Epistemology Studies
I’ve finally decided that I can no longer procrastinate beginning my intended study of epistemology. Although I’ve read bits and pieces, I have not undertaken a more comprehensive coverage of the subject. The idea of how we know what we know is so foundational (for me anyways) that it cannot really be avoided for too long. To this end I’ve decided to start with the texts listed below. The sources are not exhaustive, but, at a minimum, outline the common challenges and defintion of knowedge as well as present a decent defense against the temptation of skepticism.
Introduction to Epistemology - Charles Landesman
Knowledge of the External World - Betrand Russell
The Structure of Empirical Knowledge - Laurence Bonjour
Warrant and Proper Function - Alvin Plantinga
In Defense of Pure Reason, A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification - Laurence Bonjour
For those on a budget the online sources below are excellent. Just ignore the references to graduate and phd courses and sources. This isn’t rocket science.
Epistemology 1 - Paul Newell
Understanding Epistemology - Duncan Pritchard
The Epistemology Page - Keith DeRose
Epistemology Research - Keith Korcz
Philosophy Resources on the Internet
Epistemological Relativism » Detour Almost Complete on 22 Apr 2007 at 8:57 pm #
[...] As you can tell from my content I’ve recently been distracted from my epistemological studies that I outlined here. At first I wasn’t too sure if the distraction was worth it. But now, at my snails pace, I’m nearly complete with my initial reading of Reason and Revelation by Emil Brunner. This book was important for me because I wanted to see how a careful, honest thinker dealt with the challenges of faith and reason. It is understood by most that faith and reason are distinct methods of arriving at knowledge about the world. There are, of course, many problems that one is confronted with depending on how you define these terms. Defining the terms is a challenge unto itself (do you use faith and/or reason to define the terms?), but I won’t talk about that here. Maybe after I get through a second read of the book I’ll be able to talk intelligently about it. It is clear that Brunner does not limit the acquisition of knowledge through reason alone. Yet, he attempts to avoid totally divorcing faith from reason and the associated “leap into the void” kind of knowledge. While these quotes don’t contain the full context of what Brunner is arguing they are a decent window into how he views the inability of reason alone to “know everything” and the false ideas of the conflict between faith and reason. [...]