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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Dominic Alford-DuguidAbstract: In his Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell distinguished knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge of truths. This paper argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between these two species of knowledge. I argue that knowledge by acquaintance of an object neither suffices for knowledge that one is acquainted with the object, nor puts a subject in a position to know that she is acquainted with the object. These conclusions emerge from a thorough examination of the central role played by attention in Russell's theory of knowledge. Attention bridges the gap between knowledge by acquaintance and our capacity to form judgements about the objects of acquaintance.Comment:Anscombe, G. Elizabeth M.. On Sensations of Position1962, Analysis 22 (3): 55-58.
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Added by: Jie GaoSummary: In this paper, Anscombe defends the view that there are various bodily positions, such as sitting cross-legged, that we "just know" about and don't deduce from sensations or feelings any more than we might from visual clues. We use the term "sensation" in such cases as both an external description of what is the case, and as an internal description of what it feels like. The sensation is not broken down into other more primitive data, which we may not even be aware of, though if we were to attend to we might come to know.Comment: This short paper is suitable as a reading for teachings on perception. Given its difficulty for understanding, it might be a good idea to have some supplementary notes together with the original paper in use.Brown, Jessica. SubjectÂ-Sensitive Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm for Practical Reasoning2008, Nous 42(2): 167-189.
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Added by: Jie GaoIntroduction:Â It is increasingly popular to suggest that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, or reasoning about what to do (e.g. Hawthorne 2004, Stanley 2005). This idea is central to the defence of a new version of invariantism - 'subject-sensitive invariantism' - on which whether the true belief that p is knowledge not only depends on such factors as one's evidence, and the reliability of the belief-producing process, but also the stakes or how important it is that p be true (the view is also known as 'sensitive moderate invariantism' (Hawthorne 2004) and 'interest relative invariantism' (Stanley 2005)). I will argue against the idea that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, whether that is understood as a necessity or sufficiency claim. Instead, I will argue that the epistemic standards for practical reasoning vary contextually.Comment: This paper nicely elucidates the debates on pragmatic encroachment in epistemology and presents main objections to the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. It is useful for teachings on pragmatic encroachment and the knowledge norm of practical reasoning in an upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology.Bryan, Jenny. Likeness and Likelihood in the Pre-Socratics and Plato2012, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Added by: Lea CantorPublisher’s Note:
The Greek word eoikos can be translated in various ways. It can be used to describe similarity, plausibility or even suitability. This book explores the philosophical exploitation of its multiple meanings by three philosophers, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato. It offers new interpretations of the way that each employs the term to describe the status of his philosophy, tracing the development of this philosophical use of eoikos from the fallibilism of Xenophanes through the deceptive cosmology of Parmenides to Plato's Timaeus. The central premise of the book is that, in reflecting on the eoikos status of their accounts, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato are manipulating the contexts and connotations of the term as it has been used by their predecessors. By focusing on this continuity in the development of the philosophical use of eoikos, the book serves to enhance our understanding of the epistemology and methodology of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato's Timaeus.
Comment: This book offers useful conceptual resources for making sense of the epistemologies of two major Presocratic philosophers, Xenophanes and Parmenides, as well as Plato. It also has much to offer on questions about the relationship between myth/story-telling and argumentation in ancient Greek philosophical methodology. While parts of the book go into significant detail regarding certain terminological issues in ancient Greek, the author for the most part makes it easy to follow what is at stake philosophically in these discussions, making them accessible even to those with little or no background in ancient Greek.Dalmiya, Vrinda. Knowing People2001, In Matthias Steup (ed.), Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue. Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Wayne RiggsAbstract: Makes a case for redirecting epistemology by basing it on a virtue approach and the method of care. According to virtue epistemology, what confers epistemic value are properties of the epistemic subject: his or her epistemic character, belief?forming habits, and cognitive dispositions. The method of care is a complex, interactive process of acquiring justified beliefs or knowledge, a process that integrates the subject into a social and ethical context. Starting out with a discussion of knowledge of other minds, the writer moves on to an examination of the role the knowing self plays within the kind of epistemology she wishes to advocate. One important element of that kind of epistemology is epistemic responsibility, understood not as epistemic duty fulfillment but instead as the endeavor to cultivate and reinforce attitudes that are deemed admirable in the epistemic community.Comment:Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing2007, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Added by: Jie GaoPublisher's Note:Â In this exploration of new territory between ethics and epistemology, Miranda Fricker argues that there is a distinctively epistemic type of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower. Justice is one of the oldest and most central themes in philosophy, but in order to reveal the ethical dimension of our epistemic practices the focus must shift to injustice. Fricker adjusts the philosophical lens so that we see through to the negative space that is epistemic injustice. The book explores two different types of epistemic injustice, each driven by a form of prejudice, and from this exploration comes a positive account of two corrective ethical-intellectual virtues. The characterization of these phenomena casts light on many issues, such as social power, prejudice, virtue, and the genealogy of knowledge, and it proposes a virtue epistemological account of testimony. In this ground-breaking book, the entanglements of reason and social power are traced in a new way, to reveal the different forms of epistemic injustice and their place in the broad pattern of social injustice.Comment: In this book, Fricker names the phenomenon of epistemic injustice, and distinguish two central forms of it, with their corresponding remedies. It touches the central issues in social epistemology and philosophy of gender and race. It is thus an essential reading for relevant courses on those two areas.Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: The Power and Ethics of Knowing2007, Oxford: Oxford University Press
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerPublisher’s Note: Justice is one of the oldest and most central themes of philosophy, but sometimes we would do well to focus instead on injustice. In epistemology, the very idea that there is a first-order ethical dimension to our epistemic practices — the idea that there is such a thing as epistemic justice — remains obscure until we adjust the philosophical lens so that we see through to the negative space that is epistemic injustice. This book argues that there is a distinctively epistemic genus of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower, wronged therefore in a capacity essential to human value. The book identifies two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. In doing so, it charts the ethical dimension of two fundamental epistemic practices: gaining knowledge by being told and making sense of our social experiences. As the account unfolds, the book travels through a range of philosophical problems. Thus, the book finds an analysis of social power; an account of prejudicial stereotypes; a characterization of two hybrid intellectual-ethical virtues; a revised account of the State of Nature used in genealogical explanations of the concept of knowledge; a discussion of objectification and ‘silencing’; and a framework for a virtue epistemological account of testimony. The book reveals epistemic injustice as a potent yet largely silent dimension of discrimination, analyses the wrong it perpetrates, and constructs two hybrid ethical-intellectual virtues of epistemic justice which aim to forestall it.Comment (from this Blueprint): In this excerpt, Miranda Fricker introduces the concept of testimonial injustice.Hendricks, Vincent. Mainstream and Formal Epistemology2006, Cambridge University Press.
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Added by: Jamie CollinPublisher's Note:Â Mainstream and Formal Epistemology provides the first easily accessible yet erudite and original analysis of the meeting point between mainstream and formal theories of knowledge. These two strands of thinking have traditionally proceeded in isolation from one another but in this book Vincent F. Hendricks brings them together for a systematic comparative treatment. He demonstrates how mainstream and formal epistemology may significantly benefit from one another, paving the way for a new unifying program of 'plethoric' epistemology. His book will both define and further the debate between philosophers from two very different sides of the epistemological spectrum.Comment: This would be useful in a course on epistemology, formal epistemology, philosophical logic or formal methods in philosophy. Though the abstract describes the book as easily accessible, it is fairly technical in places (though remains a good introduction to the topic). Later chapters do rely, to some extent, on earlier ones; however, individual chapters from this book would provide very good introductions to topics such as the analysis of knowledge, modal epistemology, contextualism in epistemology etc.Ichikawa-Jenkins, Jonathan, Matthias Steup. The Analysis of Knowledge2012, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary:Â This entry provides an overview of attempts to analyse knowledge, including the topics: knowledge as justified true belief; lightweight knowledge; the Gettier problem; no false lemmas; modal conditions; doing without justification?; is knowledge analyzable?; epistemic luck; virtue-theoretic approaches; knowledge first; pragmatic encroachment; contextualism; and an introduction that briefly discusses what it is to analyse knowledge.Comment: This would be useful in a course on epistemology. It provides an overview - though quite a detailed one - of all the main strands in the analysis of knowledge: justified, true belief; Gettier cases; modal conditions; reliabilism; epistemic luck; virtue-theoretic approaches; contextualism and more. This covers ground that may take a few weeks - even an entire course - to teach, and so is particularly useful as an intial survey of the topic.Jaggar, Alison M.. Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology1989, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 32 (2):151 - 176.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Wayne RiggsAbstract: This paper argues that, by construing emotion as epistemologically subversive, the Western tradition has tended to obscure the vital role of emotion in the construction of knowledge. The paper begins with an account of emotion that stresses its active, voluntary, and socially constructed aspects, and indicates how emotion is involved in evaluation and observation. It then moves on to show how the myth of dispassionate investigation has functioned historically to undermine the epistemic authority of women as well as other social groups associated culturally with emotion. Finally, the paper sketches some ways in which the emotions ofunderclass groups, especially women, may contribute to the development of a critical social theory.Comment:Jenkins, Carrie. What can we know a priori?2014, Neta, Ram (ed.), Current Controversies in Epistemology. London: Routledge. 11-22.
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Added by: Jie GaoAbstract: Michael Devitt has been developing an influential two-pronged attack on the a priori for over thirteen years. This attack does not attempt to undermine the coherence or significance of the distinction between the a priori and the a posteriori, but rather to answer the question: 'What Can We Know A Priori?' with: 'Nothing'. In this paper I explain why I am dissatisfied with key extant responses to Devitt's attack, and then take my own steps towards resisting the attack as it appears in two recent incarnations. Devitt aims firstly to undermine the motivation for believing in any a priori knowledge, and secondly to provide reasons directly against believing in any. I argue that he misidentifies the motivations available to the a priorist, and that his reasons against believing in the a priori do not take account of all the options. I also argue that his attempt to combine the two prongs of the attack into an abductive argument for his anti-a priorist position does not succeed.Comment: Suitable for an upper-level undergraduate courses or master courses on epistemology. It is good for teachings on topics of a priori knowledge.Lackey, Jennfer. Acting on Knowledge2010, Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1): 361-382.
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Added by: Jie GaoSummary:Â This paper argues that there are various kinds of cases in which a subject clearly knows that p, yet it is not epistemically appropriate for her to use the proposition that p in practical reasoning, to act as if p, or act on p. Knowledge is not, therefore, always sufficient for epistemically justifying practical rationality, unlike what says in the sufficiency condition of the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. In addition, it offers a diagnosis of what is salient in the above cases and suggests a broad feature that needs to be accounted for in any view of the norm governing practical rationality.Comment: This is a nice paper arguing against the knowledge norm of practical reasoning, in particular the sufficiency condition. It is suitable for teaching on epistemic norms and pragmatic encroachement in a upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology.Lackey, Jennfer. Testimony: Acquiring Knowledge from Others2010, Goldman, Alvin and Whitcomb, Dennis (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 71-91
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Added by: Jie GaoIntroduction:Â Virtually everything we know depends in some way or other on the testimony of others - what we eat, how things work, where we go, even who we are. We do not, after all, perceive firsthand the preparation of the ingredients in many of our meals, or the construction of the devices we use to get around the world, or the layout of our planet, or our own births and familial histories. These are all things we are told. Indeed, subtracting from our lives the information that we possess via testimony leaves them barely recognizable. Scientific discoveries, battles won and lost, geographical developments, customs and traditions of distant lands - all of these facts would be completely lost to us. It is, therefore, no surprise that the importance of testimony, both epistemological and practical, is nearly universally accepted. Less consensus, however, is found when questions about the nature and extent of our dependence on the word of others arise. Is our justified reliance on testimony fundamentally basic, for instance, or is it ultimately reducible to perception, memory, and reason? Is trust, or some related interpersonal feature of our social interaction with one another, essential to the acquisition of beliefs that are testimonially justified? Is testimonial knowledge necessarily acquired through transmission from speaker to hearer? Can testimony generate epistemic features in its own right? These are the questions that will be taken up in this paper and, as will become clear, their answers have far-reaching consequences for how we understand our place in the social world.Comment: In this excellent introductory paper, Lackey briefly overviews the essential issues about testimony. It is very useful as a general introduction on testimonal knowledge, hence good for junior undergraduate courses on epistemology or social epistemology.Lackey, Jennifer. Introduction: Perspectives on testimony2007, Episteme 4 (3):233-237.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Wayne RiggsAbstract: Almost everything we know depends in some way on testimony. Without the ability to learn from others, it would be virtually impossible for any individual person to know much beyond what has come within the scope of her immediate perceptual environment. The fruits of science, history, geography - all of these would be beyond our grasp, as would much of what we know about ourselves. We do not, after all, perceive that we belong to one family rather than to another - this is something we are told. Despite the overwhelming importance of testimony, it has been neglected to a large extent in the philosophical tradition. Arguably, this has resulted from a general sense that our other cognitive faculties, such as perception, are more basic and therefore ought to be the primary focus of our investigations. In recent years, however, the idea that testimony is of secondary importance has been forcefully challenged, and new ways of thinking of testimony have been fruitfully explored by a number of philosophers. The present issue of Episteme aims to build on this body of work and to broaden it by incorporating insights from three different groups of people: philosophers who have already done considerable work in social epistemology, philosophers who are for the first time applying their work in other areas of epistemology to testimony, and psychologists who study the development of our ability to learn from others. The papers in this issue, with one exception, were delivered at the fourth annual Episteme conference, held at Rutgers University in June, 2007Comment:Lackey, Jennifer. Knowing from Testimony2006, Philosophy Compass 1(5): 432-448.
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Added by: Ben McGorrigan, Contributed by: Wayne RiggsAbstract:Â Testimony is a vital and ubiquitous source of knowledge. Were we to refrain from accepting the testimony of others, our lives would be impoverished in startling and debilitating ways. Despite the vital role that testimony occupies in our epistemic lives, traditional epistemological theories have focused primarily on other sources, such as sense perception, memory, and reason, with relatively little attention devoted specifically to testimony. In recent years, however, the epistemic significance of testimony has been more fully appreciated. I shall here focus on two questions that have received the most attention in recent work in the epistemology of testimony. First, is testimonial knowledge acquired only by being transmitted from speaker to hearer? Second, must a hearer have positive reasons to justifiedly accept a speaker's testimony?Comment: This text will serve as a good introduction to the epistemology of testimony. Aside from its relevance in teaching Epistemology, it will also be of use in teaching Aesthetics where Aesthetic Testimony has become a key topic of debate. Lackey provides various thought experiments which can aid the reader in understanding when knowledge seems to be acquired via testimony, and how this seems to work.Can’t find it?Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!
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Amijee, Fatema. The Role of Attention in Russell’s Theory of Knowledge
2013, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (6):1175-1193.