Bücher von Jan Faye

Traditionally, philosophers have argued that epistemology is a normative discipline and therefore occupied with an a priori analysis of the necessary and sufficient conditions that a belief must fulfill to be acceptable as knowledge. But such an approach makes sense only if human knowledge has some normative features, which conceptual analysis is able to disclose. As it turns out, philosophers have not been able to find such features unless they are very selective in their choice of examples of knowledge. Much of what we intuitively think functions as knowledge, both in human and non-human animals, does not share these normative features.The purpose of this book is to demonstrate that natural selection has adapted human sense impressions to deliver reliable information without meeting the traditional commitments for having knowledge. In connection with memory, sensory and bodily information provides an animal with experiential knowledge. Experiential knowledge helps an animal to navigate its environment. Moreover, experiential knowledge has different functions depending on whether the deliverance of information stems from the organism's external or internal senses.

This innovative book proposes a unique and original perspective on the nature of the mind and how phenomenal consciousness may arise in a physical world.

This book presents a persuasive argument in favour of evolutionary naturalism and outlines what such a stance means for our capacity of observation and understanding reality.

The bulk of the present book has not been published previously though Chapters II and IV are based in part on two earlier papers of mine: "The Influence of Harald H!1lffding's Philosophy on Niels Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics", which appeared in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 1979, and "The Bohr-H!1lffding Relationship Reconsidered", published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988. These two papers comple­ ment each other, and in order to give the whole issue a more extended treatment I have sought, in the present volume by drawing on relevant historical material, to substantiate the claim that H!1lffding was Bohr's mentor. Besides containing a detailed account of Bohr's philosophy, the book, at the same time, serves the purpose of making H!1lffding' s ideas and historical significance better known to a non-Danish readership. During my work on this book I have consulted the Royal Danish Library; the National Archive of Denmark and the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, in search of relevant material. I am grateful for permission to use and quote material from these sources. Likewise, I am indebted to colleagues and friends for commenting upon the manuscript: I am especially grateful to Professor Henry Folse for our many discussions during my visit to New Orleans in November-December 1988 and again here in Elsinore in July 1990.