This course provides an introduction to the basic philosophical concepts and positions regarding epistemic justification, skepticism, knowledge, and rationality. Along the way, we will also come into contact with philosophical questions about language, ontology, and truth. By the end of the course, students will be expected to have a good grasp of the principal issues raised in these areas

For the last four centuries — ever since the French philosopher René Descartes — epistemology has been a central concern for philosophers. Indeed, it has often been the central concern, and on the occasions when it has not, the central concern has often been whether it should be the central concern! What is epistemology, why have philosophers been so obsessed with it, and should they be?

Simply, epistemology is the Theory of Knowledge. It asks such questions as: What is knowledge? How does knowledge relate to belief, truth, and rationality? Are there different kinds of knowledge? If so, how do they relate? How are these kinds of knowledge possible? Is knowledge of any kind really possible? If the goal of philosophy is ultimate knowledge about the world, then the starting point for investigation must be the concept of knowledge itself. That is what has made epistemology the "First Philosophy" of "Modernity." Or, in the jargon of "post-Modernity," that is what made epistemology the putative meta-narrative for all legitimation discourses. In the tradition of all good philosophical answers, this one is singularly unhelpful, raising many more questions than it answers. But, also in that tradition, many of the questions it raises are very good ones. What is First Philosophy and what is Modernity? What is a meta-narrative and what is a legitimation discourse? And why say it was it only putatively such? Taking these in turn:

Modernity, in Philosophy, is the era since Descartes — the era of epistemology — so this is a circular characterization. So turn to "First Philosophy" for an entry into the circle. The phrase goes back to Aristotle, used in describing what later became metaphysics. Aristotle thought that certain metaphysical questions, because they are concerned with Being as such, were so general that they had to be addressed before any other philosophical questions could get answers. Aristotle’s goal was to know the truth about the world. This seems to require understanding the framework for truth itself, viz., the categories of Being. Descartes’ project focused on the knowing. His goal was attaining absolutely certain knowledge, not merely accidentally believed truths. The way Descartes saw it, before we could have any knowledge about the world, we first have to have knowledge about knowledge itself. After all, how could we really know anything without knowing what constitutes knowing? The answer that Descartes gave to this question — that our knowledge is structured like an immense building, and thus we must pay special attention to the foundational beliefs upon which all the rest rests — marks the birth of philosophical Modernity.

Modern epistemology, then, is the discourse that developed with Cartesian philosophy as its First Philosophy. Its aim is to provide an explanation, an understanding, and a knowledge of, among other things, explanation, understanding and knowledge! It can, therefore, be called a "meta-narrative" with justification because it is a narrative about narratives themselves. And (to stay with the jargon) it is a "legitimation discourse" insofar as its purpose is to justify or "legitimate" the rest of our claims to well-grounded beliefs. On this view, epistemology is not concerned with justifying any specific claims, like the claims that the earth orbits the sun, that humans evolved from other animals, that government deficits lead to high interest rates, or that the ego acts as a mediator between the id and the superego. Those hypotheses are for the various "special sciences" to justify. Rather, epistemology is concerned with justifying all the different kinds of justifications. And if anything can be said to characterize the loose confederation of writings that count as Post-Modern, it would be their shared assessment that the Cartesian epistemological project failed. But that claim, too, is part of the discourse of epistemology.

The primary text for the course is:

Daniel Cohen

Email: dhcohen@colby.edu Office: Lovejoy 247

Extension: 3427 Office hours: MW, 10:00-11:00

TTh, 10:45-12:00

Tentative Schedule

Class Dates Topics and Readings

Feb 5-7 Belief, Knowledge and Truth

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Plato, Meno, Theaetetus

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

Feb. 10-24 Barry Stroud, "The Problem of the External World"

G. E. Moore, "Proof of an External World"

G. E. Moore, "Four Forms of Skepticism"

G. E. Moore, "Certainty"

Keith DeRose, "Solving the Skeptical Problem"

David Lewis, "Elusive Knowledge"

Peter Unger, "An Argument for Skepticism"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Sextus Empiricus, Outloines of Pyrrhonism

R. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy; Discourse on Method

Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty;

Keith DeRose & Ted Warfield, Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader

Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism

March 3 Edmund Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?"

Peter Klein, "A Proposed Definition of Propositional Knowledge"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Robert Nozick, "Knowledge and Skepticism"

Gilbert Harman, Thought

Keith Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge

March 5 — Class Quiz —

March 7-19 James van Cleve, "Foundationalism, Epistemic Principles…"

Laurence Bonjour, "Can Empirtical Knowledge Have a Foundation?"

Roderick Chisholm, "The Myth of the Given"

Ernest Sosa, "The Raft and the Pyramid"

Donald Davidson, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge"

Susan Haack, "A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

A. J. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge

Laurence Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge

Susan Haack, Evidence and Inquiry

W. V. Quine & J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief

March 21 — Mid-Term —

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Richard Swinburne, ed., The Justification of Induction

April 7-14 W. V. Quine, "Epistemology Naturalized"

Jaegwon Kim, "What is ‘Naturalized Epistemology’?"

Hilary Putnam, "Why Reason Can’t Be Naturalized"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Hilary Kornblith (ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology

Peter F. Strawson, Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties

April 16-21 Alvin Goldman, "What is Justified Belief?"

Keith Lehrer, "Externalism and Epistemology Naturalized"

Richard Fumerton, "Externalism and Skepticism"

John McDowell, "Knowledge and the Internal"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

David Armstrong, Belief, Truth and Knowledge

Fred Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information

April 23 — Class Quiz —

Linda Zagzebski, "Virtues of the Mind"

John Greco, "Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Jack Meiland, "What Ought We To Believe?"

Stephen Stich. "Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology

and the Problem of Cognitive Diversity"

Suggestions for Additional Readings:

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?

Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

Richard Rorty, The Consequences of Pragmatism

Lynn H. Nelson, Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism

Readings marked with "[H/R]" will be available either on reserve or as duplicated handouts. All other assigned readings are in the Sosa and Kim anthology.