Epistemology
G83.2223
Nico Silins
ns74@nyu.edu
Course Description
This
seminar will survey recent work on knowledge and the verb “to know”.
The focus
will be on the relation of knowledge to mental states and the evidence a
subject possesses, as well as on roles knowledge might play in psychological
explanation, assertion, and practical reasoning. We will also evaluate classic contextualism
in epistemology and recent alternatives to the view.
In the last
two sessions of the course, the focus will switch to issues concerning the
acquisition of justification through inference.
I’ll present work in progress concerning epistemological objections to
theories of content, and dogmatism in the theory of perceptual justification.
Reading List
September 9. Introductory Session
• Sessions 2-6: Knowledge and Its Limits
September 16. Knowledge and the
Mental
Williamson,
chapter 1, chapter 2 (sections 1-3 only)
Optional:
DeRose, "Review of
Knowledge and its Limits"
Unger, Ignorance, chapter 4
September 23. Knowledge, the
Mental, and Action
Williamson,
chapter 2 (section 4 only), chapter 3
Optional:
Kaplan, "Who
Cares What You Know?"
Yablo, "Causal Relevance"
Magnus and Cohen, "Williamson
on Knowledge and Psychological Explanation"
Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of
Understanding, chapter 1
Wedgwood, "Internalism
Explained"
September 30. Skepticism and Access
to Evidence
Williamson,
chapter 4 (sections 1-3 only), chapter 8
Optional:
Brueckner
and Oreste Fiocco, "Williamson's
Anti-Luminosity Argument"
DeRose, "Review of
Knowledge and its Limits"
Neta and
Rohrbaugh, "Luminosity
and the Safety of Knowledge"
Conee, "The
Comforts of Home"
Comesaña, "Unsafe
Knowledge"
October 7. Evidence
Williamson,
chapter 9
October 14. Assertion
Williamson,
chapter 11
• Sessions 7-12: Knowledge and Lotteries
October 21. The Puzzle and Closure
Hawthorne,
chapter 1
October 28. Skepticism
Schaffer,
“Skepticism, Contextualism, and Discrimination”
November 4. Some Arguments for
Contextualism
November 11. Some Arguments against
Contextualism
Schiffer,
“Contextualist Solutions to Skepticism”
November 18. Subject-Sensitive
Invariantism
Hawthorne,
pp. 141-149 and chapter 4
***Thanksgiving***
December 2. Relativism
McFarlane, "The
Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions"
Richard, "Contextualism and
Relativism"
Sessions 13-14: Transmission of Warrant
December 9. Dogmatism
White,
“Some Problems for Dogmatism”
Wright,
“Anti-Skeptics: Simple and Subtle”
December 14. The McKinsey Problem
Davies,
“The Problem of Armchair Knowledge”
Wright,
“Some Reflections on the Acquisition of Warrant by Inference”