Download or read book What is Epistemology written by Stephen Hetherington and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-05-29 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge. Epistemologists seek to understand knowledge’s nature and availability. What is knowledge? There are competing theories. Can we really have knowledge? Challenges abound. In this lively book, Stephen Hetherington introduces us to epistemological theorizing. He builds a theory and tests it, refines it, and challenges it again. He explores such topics as evidence, truth and belief, different kinds of knowledge, and knowledge’s value, as well as sceptical views concerning knowledge of the physical world, one’s own mind and memory, and rational limits for observation and reason. This epistemological theorizing is then applied to some of life’s most pressing issues, such as how to live and how to understand ourselves and others. What is Epistemology? is a practical and student-friendly guide to one of the most dynamic areas of philosophy. It will be the go-to introductory epistemology text.
Download or read book Introduction to Philosophy written by Guy Axtell and published by . This book was released on 2022-01-26 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology engages first-time philosophy readers on a guided tour through the core concepts, questions, methods, arguments, and theories of epistemology-the branch of philosophy devoted to the study of knowledge. After a brief overview of the field, the book progresses systematically while placing central ideas and thinkers in historical and contemporary context. The chapters cover the analysis of knowledge, the nature of epistemic justification, rationalism vs. empiricism, skepticism, the value of knowledge, the ethics of belief, Bayesian epistemology, social epistemology, and feminist epistemologies. Along the way, instructors and students will encounter a wealth of additional resources and tools: Chapter learning outcomes Key terms Images of philosophers and related art Useful diagrams and tables Boxes containing excerpts and other supplementary material Questions for reflection Suggestions for further reading A glossary For an undergraduate survey epistemology course, Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology is ideal when used as a main text paired with primary sources and scholarly articles. For an introductory philosophy course, select book chapters are best used in combination with chapters from other books in the Introduction to Philosophy series: https: //www1.rebus.community/#/project/4ec7ecce-d2b3-4f20-973c-6b6502e7cbb2.
Download or read book This Is Epistemology written by J. Adam Carter and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is knowledge? Why is it valuable? How much of it do we have (if any at all), and what ways of thinking are good ways to use to get more of it? These are just a few questions that are asked in epistemology, roughly, the philosophical theory of knowledge. This is Epistemology is a comprehensive introduction to the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and scope of human knowledge. Exploring both classic debates and contemporary issues in epistemology, this rigorous yet accessible textbook provides readers with the foundation necessary to start doing epistemology. Organized around 11 key subtopics, and assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this volume exposes readers to diverse, often contentious perspectives—guiding readers through crucial debates including Hume’s problem of induction, Descartes’ engagement with radical skepticism, rationalist and empiricist evaluations of a priori justification, and many more. The authors avoid complex technical terms and jargon in favor of an easy-to-follow, informal writing style with engaging chapters designed to stimulate student interest and encourage class discussion. Throughout the text, a wealth of up-to-date references and links to online resources are provided to enable further investigation of an array of epistemological topics. A balanced and authoritative addition to the acclaimed This is Philosophy series, This is Epistemology is a perfect primary textbook for philosophy undergraduates, and a valuable resource for general readers with interest in this important branch of philosophy.
Download or read book How Do We Know written by James K. Dew Jr. and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to know something? Epistemology, the study of knowledge, can often seem like a daunting subject. And yet few topics are more basic to human life. In this primer on epistemology, now in a second edition, James Dew and Mark Foreman provide an accessible entry into one of the most important disciplines within contemporary philosophy.
Download or read book Epistemology written by Robert Audi and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook introduces the concepts and theories central for understanding the nature of knowledge. It is aimed at students who have already done an introductory course. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is concerned about how we know what we do, what justifies us in believing what we do, and what standards of evidence we should use in seeking truths about the world of human experience. The author's approach draws the reader into the subfields and theories of the subject, guided by key concrete examples. Major topics covered include perception and reflection as grounds of knowledge, the nature, structure, and varieties of knowledge, and the character and scope of knowledge in the crucial realms of ethics, science and religion.
Download or read book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology written by Ayn Rand and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1990-04-26 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today man's mind is under attack by all the leading schools of philosophy. We are told that we cannot trust our senses, that logic is arbitrary, that concepts have no basis in reality. Ayn Rand opposes that torrent of nihilism, and she provides the alternative in this eloquent presentation of the essential nature--and power--of man's conceptual faculty. She offers a startlingly original solution to the problem that brought about the collapse of modern philosophy: the problem of universals. This brilliantly argued, superbly written work, together with an essay by philosophy professor Leonard Peikoff, is vital reading for all those who seek to discover that human beings can and should live by the guidance of reason.
Download or read book Epistemology of Ordinary Knowledge written by Paolo Piccari and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-25 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many philosophers reduce ordinary knowledge to sensory or, more generally, to perceptual knowledge, which refers to entities belonging to the phenomenic world. However, ordinary knowledge is not only the result of sensory-perceptual processes, but also of non-perceptual (noetic) contents that are present in any mind. From an epistemological point of view, ordinary knowledge is a form of knowledge that not only allows epistemic access to the world, but also enables the formulation of models of it with different degrees of reliability. Usually epistemologists focus their attention on scientific knowledge, believing that ordinary knowledge does not, or cannot, have an epistemology for it is not in any way rigorous. The papers collected in this volume analyse different aspects of ordinary knowledge and of its epistemology.
Download or read book The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance written by Rik Peels and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides a thorough exploration of the epistemic dimensions of ignorance: what is ignorance and what are its varieties?
Download or read book Epistemology written by W. Jay Wood and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-08-20 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study of how we know what we know, W. Jay Wood surveys current views of foundationalism, epistemic justification and reliabilism.
Download or read book Knowledge in a Social World written by Alvin I. Goldman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-14 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledge in a Social World offers a philosophy for the information age. Alvin Goldman explores new frontiers by creating a thoroughgoing social epistemology, moving beyond the traditional focus on solitary knowers. Social, cultural, and technological changes present new challenges to our ways of knowing and understanding, and philosophy must face these challenges. Against the tides of postmodernism and social constructionism Goldman defends the integrity of truth and shows how to promote it by well-designed forms of social interaction. He urges that social discourse promises more than the mere politics of consensus, and that suitably norm-governed debate and belief-revision can increase veridical knowledge. Goldman's aims are not just philosophical but practical. From science to education, from law to democracy, he shows why and how public institutions should seek knowledge-enhancing practices. He examines how cyberspace and other technologies expand the scope of communication, and warns of the need to safeguard content quality. He scrutinizes the free marketplace of ideas, the adversary system in the law, and media coverage of political campaigns. The result is a bold, timely, and systematic treatment of the philosophical foundations of an information society.
Download or read book Epistemology for the Rest of the World written by Stephen Stich and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the heyday of ordinary language philosophy, Anglophone epistemologists have devoted a great deal of attention to the English word 'know' and to English sentences used to attribute knowledge. Even today, many epistemologists, including contextualists and subject-sensitive invariantists are concerned with the truth conditions of "S knows that p," or the proposition it expresses. In all of this literature, the method of cases is used, where a situation is described in English, and then philosophers judge whether it is true that S knows that p, or whether saying "S knows that p" is false, deviant, etc. in that situation. However, English is just one of over 6000 languages spoken around the world, and is the native language of less than 6% of the world's population. When Western epistemology first emerged, in ancient Greece, English did not even exist. So why should we think that facts about the English word "know," the concept it expresses, or subtle semantic properties of "S knows that p" have important implications for epistemology? Are the properties of the English word "know" and the English sentence 'S knows that p' shared by their translations in most or all languages? If that turned out to be true, it would be a remarkable fact that cries out for an explanation. But if it turned out to be false, what are the implications for epistemology? Should epistemologists study knowledge attributions in languages other than English with the same diligence they have shown for the study of English knowledge attributions? If not, why not? In what ways do the concepts expressed by 'know' and its counterparts in different languages differ? And what should epistemologists make of all this? The papers collected here discuss these questions and related issues, and aim to contribute to this important topic and epistemology in general.
Download or read book The Epistemology of Resistance written by José Medina and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.
Download or read book The Epistemic Role of Consciousness written by Declan Smithies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification. Smithies builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His position combines two key claims. The first is phenomenal mentalism, which says that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenally individuated facts about your mental states. The second is accessibilism, which says that epistemic justification is luminously accessible in the sense that you're always in a position to know which beliefs you have epistemic justification to hold. Smithies integrates these two claims into a unified theory of epistemic justification, which he calls phenomenal accessibilism. The book is divided into two parts, which converge on this theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part 1 argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part 2 argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and philosophy of mind.
Download or read book What to Believe Now written by David Coady and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-04-16 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can we know and what should we believe about today's world? What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues applies the concerns and techniques of epistemology to a wide variety of contemporary issues. Questions about what we can know-and what we should believe-are first addressed through an explicit consideration of the practicalities of working these issues out at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Coady calls for an 'applied turn' in epistemology, a process he likens to the applied turn that transformed the study of ethics in the early 1970s. Subjects dealt with include: Experts-how can we recognize them? And when should we trust them? Rumors-should they ever be believed? And can they, in fact, be a source of knowledge? Conspiracy theories-when, if ever, should they be believed, and can they be known to be true? The blogosphere-how does it compare with traditional media as a source of knowledge and justified belief? Timely, thought provoking, and controversial, What to Believe Now offers a wealth of insights into a branch of philosophy of growing importance-and increasing relevance-in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Epistemic Relativism written by M. Seidel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-04-13 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Markus Seidel provides a detailed critique of epistemic relativism in the sociology of scientific knowledge. In addition to scrutinizing the main arguments for epistemic relativism he provides an absolutist account that nevertheless aims at integrating the relativist's intuition.
Download or read book Epistemic Justification written by Laurence BonJour and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2003-04-22 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge. Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate. Introduces students to fundamental questions within epistemology while engaging in contemporary debates. Written by two of today’s foremost epistemologists. Includes an extensive bibliography.
Download or read book Skepticism written by Keith DeRose and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skepticism: Contemporary Reader brings together the most important recent contributions to the discussion of skepticism. Covering major approaches to the skeptical problem, it features essays by Anthony Brueckner, Keith DeRose, Fred Dretske, Graeme Forbes, Christopher Hill, David Lewis, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, Hilary Putnam, Ernest Sosa, Gail Stine, Barry Stroud, Peter Unger, and Ted Warfield.
