Phil 7/8421

Seminar in Epistemology

The Point and Purpose of Epistemology

Overview:

Philosophers seeking to give an account of epistemic justification or of knowledge typically purport to be analyzing or elucidating “our” concepts. This supposes that our communities—those historically extended communities of inquiry, into which we are more or less incorporated, and which are incorporated into our more encompassing community, would have and have in fact, developed evaluative concepts of the sort in question. It is uncontroversial that we have indeed developed a concept (or a family of concepts) of epistemic justification, for example. But, an interesting and somewhat neglected question is: Why would a society do so? What is epistemic evaluation all about? My hunch is that realistic and honest attention to such issues may be revealing concerning the plausibility of various analyses advanced for justification and knowledge. If one can get some plausible take on what are the sociolinguistic points and purposes informing the evaluations in question, informing the concepts in question, one can then have some basis for addressing issues such as: Is it plausible that people would have developed an epistemic evaluative concept such as that proposed (or apparently deployed) by …, well, take your pick—Descartes, Hume, BonJour, Goldman, …? Are there multiple concepts to be recognized, and do they answer to different sociolinguistic points and purposes? Does the conflation of such concepts produce mischief within epistemology?

To the end of addressing such questions, we will look at various accounts of knowledge or justification—ones that are relatively forthcoming about the point and purpose of epistemology—and attempt to distill out of them a story about the questions posed above. I say that the accounts are “relatively forthcoming” because, while they may fail to articulate a systematic answer, they will provide some clear suggestions to be considered. With few exceptions, this is about as clear as epistemologists have been on the matter. One exceptionally clear presentation is Craig’s book, which serves as one central source for the class (see below).

Texts:

• Edward Craig, Knowledge and the State of Nature
• Alvin Plantiga, chapter 1-2, Warrant: The Current Debate
• Reserve Material:
• William Alston, “The Concept of Justification” and “Epistemic Desiderata”
• Philip Kitcher, “The Naturalist Returns,” and …
• Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, “Evidentialism”
• Hilary Kornblith, “Justified Belief and Epistemic Responsibility”
• Alvin Goldman, “Strong and Weak Justification,” “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology”
• Henderson and Horgan, A Priori Naturalized Epistemology, MS, chapters 3-6 (chapter 2 also provided as background).

A useful background piece:

• BonJour, Epistemology, chapters 2-3, 9-10.

Evaluation:

• Two short exegetical papers (from a set of topics to be announced).
• One term paper, of appropriate length and beauty, on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor.

Schedule: