Theory of Knowledge

Readings

The table below features the assigned readings for the course.

For suggestions on how to read philosophy more effectively, see Jim Pryor’s Guidelines on Reading Philosophy.

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	The Skeptical Problem	Descartes, René. “First Meditation: On what can be called into doubt.” In Meditations on First Philosophy in which are demonstrated the existence of God and the distinction between the human soul and body (PDF). earlymoderntexts.com.
2–3	What is Knowledge?	Gettier, Edmund L. “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23, no. 6 (1963): 121–3. Zagzebski, Linda. “The Inescapability of Gettier Problems.” Philosophical Quarterly 44, no. 174 (1994): 65–73.
4–5	Skepticism and Common Sense	Moore, G. E. “Proof of an External World.” Chapter 9 in Selected Writings. Edited by Thomas Baldwin. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 9780415098533. ———. “Certainty.” Chapter 10 in Selected Writings. Edited by Thomas Baldwin. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 9780415098533. [Preview with Google Books] Stroud, Barry. “The Problem of the External World.” Chapter 1 in The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism. Oxford University Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780198247616.
6–7	The Closure of Knowledge	Dretske, Fred. “The Case against Closure.” In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. 2nd ed. Edited by Matthias Steup, John Turri, and Ernest Sosa. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. ISBN: 9780470672099. [Preview with Google Books] Optional Hawthorne, John. “The Case for Closure.” In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. 2nd ed. Edited by Matthias Steup, John Turri, and Ernest Sosa. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. ISBN: 9780470672099. [Preview with Google Books]
8–9	Sensitivity and Safety	Nozick, Robert. “Knowledge and Skepticism.” Chapter 3 in Philosophical Explanations. Belknap Press, 1983, pp. 172–85 and 197–217. ISBN: 9780674664791. [Preview with Google Books] Sosa, Ernest. “How to Defeat Opposition to Moore.” Noûs 33, Supplement: Philosophical Perspectives, 13, Epistemology (1999): 141–53.
10–11	Dogmatism and Bootstrapping	Pryor, James. “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist.” Noûs 34, no. 4 (2000): 517–49. Cohen, Stewart. “Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65, no. 2 (2002): 309–29.
12–13	Default Entitlement	Wright, Crispin. “Scepticism, Certainty, Moore and Wittgenstein (PDF),” st-andrews.ac.uk. 2004. Optional Jenkins, C. S. “Entitlement and Rationality.” Synthese 157, no. 1 (2007): 25–45.
14–15	Inference to the Best Explanation	Vogel, Jonathan. “The Refutation of Skepticism.” In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. 2nd ed. Edited by Matthias Steup, John Turri, and Ernest Sosa. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. ISBN: 9780470672099. Russell, Bertrand. “On Induction.” Chapter 6 in The Problems of Philosophy. ditext.com.
16–17	Knowledge and Certainty	Unger, Peter. “An Argument for Skepticism (PDF).” Philosophical Exchange 1 (1974): 1–10. Stanley, Jason. “Knowledge and Certainty.” Philosophical Issues 18, no. 1 (2008): 35–57.
18–19	Contextualism and Practical Interests	Cohen, Stewart. “Contextualism, Skepticism, and the Structure of Reasons.” Noûs 33, Supplement: Philosophical Perspectives, 13, Epistemology (1999): 57–89. Stanley, Jason. “Introduction.” In Knowledge and Practical Interests. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780199230433. [Preview with Google Books]
20–22	The Lottery Paradox	Hawthorne, John. Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780199287130.
23–26	Semantic Externalism	Putnam, Hilary. “Meaning and Reference.” Journal of Philosophy 70, no. 19 (1973): 699–711. ———. “Brains in a Vat.” Chapter 27 in Knowledge: Readings in Contemporary Epistemology. Edited by Sven Bernecker and Fred Dretske. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780198752615. Chalmers, David J. “The Matrix as Metaphysics,” consc.net. Horgan, Terence, and John Tienson. “The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality,” u.arizona.edu.