Knowledge In Contemporary Philosophy

Description

Divided chronologically into four volumes, The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History presents the history of one of Western philosophy’s greatest challenges: understanding the nature of knowledge. Each volume follows conceptions of knowledge that have been proposed, defended, replaced, and proposed anew. Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy covers discussions about scientific knowledge, social knowledge, and self-knowledge, along with attempts to understand knowledge naturalistically, contextually, and normatively. How did contemporary epistemology begin? What shape is it now in? What future seems to await it? The past hundred or so years have included excitement, puzzlement, and apparent progress within epistemology. This volume conveys much of that philosophical ferment and energy. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents List of Contributors General Editor's Preface Introduction: Theorizing about Theorizing about Knowledge Notes References 1 Pragmatism and Epistemology 1. Introduction 2. The classical pragmatists: Peirce 3. The classical pragmatists: James 4. The classical pragmatists: Dewey 5. Neopragmatism: knowledge and social entitlement 6. Neopragmatism: pragmatic encroachment Notes References 2 On Our Epistemological Debt to Moore and Russell 1. Introduction: the view from here 2. Acknowledging a Russellian milestone (or two, or three)3. Moore's Paradox 4. Mooreanism and scepticism 5. Concluding remarks: reverence renewed? Notes References 3 What Knowledge Is Not: Reflections on Some Uses of the Verb 'To Know' 1. Introduction 2. The relevance of expressions 3. Reflections on first-person and third-person (singular) uses of 'to know', 'to be certain', and 'to believe' 4. Scepticism 5. Conclusion Notes References 4 Naturalistic Descriptions of Knowledge 1. Introduction 2. What is naturalistic epistemology? 2.1 Quine's impact 2.2 Forms of naturalistic epistemology2.3 Waves of naturalistic epistemology 3. The first wave of naturalistic epistemology: programmatic debates 3.1 The intuition debate 3.2 The normativity debate 4. The second wave of naturalistic epistemology: building on empirical research 4.1 Knowledge as a natural kind 4.2 Memory as a source of knowledge 5. A third wave of naturalistic epistemology? Conducting empirical research 5.1 Experimental philosophy as experimental epistemology 5.2 Experimental psychology as experimental epistemology 6. Conclusion References 5 Knowing the Unobservable: Confirmation and Theoretical Virtues1. Introduction 2. Foundationalist conceptions of scientific knowledge 3. Holistic confirmation 4. Theoretical virtues 5. Probabilistic confirmation 6. Prior probabilities and plausibility 7. Concluding thoughts Notes References 6 Social Knowledge and Social Norms 1. Introduction 2. Justification versus knowledge (the anti-luck condition) 3. What is testimony? 4. The possibility of knowledge transmission 5. Testimonial justification: reductionism versus anti-reductionism 6. Counterexamples to transmission 7. A safe-basis account of testimonial knowledge8. The reliability of testimony and social norms Notes References 7 Knowledge-How and Perceptual Learning 1. Introduction 2. Belief-based knowledge-how 3. Perceptual and proprioceptive learning 4. Conclusion Notes References 8 Self-Knowledge 1. Introduction 2. A rough consensus, and a challenge 3. Assessing the case for scepticism 3.1 Knowledge of the attitudes 3.2 Knowledge of conscious experience 3.3 Knowledge of causes and dispositions 4. Conclusion Notes References 9 Knowledge as Contextual