Date

6-2016

Department

Philosophical Studies

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Chair

Thomas Provenzola

Keywords

Dallas Willard, Edmund Husserl, Epistemology, Externalism, Internalism, Phenomenology

Disciplines

Aesthetics | Comparative Philosophy | Epistemology | Other Philosophy | Philosophy of Language

Abstract

This thesis introduces certain aspects in the thought of Dallas Willard and Edmund Husserl as a new way forward in the internalism externalism debate. Husserl’s detailed analysis of cognition has application to epistemology and addresses in great depth an area which in the current discussion is often tertiary and shallow at best. It is argued that in both internalist and externalist camps there is a common assumption about cognition which Husserl argues forcibly against. This assumption is that thought, or cognition, is essentially linguistic. (The notion that ‘thought is essentially linguistic’ means that thought requires the use of language.) Whatever else thinking may be, when we do it we do it in or with language. This assumption about thought means that whatever justification may be it is linguistic (that justification involves clear and effable propositions). This thesis holds that the rejecting of this assumption is critical to advancing the discussion past the current stalemate.

Download

Share

COinS