PY5102: CURRENT ISSUES (Epistemology)
Semester 2:
February 2004 - May 2004.
Number of students: 15.
Course Organiser and Lecturer:
Patrick Greenough
Seminar instructor: Patrick Greenough.
ESSAY DEADLINE: Tuesday 4th May (the Tuesday of week 11).
You can choose to do an essay on either epistemology or the moral philosophy component.
For the epistemology component, you choose your own title/topic but you need to email me with your topic/title so that I can check you've chosen wisely.
Word count: 2500-3500 words (including notes and quotes but excluding bibliography).
LECTURES
Session 1.
Knowledge, Fallibilism, and False Evidence. (Week 1)
Session 2. Causal Connections and Evidence One Does Not Possess. (Week 1)
Session 3. Thermometers, Barometers, and Truth-tracking: Reliabilism from Russell to Nozick. (Week 2)
Session 4. Relevant and Irrelevant alternatives: the Reliabilist Response to the Sceptic. (Week 3)
Session 5. From Old Reliabilism to New Reliabilism: Better Safe than Sensitive. (Week 4)
Session 6. Good Knowledge, Bad Knowledge: Anti-Anti-Luck Epistemology. (Week 5)
Session 7. Ignorance in the Epistemology Seminar: the Case for Contextualism. (Week 6)
LECTURES/SEMINARS: TIME AND PLACE
Day:
Tuesdays.
Time: 3pm-5pm
Place: Room 104
Please Note: There will be a change of room on Tuesday March 2nd (the Tuesday of week 4). New room: 1st Floor Seminar Room, St. Katherine's West (Department of Management). The subsequent weeks we will be back in 104.
READING
Session One
(Week 1): Knowledge, Fallibilism, and False Evidence.
Basic Reading:
- Edmund Gettier (1963): 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?', Analysis 23, pp. 121-23.
- Richard Feldman (1973): 'All Alleged Defect in Gettier Counterexamples', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 52, pp. 68-9.
Additional Reading:
- Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'False Evidence', Chapter 11 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
Session One (week 1): Causal Connections and Evidence One Does Not Possess.
Basic Reading:
- John Pollock (1986): Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, pp. 180-93.
Additional Reading:
- Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'Defeasibility', Chapter 9 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
- Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'Social Defeasibility', Chapter 10 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
Session Two. (Week 2): Thermometers, Barometers, and Truth-tracking: Reliabilism from Russell to Nozick.
Set Reading:
- Robert Nozick (1981): 'Knowledge', from his Philosophical Explanations, pp. 172-85.
Additional Reading:
- Stewart Cohen (1992): 'Relevant Alternatives', in Dancy and Sosa (eds): A Companion to Epistemology, Blackwells.
- Alvin Goldman (1992): 'Reliabilism', in Dancy and Sosa (eds): A Companion to Epistemology, Blackwells.
Talks on: (a) The Problem of Methods, (b) The Generality Problem, (c) Reliabilism as externalistic.
Session Three. (week 3): Relevant and Irrelevant Alternatives: the Reliabilist Response to the Sceptic.
Set Reading:
- Robert Nozick (1981): 'Scepticism', from his Philosophical Explanations, pp.197-217.
Talks on: (a) Meta-epistemic scepticism, (b) Arguments for/against closure, (c) Dretske on scepticism.
Session Four. (week 4): From Old Reliabilism to New Reliabilism: Better Safe than Sensitive.
Set Reading:
- Ernest Sosa (1999): 'How to Defeat Opposition to Moore', in J. E. Tomberlin (ed.) Epistemology, Philosophical Perspectives 13, Blackwells.
Talks on: (a) How does Sosa combat Meta-Epistemic Scepticism? (b) Kripke cases.
Session Five. (week 5): Good knowledge, Bad knowledge: Anti-Anti-Luck Epistemology.
Set Reading:
- Stephen Hetherington (1998): 'Actually Knowing', The Philosophical Quarterly, 48, pp. 453-469.
Talks on: (a) Epistemic and moral luck compared, (b) Hetherington on the TB conception, (c) Gradualism in epistemology
Session Six. (week 6): Ignorance in the Epistemology Seminar: the Case for Contextualism.
Set Reading:
- David Lewis (1996): 'Elusive Knowledge', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74, pp. 549-67.
Additional reading:
- Keith DeRose (1995): 'Solving the Sceptical Problem', The Philosophical Review, 104, pp 1-7, pp. 17-52.
Talks on: (a) The Statability Problem, (b) The problem of epistemic descent, (c) Williamson on contextualism
THE COURSEPACK
There is no set text for this course. The set readings are all contained in the COURSEPACK.
- Edmund Gettier (1963): 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?', Analysis 23, pp. 121-23.
- Richard Feldman (1973): 'All Alleged Defect in Gettier Counterexamples', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 52, pp. 68-9.
- Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'False Evidence', Chapter 11 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
- John Pollock (1986): Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, pp. 180-93.
- Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'Defeasibility', Chapter 9 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
- Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'Social Defeasibility', Chapter 10 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
- Robert Nozick (1981): 'Knowledge', from his Philosophical Explanations, pp. 172-85.
- Stewart Cohen (1992): 'Relevant Alternatives', in Dancy and Sosa (eds): A Companion to Epistemology, Blackwells.
- Alvin Goldman (1992): 'Reliabilism', in Dancy and Sosa (eds): A Companion to Epistemology, Blackwells.
- Robert Nozick (1981): 'Scepticism', from his Philosophical Explanations, pp.197-217.
- Ernest Sosa (1999): 'How to Defeat Opposition to Moore', in J. E. Tomberlin (ed.) Epistemology, Philosophical Perspectives 13, Blackwells.
- Stephen Hetherington (1998): 'Actually Knowing', The Philosophical Quarterly, 48, pp. 453-469.
- Keith DeRose (1995): 'Solving the Sceptical Problem', The Philosophical Review, 104, pp 1-7, pp. 17-52.
- David Lewis (1996): 'Elusive Knowledge', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74, pp. 549-67
ADDITIONAL READING: SEMINAR BY SEMINAR
You can find a set of additional readings for each seminar here.
ADDITIONAL READING: GENERAL
You can find a general bibliography for epistemology here
ELECTRONIC RESOURCES FOR EPISTEMOLOGY
Keith DeRose's excellent web resource for epistemology can be found at:
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~kd47/e-page.htm
- Also, you might like to try:
http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~kak7409/EpistemologicalResearch.htm
http://www.epistemelinks.com/Main/Topics.aspx?TopiCode=Epis
- And for Philosophy and the Matrix, try:
http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/phi.html
GENERAL ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
ENCYCLOPAEDIAS:
DICTIONARIES:
DATABASES:
(Note: no password required for local access; contact jmy@st-and.ac.uk for password for remote access.)
ON-LINE JOURNALS:
- Many Philosophy Journals can be accessed on-line at:
http://www-library.st-andrews.ac.uk/External/Journals/philosophy.html
VERY USEFUL WEB LINKS:
BUBL: http://link.bubl.ac.uk/Philosophy/ (Links to a wide range of Philosophy Internet resources.)
Guide to Philosophy on the Internet: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/philinks.htm (perhaps THE philosophy site).
Philosophy at Large: http://www.liv.ac.uk/Philosophy/philos.html (detailed guide to Internet resources in philosophy, subdivided by type).
Philosophy in Cyberspace: http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~dey/phil/ (annotated guide to more than 1000 philosophy sites).
SOSIG: http://www.sosig.ac.uk/roads/subject-listing/World-cat/philos.html (Links to a wide range of Philosophy Internet resources).
St. Andrews Virtual Library and Study Resource Centre: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~vlibrary/vlhome.html
WWW Virtual Library: Philosophy: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/VL/
JARGON-BUSTING: CONSTRUCT YOUR OWN GLOSSARY
To facilitate your understanding, I strongly encourage you to produce a glossary of the key terms encountered in PY5102. Once you are on top of all this terminology, your study will become much more manageable.
Your glossary should at least include definitions of the following terms and expressions:
|
Accessibilism
Anti-luck epistemology
Bad knowledge
Belief
Cartesian scepticism
Causal theory of knowledge
Certainty
Closure
Conditional theory of knowledge
Contextualism
Defeasibility
Defeasibility analysis of knowledge
Defeater
Defeater defeater
Discrimination
Dreaming scepticism |
Easy knowledge
Error
Error scepticism
Evidence
Evidentialism
Externalism about knowledge
Externalism about evidence and justification
External world scepticism
Factivity of knowledge
Factivity of justification
Fallibilism about Justification
Fallibilism concerning knowledge
Foundationalism
Gettier cases
Generality problem
Good knowledge |
Gradualism
Ignorance
Illusion
Incorrigibility
Indubitability
Infallibilism
Indefeasibility
Internalism about knowledge
Internalism about evidence and justification
Irrelevant alternative
Irrevisability
JTB analysis of knowledge
Justification
KK principle
Know-how
Know-that
Knowledge
Lucky knowledge |
Mentalism
Meta-epistemic scepticism
Misleading evidence
Modal epistemology
Moral versus epistemic luck
No-false evidence analysis of knowledge
Omnsicience
Practical knowledge
Propositional knowledge
Reason
Relevant Alternatives theory of knowledge
Reliabilism |
Reliability, local
Reliability, global
Rule of attention
Safety condition
Scepticism
Sensitivity to falisty
Sensitivity to truth
Social defeasibility
Subjunctive conditional
Telos of belief
TB analysis of knowledge
Tracking
Tripartite analysis of knowledge
Truth condition
Virtue
Virtue epistemology |
- Note that in many, if not all, cases it may prove impossible to give an uncontroversial definition of these key terms. That's a fact of life that you have to learn to live with in philosophy. (It's actually no bad thing since philosophy would be rather stale and dull if these definitions were entirely uncontroversial.)
- Still, in the first instance, you should give the most typical definition of a term (the definition encountered in the lectures, or in Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, and Companions to Philosophy). The most typical definition of a term may well not coincide with the best definition of a term. It's part of the challenge of philosophy to close the gap between typical and superlative definitions.
© Patrick Greenough 2004.
If you have any suggestions as to how this site might be improved then please
email me.
Last modified: 8th Feb 2004.
