Epistemology and Methodology

Readings marked with a * are particularly important. Those marked with a ! are ones that I find interesting.

  1. Collections and Introductions

    Topics:

  2. Analysing Knowledge
  3. Skepticism and Contextualism
  4. Testimony
  5. The new riddle of induction
  6. A priori knowledge
  7. Social Epistemology

i. Collections and Introductions

Sosa, E. and Kim, J. eds. 1999. Epistemology: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. One of the best collections of key readings. (Referred to below as S&K)

Bernecker, S. and Dretske, F. eds. 2000. Knowledge: Readings in Contemporary Epistemology Oxford: OUP. Another of the best collections of key readings. (Referred to below as B&D)

Steup, M. and Sosa, E. eds. 2005. Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell. Extremely useful commissioned ‘for and against' debates on central questions. (Referred to below as S&S)

ii. Analysing Knowledge

Either:

*Dancy, Johnathan, An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, (1986, Oxford:Blackwell) Chapter 2

or (if you can't get hold of it)

*Steup, Matthias, "The Analysis of Knowledge", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Sections 1, 2 and 3

*Goldman, Alvin, ‘A Causal Theory of Knowing', Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967): 357-372 Online

*!Craig, Edward, ‘The Practical Explication of Knowledge', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 87 (1987): 211-226

*!Williamson, Timothy, ‘Is Knowing a State of Mind', Mind 104 (1995): 533- 565 Online (This paper is slightly harder than the others, try applying the techniques from "How to read a philosophy paper)

Gettier, Edmund, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?' Analysis 23 (1963): 121-123 also in S&K and B&D

!Williamson, Timothy, Knowledge and its Limits, (Oxford: OUP, 2000) Online

Roush, Sherrilyn, Tracking Truth: Knowledge, Evidence, and Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) Online

Essay Question: Are there any good reasons to believe that the concept of knowledge cannot be analysed? or What is the relation, if any, between knowledge and justified true belief?

iii. Scepticism and Contextualism

[Optional] Dancy, Jonathan, An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, (Oxford:Blackwell, 1986) Chapter 1

*Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984) Chapter 1 Online

*Edward Craig, ‘Nozick and the Sceptic: The Thumbnail Version', Analysis 49 (1989)

*Putnam Hilary, Reason, Truth and History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) Chapter 1, "Brains in a Vat" Reprinted in DeRose and Warfield eds. Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader (Oxford: OUP, 1999)

*Keith DeRose, ‘Solving the Skeptical Problem', Philosophical Review 104 (1995): 1-52 Online Reprinted in S&K and in DeRose and Warfield eds. Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader (Oxford: OUP, 1999)

Essay Questions: Is there any good response to the sceptical argument?

Further Reading (mainly for vacation/run up to finals etc)

Lewis David, ‘Elusive Knowledge', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (1996): 549-567 Reprinted in S&K and in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Schiffer, Stephen ‘Contextualist solutions to Skepticism' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 1996: 317-33

Wright, Crispin, ‘On Putnam's Proof that we are not Brains-in-a-Vat', in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 92 (1992): 67-94

iv. Testimony

*Fricker, Elizabeth. (1987) “The Epistemology of Testimony.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 61: 57-83

*Burge, Tyler. (1993) “Content Preservation.” The Philosophical Review 102: 457-88 Online

*Fricker, Elizabeth ‘Telling and Trusting: Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony', Mind 104 (1995): 393-411 Online

*Fricker, Miranda, Epistemic Injustice - Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: OUP, 2007) Chapter 1 Online

*Goldberg, Sanford, (2001) “Testimonially Based Knowledge from False Testimony”, Philosophical Quarterly 51:205, 512-26 Online

Coady, CA, 'Testimony and Observation', American Philosophical Quarterly 10 (1973): 149-155

Williamson, Timothy. (1996) “Knowing and Asserting.” The Philosophical Review 105: 489-523 Online

Lackey, Jennifer (2006) "Learning from Words" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1), 77–101 Online

Essay Question: Under what conditions is someone who has been told that p justified in believing that p?

v. The new riddle of induction

*Goodman, Nelson, Fact, Fiction & Forecast (4 th ed. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), Chapter 3

*Jackson, F. 1975. ‘Grue'. Journal of Philosophy 72: 113-131. Online

*Sainsbury, M. 1995. Paradoxes. 2 nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 4

*Skyrms, B. 1986. Choice and Chance: an Introduction to Inductive Logic. 2 nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Ch.3

Shoemaker, S. 1975. ‘Projecting the Unprojectible'. Philosophical Review 84: 178-219 Online

Essay question: What is Goodman's new riddle of induction? How, if at all, can it be solved? [London, 2004]

vi. A priori knowledge

*Russell, Bruce, "A Priori Justification and Knowledge", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Sections 1,2 and 3

*Quine, W.V.O., ‘Truth by Convention' in his The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays (New York: Random House, 1966)

*Kripke, S., Naming and Necessity revised and enlarged edition (Blackwell, 1980) especially pp. 34-39, 48-50, 53-58, 99-105, 108-109 and reproduced as `A Priori Knowledge, Necessity, and Contingency' in Moser, P. (ed.) A Priori Knowledge (OUP, 1987) chapter 7

*'Is there A Priori Knowledge?', Chapter 4, in S&S

Boghossian, Paul, and Christopher Peacocke. New Essays on the A Priori. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 Online Especially essays by Horwich and Cassam

Essay questions: "All beliefs are revisable in the light of experience so there is no interesting notion of a priori knowledge" Discuss

vii. Social Epistemology

*Longino, Helen E., Science as social knowledge : values and objectivity in scientific inquiry (USA :Princeton University Press, 1990)
Maughan Lib. Chancery Lane [Humanities books] HM24 LON There is just one copy of this book so please photocopy or read in library- do not take it out! Chapters 1,2 and 10 are most important but the whole book is good!

*Goldman, Alvin, Knowledge in a social world (Oxford: OUP, 1999) Preface and Chapter 3 Online

*Antony, Louise, "Sisters, please, I'd rather do it myself: A defence of individualism in feminist epistemology", Philosophical Topics: Feminist Perspectives on Language, Knowledge and Reality, (ed.) Sally Haslanger, vol.23 no.2, (Fall 1995) This is a paper in a journal, avaliable in the humanities journals under "P"

*Kitcher, Philip. The Advancement of Science - Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) Chapter 8 Online

Fricker, Miranda (1998), "Rational Authority and Social Power: Towards a Truly Social Epistemology," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 19(2): 159-177 Online?

Goldman, Alvin, "Social Epistemology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),

Questions: Is there any place for the social in epistemology?

changed January 31, 2008