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Epistemology 1, Spring 2014.

Course Description

In this course we shall be concerned with the study of knowledge itself: what is it, and

how much of it, if any, do we have?

Everything we know is true, so we begin by thinking about the nature of truth.

But not everything known is true, for knowledge seems to require belief, or at least

acceptance of some sort on the part of the knower. But not every true belief is

knowledge, for a lucky guess is not knowledge, even if it chances to be true. Thus it

seems that knowledge requires that one has a true belief which is held for a good

reason. One must bejustified, and we consider the nature of justification.

Sceptics are philosophers who question whether our justification is ever good

enough for real knowledge. We shall consider various kinds of scepticism, includingscepticism about the senses, scepticism about our knowledge of the future, and

scepticism about knowledge gained through the testimony of other people.

Recently many philosophers have questioned whether even belief that is

justified and true is sufficient for knowledge. Must some further conditions be added

to the analysis, and if so, what are they? We shall consider some suggestions for

further conditions. Finally, we shall look into the debate between internalists and

externalists: internalists believe that the relevant conditions must be known by the

subject to obtain, whereas externalists say it is sufficient if the conditions do obtain,

whether the subject knows it or not.

Lecture schedule

Week 1. Truth.

Week 2. Knowledge, opinion and belief.

Week 3. Justification Foundationalism.

Week 4. Justification Foundationalism continued

Week 5 Justification Coherentism.

Week 6 Scepticism about the senses

Week 7 Scepticism about our knowledge of the future

Week 8 Is knowledge justified true belief?

Week 9 Internalism, externalism and the sceptic.

Week 10 Knowing that one knows.

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Essays and readings for tutorials.

1) Distinguish between knowing and merely believing truly. Does anyone ever know

anything?

Unger, P (1978)Ignorance, Oxford University Press. Read Chapter 1, 1- 8,

pp 6 28.

(Available on Oxford Scholarship Online)

2) What is the epistemic regress problem? Can Foundationalism solve it?

Bonjour, L (1978). Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?

American Philosophical QuarterlyVol 15, pp 1-13.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009690.

3) Knowledge is adequatelyjustified true belief. Discuss whether adding the word

adequately thus to the classical analysis of knowledge is sufficient to answer Gettier.

Gettier, E (1963) Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?Analysis Vol. 23, pp.

121-123)

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3326922

4) Can the reliabilist answer the sceptic about induction?

Reading: Papineau, D (1992) Reliabilism, Induction and Scepticism

Philosophical QuarterlyVol. 42, pp 1- 20.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/i312670

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