Confusion: A Study in the Theory of Knowledge - Hardcover

Camp Jr., Joseph L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674006208 ISBN 13: 9780674006201

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Everyone has mistaken one thing for another, such as a stranger for an acquaintance. A person who has mistaken two things, Joseph Camp argues, even on a massive scale, is still capable of logical thought. In order to make that idea precise, one needs a logic of confused thought that is blind to the distinction between the objects that have been confused. Confused thought and language cannot be characterized as true or false even though reasoning conducted in such language can be classified as valid or invalid.

To the extent that philosophers have addressed this issue at all, they take it for granted that confusion is a kind of ambiguity. Camp rejects this notion; his fundamental claim is that confusion is not a mental state. To attribute confusion to someone is to take up a paternalistic stance in evaluating his reasoning. Camp proposes a novel characterization of confusion, and then demonstrates its fruitfulness with several applications in the history of philosophy and the history of science.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph L. Camp, Jr. is Professor of Philosophy and Fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

From the Back Cover

Excerpt from Joe Camp's Confusion After working late one night you walk to your car to drive home. Your car is parked in a dimly lit outdoor parking lot. There are several other cars in the lot. You are tired, and your mind is not really on what you are doing. … You go up to what you think is your car, and start to insert the key into the door lock. It won't go in. That annoys you, and for a moment you keep wiggling the key in the lock, wondering why it has decided to be so balky. Then you notice the stuffed panda in the back seat. You do not carry a stuffed panda in your back seat. It isn't your car. You look around, and quickly spot your car across the lot, where you now suddenly recall leaving it. … For a few seconds you thought this car was your car. You confused the two. You took one for the other. … It is perfectly obvious that when you confuse the car in front of you with your own car, you have made a mistake. Indeed you have made the paradigmatic "mis-take". It is perfectly obvious that you merit intellectual criticism-- some kind of intellectual criticism. … But it is not perfectly obvious what kind of intellectual criticism you deserve….

Reviews

Imagine that you think you see your car in the lot at Dodger Stadium, but your key won't work. You think to yourself, "I owe $500 on this car." Then you see a stuffed Panda in the backseat and decide that it's a different car. When you thought about "this car," were you thinking of the car you couldn't unlock or the car that you owned? Camp says neither. You were thinking about something like both but you did not succeed in referring to either. Camp (philosophy of science, Univ. of Pittsburgh) has not just produced a brain twister. His problem can be found in Descartes and Locke, who worried that we seem not to perceive actual things but to confront only ideas of them. If we can't refer without unique objects of reference, our claims to truth may be in trouble. There are alternatives to his theory of reference, but Camp's book mainly for academics but something that can be enjoyed by all puzzle lovers will provoke thought. Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674006208
• ISBN 13: 9780674006201
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256