Problems of Knowledge Schedule
Philosophy 311
Section A
Winter/Spring 2007
week one:
January 22:
Introduction
Overview of course, texts, and requirements.
What is epistemology? What are the problems of knowledge?
Topic One: What Is Knowledge?
Read "Preface" (pages vii-x) and Rene Descartes, "Meditations One and Two" (pages 5-14)
What is Descartes' problem and what is his method for resolving it?
What is motivating this given the historical context?
What is Descartes' argument that the mind is always better known than any body?
What are some of the assumptions that lie behind Descartes' entire way of thinking? Think in terms of our place in the world, the relationship between the mind and objects, the nature of the self as self-aware, the role of language, etc.
week two:
January 29:
Topic One: What Is Knowledge? (continued)
Read Ludwig Wittgenstein, excerpts from On Certainty (pages 14-29).
Choose four of Wittgenstein's numbered paragraphs that you find particularly interesting, intriguing, or confusing. Wright a bit about each of those four.
Read A.J. Ayer, "The Right to Be Sure" (pages 20-25).
Ayer analyzes the problem of knowledge in terms of the language we use to talk about knowing and how we use it.
What does Ayer mean by "the right to be sure"? What confers this right upon us?
week three:
February 5:
Topic One: What Is Knowledge? (continued)
Read Catherine Z. Elgin, "Epistemology's End" (pages 26-40).
In this essay Elgin attempts to set out a taxonomy of various sorts of epistemology.
What are the differences between perfect, imperfect, and pure procedural epistemologies as Elgin exaplains those?
Topic Two: How Are Beliefs Justified?
Today we will go on discuss accounts of knowing that analyze it in terms of "justified true belief."
We'll begin by unpacking the distinction between epistemological "internalism" and "externalism," trying to figure out what it means and what's at stake in it.
Read William P. Alston, "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology" (pages 45-79).
We will first talk about what Alston calls "perspectival internalism" (PI).
How does Alston explain what PI is and what are his major criticisms of it?
We will also talk about what Alston calls "access internalism" (AI).
How does Alston explain what AI is and what are his major criticisms of it?
What does Alston conclude about internalist approaches to epistemology in general?
week four:
February 12:
Topic Two: How Are Beliefs Justified? (continued)
Read Carl Ginet, "The General Conditions of Knowlege: Justification" (pages 79-89).
Ginet holds to a version of epistemological internalism.
What does Ginet see as a requirement for justification, particularly in terms of disinterested evaluation?
Read Alvin Goldman, "What Is Justified Belief?" (pages 89-109).
Goldman is an epistemological externalist, a kind of "reliablist."
According to Goldman, what has to be true in order for a belief to count as knowledge? How is this different from Ginet's approach?
week five:
February 19:
Topic Two: How Are Beliefs Justified? (continued)
Read Keith DeRose, "Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions" (pages 109-123).
DeRose argues that the conditions under which we may say that something is known vary by context.
In what ways does DeRose's account include both internalist and externalist elements?
How does DeRose distinguish his view from what is called a "relevant alternatives" view?
Read Lorraine Code, "Taking Subjectivity into Account" (pages 124-151).
Code focuses in upon the subject of knowing, the person who does the knowing, suggesting that the character of the knower is central and we can't just assume a generalized, de-contextualized "knower" as the subject of knowledge.
In what ways does Code suggest that we shift our approach in epistemology?
week six:
February 26:
Topic Two: How Are Beliefs Justified? (continued)
Read Alessandra Tanesini, "The Practices of Justification" (pages 152-164).
Tanesini draws attention to the way in which our practices of justfying belief are rooted in the communities of knowers of which we are a part.
But what does Tanesini suggest about the nature of these practices and any attempts to abstract a set of norms from actual practice?
In what ways, for Tanesini, is epistemology itself political or an interventionist social practice?
Topic Three: What Is the Structure of Knowledge?
Today we will be having a general discussion of and introduction to the questions involved in the structure of knowing.
The two main contenders here are some sort of "foundationalism" and some sort of "coherentism," though each of these come in a number of varieties and there are also possibilities in between these two options.
Part of the question here is where justification of belief stops? Is every justified belief itself justified in relation to some other justified belief? And if so, doesn't that lead to problems of infinite regress?
Read Roderick Chisholm, "The Myth of the Given" (pages 169-186).
In this selection Chisholm is trying to unpack the notion that, in a foundationalist view of the structing of knowing, one has to finally end explanations in a set of beliefs that are, in some sense, simple "given."
What would it mean for a belief to be "self-justifying" according to Chisholm?
week seven:
March 5:
No Class - Spring Break
week eight:
March 12:
Topic Three: What Is the Structure of Knowledge? (continued)
Read Ernest Sosa, "The Raft and the Pyramid" (pages 187-210).
Sosa is using images of a "raft" and a "pyramid as way of trying to explain the differences between coherentism and foundationalism, respectively.
We will first focus in upon coherentism and its critique of foundationalism.
What is the "regress argument" and what it is supposed to show?
What is substantive foundationalism and what dilemmas does it generate?
We will continue with more of a focus upon foundationalism and some of the obstacles it needs to overcome in order to succeed.
Read Laurence BonJour, "The Elements of Coherentism" (pages 210-231).
BonJour is attempting to explicate a positive account of coherentism.
What is the concept of "coherence" as BonJour explains it?
How does BonJour deal with some of the common objections of coherentist accounts?
week nine:
March 19:
Topic Three: What Is the Structure of Knowledge? (continued)
Read Hans Georg Gadamer, "The Hermeneutic Circle" (pages 232-247).
Gadamer's approach is in the continental tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, the study of the interpretation of texts in order to understand meaning.
What does Gadamer mean by "prejudgments" or "prejudices"? Are these negative or postive for him?
In light of his discussion of prejudices, what does Gadamer mean by the "hermeneutic circle"? How might the problemtic that Gadamer describes be applied more widely, not just to texts, but to the more general questions of epistemoloy?
Topic Four: What Is Naturalized Epistemology?
Today we'll review some of what we've covered already and then move into the question of what is called "naturalized epistemology."
Naturalized epistemology turns the epistemological project around by putting scientific descriptions of knowing prior to epistemology.
That is to say, the question of naturalized epistemology is one of describing the sorts of events that go on in the brain and nervous system connecting perceptual input with epistemic output.
Read W.V.O. Quine, "Epistemology Naturalized" (pages 253-265).
In what way does Quine want to make epistemology a particular branch of science?
Do you think that Quine is leaving out something important about epistemology as a normative practice?
week ten:
March 26:
Topic Four: What Is Naturalized Epistemology? (continued)
Read Jaegwon Kim, "What Is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?" (pages .
Kim replies to Quine's outlook by suggesting that, in its attempt at scientific description, its leaves out the fundamentally prescriptive and evaluative task of epistemology.
While affirming much of Quine's position, how does Kim nonetheless argue for the conclusion that the normative project of epistemology can continue as a relatively independent project?
Read Phyllis Rooney, "Putting Naturalized Epistemology to Work" (pages 285-305).
This essay by Rooney explores some of the intersections between naturalized and feminist epistemology, but also with some criticisms for naturalized approaches.
In what ways does Rooney seem naturalized epistemology as buying into certain questionable notions about the relationship between the social and the individual?
Topic Five: What Is Truth?
Today we will be transitioning to issues concerning truth.
Modern accounts of truth one focused in upon the notion of correspondence, but such approaches have more recently collapsed into what are sometimes called "deflationary" accounts of truth.
Furthermore, it is often thought that truth is primarily a matter of metaphysics or ontology rather than epistemology.
Nevertheless, if "truth" is something that pertains to statements (or thoughts or the like), there are substantive questions about just what sorts of statements are capable of bearing truth value, how that possibility arises and is sustained, the interconnection between those considerating and knowing, as well as the problem of relativism.
Read Paul Horwich, "The Minimal Theory" (pages 311-321).
Horwich's essay represents a sustained explanation and defense of a minimalist or deflationary theory of truth.
week eleven:
April 2:
Topic Five: What Is Truth? (continued)
Read Ian Hacking, "Language, Truth, and Reason" (pages 322-336).
Hacking's essay raises questions about what sorts of statements can even have a truth-value and how the possibility of truth in roots in a variety of "styles of reasoning."
How does Hacking account for historical changes in knowing over time without falling into a problematic relativism?
Read Richard Rorty, "Pragmatism, Relativism, and Irrationalism" (pages 336-348)
In this essay Rorty tackles the three issues mentioned in the title of the essay, that is to say, what a pragmatist approach to truth is and how it connects with relativism.
How would you evaluate the success of Rorty's approach? Is it a kind of epistemology at all?
Today we'll be discussing a handout from John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas.
For Milbank and Pickstock, truth is a ontological notion and has primary reference to the relationship between things and the mind of God.
week twelve:
April 9:
Topic Six: What If We Don't Know Anything at All?
Today we'll begin to consider some of the issues raised by the possibility of skepticism.
Early modern philosophers such as Descartes and Hume considered took the possibility of skepticism seriously as part of epistemology, either as a methodological move or as an ongoing difficulty.
In light of this we'll be turning to several possible responses to the skeptical challenge.
Read Jonathan Vogel, "Cartesian Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation" (pages 352-359).
Vogel attempts to refute skepticism using the notion of "best explanation."
Would Vogel's approach convince a serious skeptic? If not, what use does his argument have in other respects?
Read Barry Stroud, "Skepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge" (page 360-365).
In this essay Stroud uses the problem of skepticism in a methodologically way (though not like Descartes) in order to shed some light on our epistemological notions.
Do you think that skepticism has a positive role in shaping and focusing our thinking about knowing? Or it is more of a distraction or, perhaps, an incoherent mistake?
week thirteen:
April 16:
Topic Six: What If We Don't Know Anything at All? (continued)
Read Naomi Scheman, "Othello's Doubt/Desdemona's Death: The Engendering of Scepticism" (pages 365-381).
The essay by Scheman takes a different approach to the skeptical question, not directly questioning or refuting skepticism, but raising issues about why skepticism has occupied philosophical reflections upon knowing.
In using the example of Othello, what is Scheman suggesting about skeptical approaches?
Topic Six: How Is Epistemology Political?
We will be finishing out this semester's consideration of epistemology by looking at some of the ways in which the problem of knowing intersects with issues of politics, power, class, race, and gender.
Much of the history of epistemological inquiry has been taken up with questions that seem to assume that epistemology and how it is pursued is politically neutral, as well as being neutral to issues of gender, class, and so on.
As we've already seen in some previous readings, such assumptions about neutrality are problematic. What kinds of political and social implications do you see for some of the kinds of issues we've looked at already?
Read Genevieve Lloyd, "The 'Maleness' of Reason" (pages 387-391).
The question of "reason" is one that is closely allied with epistemology and the question of what it is rational to believe, but as Lloyd points out, the notion of "reason" itself is historically and culturally relative and mutable.
In what ways do you see gender prejudices still affecting the notion of what counts as "rational"?
week fourteen:
April 23:
Topic Six: How Is Epistemology Political? (continued)
Read Charles W. Mills, "Alternative Epistemologies" (pages 392-410).
Mills outlines a number of different ways in which theories of gender, race, and class have reflected upon issues of epistemology, particularly growing out of the Marxist tradition.
To what degree do you think epistemology needs to think through the social character of knowing in general and the various forms of epistemic privilege that might connects to social location?
Read Mary Tiles and Jim Tiles, "Idols of the Cave" (pages 411-439).
In this final essay of the book, Tiles and Tiles give a historical sketch of the development of epistemology in the modern era.
Given the development of epistemology over the past several centuries and given the kinds of issues that have been raised more recently, what are some of the directions of epistemological inquiry you think should be explored in the present and future?
Conclusion
Conclusion, evaluations, and any loose ends to be tied up.
