We believe many things. Happily, many of these things we believe we also KNOW. For example: we both believe and know things about ourselves (“I like blue more than I like pink”), about our environment (“It’s raining”), about (y)our country (“Australia is larger than Japan”), about mathematics (“9×7=63”), about stock markets (“It’s best to buy low and sell high”), and about history (“England was a colonial power”). Few people would deny that we know such things. But what is knowledge? What are our sources of knowledge? And how can we know that we know something?

In addition to investigating these questions we’ll investigate other closely related questions concerning rationality and justification and how they are related to knowledge, the extent to which knowledge and justification are susceptible to pragmatic encroachment (i.e., the idea that having knowledge/justification depends in part on practical reasons), and the nature of epistemological evaluation.

Reading Schedule

You will need to purchase: Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (second edition) eds. J. Turri & M. Steup. Readings that do not appear in CDE will be provided in Moodle.

 Week 1. On the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge

Laurence BonJour, “The Concept of Knowledge” (Moodle)

Gettier, E. “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” (Moodle)

Robert Audi, “The Sources of Knowledge” pp. 72-79 (Moodle)

Week 2. Dealing with Gettier

Duncan Pritchard, “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology” (Moodle)

Robert Shope, “Conditions and Analyses of Knowing” pp.25-53 (Moodle)

Mark Schroeder, “Knowledge is Belief for Sufficient (Objective and Subjective) Reason” (Online)

 

Week 3. Justification: Internalism, Externalism, and Foundationalism

John Greco, “Is Justification Is Not Internal” (CDE, Chapter 13)

Richard Feldman, “Justification is Internal” (CDE, Chapter 13)

Richard Fumerton & Ali Hasan, “Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification” (Moodle)

Recommended:

Howard-Snyder & Coffman, “Three Arguments Against Foundationalism: Arbitrariness, Epistemic Regress, and Existential Support” (Library Database)

Michael Huemer, “Phenomenal Conservatism and the Internalist Intuition” (Library Database)

Alvin Goldman, “Internalism, Externalism, and the Architecture of Justification” (Library Database)

 

Week 4. Solutions to the Internalist/Externalist Debate

Alvin Goldman, “Strong and Weak Justification” (Moodle)

William Alston, “An Internalist Externalism” (Moodle)

Kurt Sylvan, “Justification and Rationality” (Moodle)

Recommended:

Duncan Pritchard, “Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Basis Problem” (Library Database)

Juan Comesana, “Evidentialist Reliabilism” (Library Database)

 

Week 5. Permissivism (CDE, Chapter 12)

Thomas Kelly, “Evidence Can be Permissive”

Roger White, “Evidence Cannot be Permissive”

Recommended:

Ballantyne&Coffman, “Uniqueness, Evidence, and Rationality” (Library Database)

Miriam Schoenfield, “Permission to Believe: Why Permissivism is True and What it Tells us About Irrelevant Influences on Belief” (Library Database)

 

Week 6. The Primary Epistemic Goal (CDE, Chapter 14)

Jonathan Kvanvig, “Truth Is Not The Primary Epistemic Goal”

Marian David, “Truth As The Primary Epistemic Goal: A Working Hypothesis”

 

Week 7. Knowledge-First Epistemology (CDE, Chapter 1)

Timothy Williamson, “Knowledge First”

Dougherty & Rysiew, “What Is Knolwedge-First Epistemology?”

Dougherty & Rysiew, “Experience First”

Timothy Williamson, “Knowledge Still First”

 

Week 8. Contextualism about Knowledge (CDE, Chapter 3)

Earl Conee, “Contextualism Contested”

Stewart Cohen, “Contextualism Defended”

Earl Conee, “Contextualism Contested Some More”

Stewart Cohen, “Contextualism Defended Some More”

 

Week 9. Pragmatic Encroachment on Knowledge (CDE, Chapter 4)

Fantl & McGrath, “Practical Matters Affect Whether You Know”

Baron Reed, “Practical Matters Do Not Affect Whether You Know”

Juan Comesana, “Epistemic Pragmatism: An Argument Against Moderation,” (Online)

 

Week 10. Closure (CDE, Chapter 3)

Fred Dretske, “The Case Against Closure”

John Hawthorne, “The Case for Closure”

Fred Dretske, “Reply to Hawthorne”