On Reflection

by Hilary Kornblith

Hilary Kornblith presents a new account of reflection, and its importance for knowledge, reasoning, freedom, and normativity. Philosophers have frequently extolled the value of reflective self-examination, and a wide range of philosophers, who differ on many other things, have argued that reflection can help to solve a number of significant philosophical problems. The importance of reflecting on one's beliefs and desires has been viewed as the key to solving problems aboutjustification and knowledge; about reasoning; about the nature of freedom; and about the source of normativity. In each case, a problem is identified which reflective self-examination is thought to address.Kornblith argues that reflection cannot solve any of these problems. There is a common structure to these issues, and the problems which reflection is thought to resolve are ones which could not possibly be solved by reflecting on one's beliefs and desires. More than this, he suggests that the attempt to solve these problems by appealing to reflection saddles us with a mystical view of the powers of reflective self-examination. Recognition of this fact motivates a search for a demystifiedview of the nature of reflection.To this end, Kornblith offers a detailed examination of views about knowledge, reasoning, freedom, and normativity in order to better understand the motivations for extolling self-reflective examination. He explores both the logic of these views, and the psychological commitments they involve. In the final chapter, he offers a more realistic view of reflection, which draws on dual process approaches to cognition.

Genres: Philosophy

188 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Hilary Kornblith is an American Professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, and one of contemporary epistemology's most prominent proponents of naturalized epistemology. Kornblith received his B.A. from SUNY Buffalo in 1975 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1980, where he studied under Sydney Shoemaker and Richard Boyd. Before coming to University of Massachusetts in 2003, Kornblith taught at the University of Vermont, where he also chaired the department from 1991 to 1997. His research interests include epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. Apart from naturalized epistemology, his most recent work includes the role of intuitions in philosophical theorizing, the conflicts between internalism and externalism in epistemology, and the mental states of non-human animals.

Reviews

[Ole Jørgen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know, anymore, if I can adequately justify my beliefs about this book.

[Cecily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kornblith's book tackles the general question, 'Why do we think that reflection is something special in terms of knowledge generation and/or insight into ourselves'? It has been a while since I have read a book that is obviously aimed at those studying philosophy or logic and found it to be remarkably straightforward to understand. My interest in the subject is from the educational perspective i.e. 'Why do we accord reflective accounts special status within education?' but I found that all the sections were useful in thinking through the issues with reflection. Kornblith divides the issues into four main categories - knowledge, reasoning, freedom and normativity and dedicates a section of this short (!) book to each of them in turn, before using the last chapter to 'de-mystify' reflection building on each of these sections. I underlined lots of passages, folded over pages, starred paragraphs and found that the book did exactly as Kornblith's last section promised - it de-mystified reflection and explained why believing it has special powers and ability to generate insight is a dangerous thing. Excellent.

[Mills College Library]

121.3 K846 2012