allaire, among others, elaborated. [14] [15] [16]

That account is put forward to answer an extremely perplexing question in the history of philosophy: Why did Berkeley embrace idealism, i. e., why did he hold that esse est percipi, that to be is to be perceived? ( Hausman 1984 , pp. 421–2)

After emerging in the early 1960s, the "inherence account" attracted numerous proponents and became an influential element of contemporary Berkeley scholarship. In his paper "Ideas, minds, and Berkeley" [17] Pappas revealed some discrepancies between fountain-head evidences and Allaire's approach to a reconstruction of Berkeley's idealism. Pappas' critical examination of the "inherence account" is greatly appreciated by Berkeley scholars. Pappas' penetrating remarks compelled Edwin B. Allaire to revise and improve his conception. [18] Even those who share Allaire's account of Berkeley's idealism acknowledge Pappas' article to be "an excellent review and critique of the IA [inherence account]." [19]

In 2000, Pappas published his monograph Berkeley's thought in which some parts were based on earlier papers of his. While writings by A. A. Luce or Geoffrey Warnock are long outdated, Berkeley's thought is often included in lists of recommended literature on Berkeley's philosophy. [20]

Publications

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Berkeley</span> Anglo-Irish philosopher and bishop (1685–1753)

George Berkeley – known as Bishop Berkeley – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism". This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy of perception</span> Branch of philosophy

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In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Actual idealism</span> Philosophical system of Giovanni Gentile

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Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context. Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P", "knowing that P", "having a reason to A", and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Other philosophers contend that context-dependence leads to complete relativism.

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<i>A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge</i> 1710 book by Irish Empiricist philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753)

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is a 1710 work, in English, by Irish Empiricist philosopher George Berkeley. This book largely seeks to refute the claims made by Berkeley's contemporary John Locke about the nature of human perception. Whilst, like all the Empiricist philosophers, both Locke and Berkeley agreed that we are having experiences, regardless of whether material objects exist, Berkeley sought to prove that the outside world is also composed solely of ideas. Berkeley did this by suggesting that "Ideas can only resemble Ideas" – the mental ideas that we possess can only resemble other ideas and thus the external world consists not of physical form, but rather of ideas. This world is given logic and regularity by some other force, which Berkeley concludes is God.

<i>Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous</i>

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Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philosophers, for example, that it constitutes a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality and that propositional knowledge involves true belief. Most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy focus on propositional knowledge or knowledge-that, as in knowing that Dave is at home, in contrast to knowledge-how (know-how) expressing practical competence. However, despite the intense study of knowledge in epistemology, the disagreements about its precise nature are still both numerous and deep. Some of those disagreements arise from the fact that different theorists have different goals in mind: some try to provide a practically useful definition by delineating its most salient feature or features, while others aim at a theoretically precise definition of its necessary and sufficient conditions. Further disputes are caused by methodological differences: some theorists start from abstract and general intuitions or hypotheses, others from concrete and specific cases, and still others from linguistic usage. Additional disagreements arise concerning the standards of knowledge: whether knowledge is something rare that demands very high standards, like infallibility, or whether it is something common that requires only the possession of some evidence.

References

  1. Departmental profile at OSU Archived 2007-09-14 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article
  3. Gettier Problem bibliography at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  4. Suggested epistemology reading list
  5. "Berkeley Studies: Editorial Staff". Hampden–Sydney College. Archived from the original on 10 November 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2011.
  6. Pappas, G.S. (1999). "Berkeley and Scepticism". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research . 59 (1): 133–149. doi:10.2307/2653461. JSTOR   2653461.
  7. See: Berkeley Prize Winners.
    The annual International Berkeley Essay Prize competition was established by Colin Murray Turbayne and his wife in 1990.
  8. International Berkeley Conferences Archived 2016-05-18 at the Portuguese Web Archive
  9. "To be is to be perceived." A core proposition of Berkeley's ontology.
  10. Pappas, G.S. (1985). "Abstract ideas and the 'esse is percipi' thesis". In Berman, D. (ed.). George Berkeley: Essays and replies. Proceedings of International Berkeley Conference in Dublin, 1985. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. pp. 47–62. ISBN   0-7165-2395-7.
  11. Stroll, Avrum. "Two lines of argumentation in Berkeley's Principles: a reply to George S. Pappas".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) In Essays and replies 1985 , pp. 139–145
    - McKim, Robert. "Abstraction and Immaterialism: Recent Interpretations", Berkeley Newsletter 15 (1997–1998): 1–13.
  12. w Doney (ed), Berkeley on abstraction and abstract ideas, N.Y.; L.: Garland, 1989. — XVII, 434 p. — (Philosophy of George Berkeley; 3; A Garland series)
  13. Pappas 2000 , pp. 255–8. Ind.: p.257–261. (See chapter 5 Esse is percipi principle)
  14. Allaire, Edwin B. (1963). "Berkeley's Idealism". Theoria . XXIX (3): 229–44. doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.1963.tb00025.x. Archived from the original (DjVu) on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2011.
    The article is a classical work of Berkeley scholarship.
  15. For more detail, see:
  16. For up-to-date criticism of the "inherence account," see: Bettcher, Talia Mae (Ph. D., California State University, Los Angeles) (November 2008). "Berkeley's Dualistic Ontology" (PDF). Análisis Filosófico . 28 (2): 147–174. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2012.
  17. Pappas, G.S. (1980). "Ideas, minds, and Berkeley". Am. Phil. Q. 17 (3): 181–194. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012.
  18. Allaire, Edwin B. (1982). "Berkeley's Idealism Revisited". In Turbayne, Colin M. (ed.). Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 197–206. ISBN   978-0-8166-1066-2.
  19. Hausman 1984 , p. 422 (note 2)
  20. As examples, take: