PY5102: CURRENT ISSUES (Epistemology)

ADDITIONAL READING: SESSION BY SESSION

Course Organiser and Lecturer: Patrick Greenough

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): 'The Gettier Problem', Chapter 5 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
Jonathan Dancy (1985): Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, Ch. 2.
Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'False Evidence', Chapter 11 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
Linda Zagzebski (1999): 'What is Knowledge?' in Greco and Sosa The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwells
Peter Klein (1993): ‘The Gettier Problem’, entry in Dancy and Sosa’s Companion to Epistemology
Linda Zagzebski (1994); 'The Inescapability of Gettier Problems', The Philosophical Quarterly, 44, pp. 65-73.
Robert K. Shope (2002): 'Conditions and Analyses of Knowing', in The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, edited by Paul K. Moser, Oxford: OUP.
Laurence Bonjour (2002): 'The Concept of Knowledge', ch.3 of his Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 27-52.
Robert K. Shope (1993): ‘Propositional Knowledge’, entry in Dancy and Sosa’s Companion to Epistemology.
Robert Audi (1998): 'The Analysis of Knowledge', Ch. 8 of his Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, pp. 213-243.
Michael Williams (2001): Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology, Ch. 1-4, pp. 13-57.
Keith Lehrer (2000): 'The Analysis of Knowledge', Ch.1 of his The Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edition, pp. 1-24, Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield.

Session Two. (week 1): 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.
Keith Lehrer. and Thomas Paxman (1969): ‘Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief’, Journal of Philosophy, reprinted in the Bernecker and Dretske anthology Knowledge, OUP, 2000.
Gilbert Harman (1973): Thought. (Selections are reprinted in the Sosa and Kim Anthology Epistemology.)
William Lycan (1977); 'Evidence one does not Possess', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 55, pp. 114-126.
Peter Klein (1980): 'Misleading Evidence and the Restoration of Justification', Philosophical Studies, 37, pp. 81-89.
Stewart Cohen (1981): 'Defeasibility and Background Beliefs', Philosophical Studies, 39, pp. 263-274.
Steven Levy (1978): 'Misleading Defeaters', Journal of Philosophy , 78, pp. 739-742.
Steven Levy (1977): 'Defeasibility Theories of Knowledge', Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7, pp. 115-123.
David Annis (1973): 'Knowledge and Defeasibility', Philosophical Studies, 74, pp. 199-202.
Robert Shope (1983): The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research, Princeton University Press, (This book is the most detailed account of all the responses to Gettier up to 1982. It’s dry, but admirably comprehensive and instructive.)

Session Three. (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.
Jonathan Dancy (1985): Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, Chapter Three, first two sections.
Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'Surface Reliability', Chapter 6 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
Stephen Hetherington (1996): 'Underlying Reliability', Chapter 7 of his Knowledge Puzzles, Boulder: Westview Press.
Colin McGinn (1984): 'The Concept of Knowledge', Midwest Studies in Philosophy, ix, and reprinted as essay 1 of his Knowledge and Reality: Selected Essays, Oxford: OUP.
Stephen Luper-Foy (ed.) (1987): The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and his Critics, Rowman and Littlefield.
Alvin Plantinga (1993): Warrant: The Current Debate, OUP, Ch. 9.
Richard Foley (1985):'What's wrong with Reliabilism', The Monist , 68, and reprinted in Bernecker and Dretske's anthology, Knowledge: Reading in Contemporary Epistemology, pp. Oxford: OUP.
Kent Bach (1985): ‘A Rationale for Reliabilism’, The Monist, 68, and in Bernecker and Dretske’s anthology Knowledge, pp. 199-213, OUP, 2000.
Earl Conee and Richard Feldman (1998): ‘The Generality Problem for Reliabilism’, Philosophical Studies 89, also appears in the Sosa and Kim's anthology Epistemology, pp. 372-386, Oxford: Blackwells, 2000.
Mark Heller (1995): 'The Simple Solution to the Problem of Generality', Nous, 29, pp. 501-515.
Alvin Goldman (1976): ‘Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge’, Journal of Philosophy 73, and reprinted in Bernecker and Dretske's anthology, Knowledge: Reading in Contemporary Epistemology, OUP.
Fred Dretske (1971): 'Conclusive Reasons', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 49, pp.1-22, and reprinted as Essay One in his Perception, Knowledge and Belief, Cambridge: CUP.
David Armstrong (1973): ‘The Thermometer Model of Knowledge’, from his Belief, Truth, and Knowledge in excerpted in the Bernecker and Dretske anthology Knowledge, OUP, 2000.
Alvin Goldman (1986): Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard University Press, ch.3-4.
Alvin Goldman (1988): ‘Strong and Weak Justification’, in James Tomberlin Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 2, Epistemology, pp. 51-69.
Alvin Goldman (1967): ‘A Causal Theory of Knowing’, Journal of Philosophy 64, and anthologised many times.

Session Four. (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.

Additional Reading:

Jonathan Dancy (1985): Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, Chapter Three, sections 3 And 4.

Stephen Luper-Foy (ed.) (1987): The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and his Critics, Rowman and Littlefield.

Stephen Luper-Foy: 'The Epistemic Closure Principle', in The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Fred Dretske (1970): 'Epistemic Operators', The Journal of Philosophy, 67, pp. 1007-23, and reprinted as Essay Two in his Perception, Knowledge and Belief, Cambridge: CUP.

Graeme Forbes (1984): 'Nozick on Scepticism', The Philosophical Quarterly, 34, pp. 43-52.

Anthony Brueckner (1985): 'Scepticism and Epistemic Closure', Philosophical Topics, pp. 89-117.

Richard Fumerton (1995): 'Externalism and Scepticism', from his Metaepistemology and Scepticism, Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 159-81, and reprinted in Sosa and Kim's anthology Epistemology, pp. 401-412, Oxford: Blackwells, 2000.

Barry Stroud (1994): 'Scepticism, Externalism, and the Goal of Epistemology', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: Supplementary Volume, and reprinted in his Understanding Human Knowledge, pp. 139-154, Oxford: OUP.

Barry Stroud (1984): The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Oxford: OUP.

Jonathan Vogel (2000): 'Reliabilism Levelled', Journal of Philosophy, 97, pp. 602-23.

Edward Craig (1989): 'Nozick and the Sceptic: The Thumbnail Version', Analysis, 49, pp. 161-162.

Crispin Wright (1983): 'Keeping Track of Nozick', Analysis, 43, pp. 134-40.

Brian Garrett (1992): 'Keeping Track of Nozick's Trackers', Analysis, 5, pp. 91-93

Anthony Brueckner (1992): 'Losing Track of Nozick', Analysis, 5, pp. 194-198.

Duncan Pritchard (2002) ‘Recent Work on Radical Skepticism’, American Philosophical Quarterly 39.

Jonathan Schaffer (2001): 'Knowledge, Relevant Alternatives, and Missed Clues', Analysis, 61, 202-208.

Mark Heller (1989): 'Relevant Alternatives', 55, pp. Philosophical Studies, 23-40.

David Shatz (1981): 'Reliability and Relevant Alternatives', Philosophical Studies, 39, pp. 393-408.

Peter Klein: 'Scepticism', in The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Session Five. (week 4): From Old Reliabilism to New Reliabilism: Better Safe than Sensitive.

Set Reading:

Ernest Sosa (1999): 'How to Defeat Opposition to Moore', in Tomberlin (ed.) Epistemology: Philosophical Perspectives 13, pp. 141-153, Oxford: Blackwells.

Additional Reading:

Ernest Sosa (2002): 'Tracking, Competence, and Knowledge', in The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, edited by Paul K. Moser, Oxford: OUP.
Ernest Sosa (1996): 'Postscript to "Proper Functionalism and Virtue Epistemology"', in Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology, edited by J. Kvanvig, Rowman and Littlefield, 1996, pp. 271-281.
Ernest Sosa (2000): 'Contextualism and Scepticism', in Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Issues, Supplement to Nous, 34.
Mark Sainsbury (1997): 'Easy Possibilities', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 57, pp. 907-19.
Ernest Sosa (1999): 'How must Knowledge be Modally Related to What is Known', Philosophical Topics, 26, pp. 373-84.
Ernest Sosa (2000): 'Skepticism and Contextualism', in Sosa (ed.) Philosophical Issues 10: Scepticism, 2000.
James E Tomberlin (2000): 'Skepticism, Tracking and Warrant' in Sosa (ed.) Philosophical Issues 10: Scepticism, 2000.
Hilary Kornblith (2000): 'The Contextualist Evasion of Epistemology'.
Keith Lehrer (2000): 'Sensitivity, Indiscernibility, and Knowledge', in Sosa (ed.) Philosophical Issues 10: Scepticism, 2000.
Ernest Sosa (2000): 'Replies to Critics', in Sosa (ed.) Philosophical Issues 10: Scepticism, 2000.
Timothy Williamson (1992): ‘Inexact Knowledge’, Mind, 101, pp. 217-42.
Timothy Williamson (2000): Knowledge and Its Limits, Chapter 7, pp. 147-163.
Timothy Williamson (2000): Knowledge and Its Limits, Chapter 8, pp. 164-183.
Timothy Williamson (2000): 'Scepticism and Evidence', Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 60, pp. 613-28.
Johnathan Vogel (1987): 'Tracking, Closure, and Inductive Knowledge', in The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and his Critics, edited by Stephen Luper-Foy.
Stephen Luper-Foy (1984): 'The Epistemic Predicament: Knowledge, Nozickian Tracking, and Skepticism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 62, pp. 26-48.
Anthony Brueckner (2002): 'Williamson's Anti-Luminosity Argument', Philosophical Studies, 110, pp. 285-293.

Session Six. (week 5): Good knowledge, Bad knowledge: Anti-Anti-Luck Epistemology.

Set Reading:

Stephen Hetherington (1998): 'Actually Knowing', The Philosophical Quarterly, 48, pp. 453-469.

Additional Reading:

Stephen Hetherington (2001): Good Knowledge, Bad Knowledge, Oxford: OUP.

Kent Bach: Accidental Truth and Would-be Knowledge.

Baron Reed (2000): 'Accidental Truth and Accidental Justification', The Philosophical Quarterly, 50, pp. 57-67.

Sartwell, C. (1991): 'Knowledge is Merely True Belief', American Philosophical Quarterly, 28, pp. 157-65.

Sartwell, C. (1992): 'Why Knowledge is Merely True Belief', Journal of Philosophy, 89, pp. 167-80.

Stephen Hetherington (1999): ‘Knowing Failably’, Journal of Philosophy, XCV1, No. 11.

Hamid Vahid (2001): 'Knowledge and Varieties of Epistemic Luck', Dialectica, 55, pp. 351-362.

Barbara J Hall (1994): 'On Epistemic Luck', Southern Journal of Philosophy, 32, pp. 79-84

Mylan Engel (1992): 'Is Epistemic Luck Compatible with Knowledge', Southern Journal of Philosophy, 30, pp. 59-75.

William Harper (1996): ‘Knowledge and Luck’, The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34, 273-83.

Daniel Statman (1991): 'Moral and Epistemic Luck', Ratio, 4, pp. 146-156.

Richard Foley (1984): 'Epistemic Luck and the Purely Epistemic', American Philosophical Quarterly, 21, pp. 113-124.

Duncan Pritchard (forthcoming). 'Epistemic Luck', Journal of Philosophical Research 29.

Duncan Pricthard (forthcoming): Epistemic Luck (book manuscript).

John Greco (1995): ‘A Second Paradox Concerning Responsibility and Luck’, Metaphilosophy 26, pp. 81-96.

A. Latus (2000): 'Moral and Epistemic Luck', Journal of Philosophical Research, 25.

Morillo, C. R. (1984): ‘Epistemic Luck, Naturalistic Epistemology, and the Ecology of Knowledge’, Philosophical Studies 46.

Thomas Nagel (1979): ‘Moral Luck’, in his Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Bernard Williams (1979): ‘Moral Luck’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 50 (supplementary volume), pp. 115-35.

Daniel Statman (ed.) (1993): Moral Luck, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.

Guy Axtell: (2001) 'Epistemic Luck in Light of the Virtues', in Fairweather and Zagzebski (eds) Virtue Epistemology: Essays in Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, OUP, 2001.

Session Seven . (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, and reprinted in Sosa and Kim's anthology Epistemology, pp. 503-516, Oxford: Blackwells, 2000.
Keith DeRose (1995): 'Solving the Sceptical Problem', The Philosophical Review, 104, pp 1-7, pp. 17-52, and reprinted in Sosa and Kim's anthology Epistemology, pp. 482-502. Oxford: Blackwells, 2000.

Additional reading:

Keith DeRose (1999): 'Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense', in Greco and Sosa (eds) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwells, 1999..
Stewart Cohen (1988): ‘How to be a Fallibilist’, Philosophical Perspectives 2, pp. 91-123.
Stewart Cohen (1998): 'Contextualist Solutions to the Epistemological Problems: Scepticism, Gettier, and the Lottery', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 76, pp. 289-306, and reprinted in Sosa and Kim's anthology Epistemology, pp. 517-530, Oxford: Blackwells, 2000.
Stewart Cohen (1999): ‘Contextualism, Scepticism, and Reasons’ in Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 13: Epistemology, pp. 57-89, Oxford: Blackwells, 1999.
Stewart Cohen (1986): 'Knowledge and Context', The Journal of Philosophy, 83, pp. 574-85.
Duncan Pritchard (2002): 'Resurrecting the Moorean Response to Scepticism', International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 10, pp. 282-307.
Duncan Pritchard (2002): 'Two Forms of Epistemological Scepticism', Grazer Philosophische Studien, 64, pp. 19-55.
Duncan Pritchard (2001): 'Contextualism, Scepticism, and the Problem of Epistemic Descent', Dialectica, 55, pp. 327-349.
Neta Ram (2002): 'S knows that P', Nous, 36, pp. 663-681.
Keith DeRose (1993): Review of Michael Williams’s Unnatural Doubts, in Phil. Rev. 102.
Keith DeRose (1998): ‘Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions’ in Alcoff (ed.) Epistemology: The Big Questions.
Keith DeRose (1999): ‘Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense’, in Greco and Sosa’s Blackwells Guide to Epistemology.
Richard Feldman (1999): Contextualism and Scepticism, in Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 13: Epistemology, pp. 91-114, Oxford: Blackwells, 1999.
Richard Feldman (2001): 'Sceptical Problems, Contextualist Solutions', Philosophical Studies, 103, pp. 61-85.
Stewart Cohen (2001): 'Contextualism Defended: Comments on Feldman's "Sceptical Problems, Contextualist Solutions"', Philosophical Studies, 103, pp. 87-98.
Michael Williams (2001): 'Contextualism, Externalism, and Epistemic Standards', Philosophical Studies, 103, pp. 1-23
Timothy Williamson (2001): 'Comments on Michael Williams' "Contextualism, Externalism, and Epistemic Standards"', Philosophical Studies, 103, pp. 25-33
Mark Heller (1999): 'The Proper Role for Contextualism in Anti-Luck Epistemology', in Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 13: Epistemology , pp. 115-129, Oxford: Blackwells, 1999.
Mark Heller (1999): 'Relevant Alternatives and Closure', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 77, pp. 196-208.
Duncan Pritchard (2000): 'Closure and Context', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 78, pp. 275-80
Catherine Elgin (1988): 'The Epistemic Efficacy of Stupidity', Synthese, 74, pp. 297-311.
Stephen Schiffer (1996): ‘Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 96.
Gail Stine (1976): ‘Scepticism, Relevant Alternatives, and Deductive Closure’, Philosophical Studies, 29, pp. 249-61.
Jonathan Vogel (1999): ‘The New Relevant Alternatives Theory’, in Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 13: Epistemology, pp. 155-180, Oxford: Blackwells, 1999.
Michael Williams (1996): Unnatural Doubts, Princeton University Press.
David Lewis (1979): ‘Score-Keeping in a Language Game’, Philosophical Logic 8, in his Collected Papers, vol. 2.
Unger, P. (1971): ‘A Defense of Scepticism’, Philosophical Review, 80, reprinted in Bernecker and Dretske’s anthology Knowledge, OUP, 2000.
There's also a whole bunch of articles on contextualism in Ernest Sosa (ed.) Skepticism: Philosophical Issues, 10, 2000, Blackwells. These are:

Stewart Cohen (2000): 'Contextualism and Scepticism'.
Robert Fogelin (2000): 'Contextualism and Externalism: Trading in One Form of Skepticism for Another'
John Greco (2000): 'Skepticism and Epistemic Kinds'.
Peter Klein (2000): 'Contextualism and the Real Nature of Academic Scepticism'.
Josep L Prades (2000): 'Scepticism, Contextualism, and Closure'.
Luis Villanueva (2000): 'Contextualism and Levels of Scrutiny'.
Enrique Villanueva (2000): 'What has Contextualism got to do with Skepticism?'.
Michael Williams (2000): 'Is Contextualism Statable?'.
Stewart Cohen (2000): 'Replies'.

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

Last modified: 8th February 2004.