PY606: CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGY

ADDITIONAL READING

Lecturer and course co-ordinator: Patrick Greenough

Please note

The additional seminar readings detailed below are not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, this list comprises the range of texts that have been used in constructing the first part of this course together with texts that I think you are both useful and readily available. Some of these texts will be explicitly mentioned in lectures, while others play a rather more background role. Don’t be put off by the number of texts you will find under this heading. While you are expected to read beyond the set reading where this is appropriate, typically, should you do so, you will only need to consult one or two extra texts (per week) in order to facilitate your understanding of the course material.

The additional reading is given in a recommended reading order (most useful first).

Email me (or arrange to see me) if you need help with selecting and obtaining any relevant reading

Seminar 1. (week 2): Is Life a Lottery?

Set Reading:

Jonathan Vogel (1990): 'Are There Counterexamples to the Closure Principle?', in Roth and Ross (eds) Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
John Hawthorne (2004): Knowledge and Lotteries, ch.1 Introducing the puzzle, pp. 1-20.

Additional Reading on Closure:

Palle Yourgrau (1983): 'Knowledge and Relevant Alternatives', Synthese, 55, pp. 175-90.
Richard Feldman (1995): 'In Defense of Closure', Philosophical Quarterly, 45, pp. 487-94.
Stephen Hales (1995): 'Epistemic Closure Principles', Southern Journal of Philosophy 33, pp. 185-201.
Jonathan Vogel (1999): 'The New Relevant Alternatives Theory', Philosophical Perspectives, 13, pp. 155-80.
Fred Dretske (2005): 'The Case Against Closure', in Sosa and Steup (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Epistemology.
Fred Dretske (1981): 'The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge', Philosophical Studies, 40, pp. 363-78.
Fred Dretske (1970): 'Epistemic Operators', The Journal of Philosophy, 67 (24), pp. 1007-23.
Fred Dretske (1971): 'Conclusive Reasons', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 49:1, pp. 1-22.
Gail Stine (1976): 'Skepticism, Relevant Alternatives, and Deductive Closure', Philosophical Studies, 29, pp. 249-61.

Additional Reading on the Lottery Puzzle:

Dana Nelkin (2000): 'The Lottery Paradox, Knowledge, and Rationality', Philosophical Review, 109, pp. 373-409.

Seminar 2. (week 3): DeRose on Knowledge

Set Reading:

Keith DeRose (1995): 'Solving the Sceptical Problem'.
Keith DeRose (1999): 'Contextualism: An Explanation and Defence', in Greco and Sosa, (eds) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology.

Additional Reading:

Richard Feldman (1999): 'Contextualism and Skepticism', Philosophical Perspectives (Noûs), 13, pp. 91-114.
Hilary Kornblith (2000): 'The Contextualist Evasion of Epistemology', Philosophical Issues (Noûs), 10.
Keith DeRose (1992): 'Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52, pp. 913-929.
Anthony Brueckner (1994): 'The Shifting Content of Knowledge Attributions', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54, pp. 123-6.
Keith DeRose (1996): ' Relevant Alternatives and the Content of Knowledge Attributions', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56, pp. 193-97.

Seminar 3. (week 4): Indexicality, Ellipsis, and Context.

Set Reading:

Stephen Schiffer (1996): 'Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96, pp. 317-333.

Additional Reading:

Keith DeRose (forthcoming): 'Bamboozled by Our Own Words': Semantic Blindness and Some Objections to Contextualism," for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, [word, pdf]

Ram Neta (2003): 'Skepticism, Contextualism, and Semantic Self-Knowledge', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67, pp. 396-411.

Thomas Hofweber (1999): 'Contextualism and the Meaning-Intention Problem', in Korta, Sosa, and Arrazola (eds) Cognition, Agency, and Rationality, Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Patrick Rysiew (2001): 'The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions', Noûs 35, pp. 477-514.

Stewart Cohen (2004): 'Contextualism and Unhappy-Face Solutions: Reply to Schiffer', Philosophical Studies, 119, pp. 185-97.

Stewart Cohen (2001): 'Contextualism Defended', Philosophical Studies, 103, pp. 87-98.

Jason Stanley (2004): 'On the Linguistic Basis for Contextualism, Philosophical Studies 119, pp. 119-46.

Wayne Davis (2004): 'Are Knowledge Claims Indexical?', Erkenntnis, 61, pp. 257-82.

Stewart Cohen (2005): 'Knowledge, Speaker and Subject', Philosophical Quarterly, 55, pp. 199-212.

Seminar 4. (week 5): Knowledge and Disagreement.

Set Reading:

Keith DeRose (2004): 'Single Scoreboard Semantics', Philosophical Studies, 119, pp. 1-21.
Richard Feldman (2004): 'Comments on DeRose's "Single-Scoreboard Semantics"', Philosophical Studies, 119, pp. 23-33

Additional Reading:

Keith DeRose (2005): 'What the Contextualist Really Says about Disagreement', Blogpost to Certain Doubts

Mark Richard (2004): 'Contextualism and Relativism', Philosophical Studies, 119, pp. 215-242.

Max Koebel (2002): "Faultless Disagreement". Proceeding of the Aristotelian Society 104, pp. 53-73. Download pdf-file here.

Crispin Wright (2006): 'Intuitionism, Realism, Relativism, and Rhubarb', forthcoming in Greenough and Lynch (eds) Truth and Realism, Oxford: OUP.

Seminar 5. (week 6): Assertion, Knowledge, and Context.

Set Reading:

Keith DeRose (2002): 'Assertion, Knowledge, and Context', The Philosophical Review, 111, pp. 167-203.

Additional Reading:

Keith DeRose (1999): 'Contextualism: An Explanation and Defence', in Greco and Sosa, (eds) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology.

Entry by Brian Weatherson on his WeBlog plus comments by DeRose and Stanley

Patrick Rysiew (2001): 'The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions', Noûs 35, pp. 477-514.

Jessica Brown (2005): 'Adapt or Die: the Death of Invariantism?', Philosophical Quarterly, 55, pp. 263-285.

Jessica Brown (forthcoming): 'Contextualism and Warranted Assertibility Manoeuvres', Philosophical Studies.

Tim Black (2005): 'Classic Invariantism, Relevance and Warranted Assertability Manoeuvres', Philosophical Quarterly, 55, pp. 328-336.

Kent Bach (2005): 'The Emperor's New "Knows"', in G. Preyer and G. Peter (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy: on Epistemology, Language, and Truth, Oxford: OUP.

Tim Williamson (2005): 'Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive Invariantism, and Knowledge of Knowledge', Philosophical Quarterly, 55, pp. 213-35.

Peter Unger (1984): Philosophical Relativity, University of Minnesota Press.

Tim Williamson (2000): Knowledge and Its Limits, ch.11.

Thomas Blackstone (2004): 'An Invalid Argument for Contextualism', Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, pp. 344-5.

Keith DeRose (2004): 'The Problem with Subject-Sensitive Invariantism', Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, pp. 346-50.

Seminar 6. (week 8): Lewis on Knowledge

Set Reading:

David Lewis: 'Elusive Knowledge'.
Stewart Cohen: 'Scepticism, Gettier, and the Lottery'.

Additional Reading:

Keith DeRose (2004): 'Safety, Sensitivity, and Sceptical Hypotheses', in John Greco (ed.) Sosa and His Critics, Oxford: Blackwells.
Ernest Sosa (2004): 'Reply to Keith DeRose', in John Greco (ed.) Sosa and His Critics, Oxford: Blackwells.
Igor Douven (2005): A Contextualist Solution to the Gettier Problem, in Grazer Philosophische Studien 69, special volume on epistemological contextualism, ed. Martijn Blauw.

Seminar 7. (week 9): Cross-Contextual Problems for Contextualism

Set Reading:

Anthony Brueckner (2004): 'The Elusive Virtues of Contextualism', Philosophical Studies.
Crispin Wright (2005): 'Contextualism, Even-Handedness, Factivity, and Surreptitiously Raising Standards', Philosophical Quarterly, 55, pp. 236-262.

Additional Reading:

Elke Brendel (2005): 'What Contextualists Don't Know', forthcoming, Acta Analytica.
Peter Baumann, 'Contextualism and The Factivity Problem', typescript. (I have a copy.)
Jesper Kallestrup (2005): 'Contextualism between Scepticism and Common-sense', Grazer Philosophische Studien 69, special volume on epistemological contextualism, ed. Martijn Blauw.
Duncan Pritchard (2001): 'Contextualism, Scepticism, and the Problem of Epistemic Descent', Dialectica 55, pp. 327-349.
Timothy Williamson (2001): 'Comments on Michael Williams, Contextualsim, Externalism, and Epistemic Standards', Philosophical Studies, 103, pp. 25-33.
Ram Neta (2003): 'Contextualism and the Problem of the External World', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66, pp. 1-31.

Seminar 8. (week 10): Contextualism and Lotteries

Set Reading:

John Hawthorne (2002): 'Lewis, the Lottery, and the Preface'. (This is a short paper.)
John Hawthorne (2004): Knowledge and Lotteries , pp. 80-91.

Additional Reading:

DeRose (1996): 'Knowledge, Assertions, and Lotteries', Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Jonathan Vogel (1990): 'Are There Counterexamples to the Closure Principle?', in Roth and Ross (eds) Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Dana Nelkin (2000): 'The Lottery Paradox, Knowledge, and Rationality', Philosophical Review, 109, pp. 373-409.
Peter Baumann (2004): 'Lotteries and Contexts: A Comment on Cohen', Erkenntnis

Seminar 9. (week 11): Subject-Sensitive Invariantism

Set Reading:

Hawthorne (2004): Knowledge and Lotteries, ch. 4 Sensitive Moderate Invariantism.

Additional Reading:

Barbara Partee (2004): 'Comments on Stanley's "On The Linguistic Basis for Contextualism"', Philosophical Studies 119, pp. 147-59.
Jason Stanley (2005): Knowledge and Practical Interests, Oxford: OUP.
Keith DeRose (2005): 'The Ordinary Language Basis for Contextualism, and the New Invariantism', pp.172-198
Stewart Cohen (2005): 'Knowledge, Speaker and Subject', Philosophical Quarterly, 55, pp. 199-212
Brian Weatherson (draft): 'Questioning Contextualism', available from his webpage.
Jason Stanley (2000): 'Context and Logical Form', Linguistics and Philosophy 23, pp. 391-434
John McFarlane (2004): 'The Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge-Attributions'.

Seminar 10. (week 12):

Set Reading: To be fixed

Additional Reading: To be fixed

If you have any suggestions as to how this bibliography might be improved then please email me.

Last modified: 27th September 2004.