Epistemology: The Big Questions (Philosophy, the Big Questions)

As Well As Including The Classic Papers From The History Of Epistemology, This Distinctive, Wide-ranging Anthology Provides Essential Coverage Of Key Contemporary Challenges To That Tradition. Students Of Epistemology Will Be Able To Learn About And Assess A Wider Range Of Epistemological Issues Than Any Other Existing Anthology Can Currently Provide. Organized Specifically With Courses In Mind, Epistemology: The Big Questions Is Accessible To Upper-level Undergraduates And Graduate Students.--jacket. Pt. 1. What Is Knowledge? 1. Meditations / Rene Descartes. 2. On Certainty / Ludwig Wittgenstein. 3. The Right To Be Sure / A. J. Ayer. 4. Epistemology's End / Catherine Z. Elgin -- Pt. 2. How Are Beliefs Justified? 5. Internalism And Externalism In Epistemology / William P. Alston. 6. The General Conditions Of Knowledge: Justification / Carl Ginet. 7. What Is Justified Belief? / Alvin Goldman. 8. Contextualism And Knowledge Attributions / Keith Derose. 9. Taking Subjectivity Into Account / Lorraine Code. 10. The Practices Of Justification / Alessandra Tanesini -- Pt. 3. What Is The Structure Of Knowledge? 11. The Myth Of The Given / Roderick Chisholm. 12. The Raft And The Pyramid / Ernest Sosa. 13. The Elements Of Coherentism / Laurence Bonjour. 14. The Hermeneutic Circle / Hans-georg Gadamer -- Pt. 4. What Is Naturalized Epistemology? 15. Epistemology Naturalized / W. V. O. Quine. 16. What Is Naturalized Epistemology? / Jaegwon Kim. 17. Putting Naturalized Epistemology To Work / Phyllis Rooney -- Pt. 5. What Is Truth? 18. The Minimal Theory / Paul Horwich. 19. Language, Truth And Reason / Ian Hacking. 20. Pragmatism, Relativism, And Irrationalism / Richard Rorty -- Pt. 6. What If We Don't Know Anything At All? 21. Cartesian Skepticism And Inference To The Best Explanation / Jonathan Vogel. 22. Skepticism And The Possibility Of Knowledge / Barry Stroud. 23. Othello's Doubt/desdemona's Death: The Engendering Of Scepticism / Naomi Scheman -- Pt. 7. How Is Epistemology Political? 24. The Maleness Of Reason / Genevieve Lloyd. 25. Alternative Epistemologies / Charles W. Mills. 26. Idols Of The Cave / Mary Tiles And Jim Tiles. Edited By Linda Martin Alcoff. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. As well as including the classic papers from the history of epistemology, this distinctive, wide-ranging anthology provides essential coverage of key contemporary challenges to that tradition.Alongside debates over internalism and externalism, foundationalism, and coherentism, and whether epistemology, can or should be naturalized are essays on the subject of knowledge, the political implications of foundationalism, and the 'maleness' of reason. Sections on knowledge, justification, truth, skepticism, the structure of knowledge, and the politics of knowledge are each preceded with brief, accessible introductions that help frame the debates and bridge the diversity of approaches. Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them.