Books for the Course
- Knowledge and Lotteries (KL), by John Hawthorne, Oxford University Press.
- Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (CDE), Steup and Sosa (eds.), Blackwell Publishing.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)
Course Plan [subject to revision:]
We will cover the following topics and take as much time as we need to cover as much of the literature in each section as we can.
Part I: Knowledge and Skepticism
- Epistemology (SEP)
- The Analysis of Knowledge (Lecture)
- Foundationalism (SEP)
- Coherentism (SEP)
- Infinitism (Peter Kline in CDE)
- Skepticism (Lecture)
- Skepticism (SEP)
- Brains in a Vat (SEP)
- Can Skepticism be Refuted? (Jonathan Vogel in CDE)
- The Epistemic Closure Principle (SEP)
- A Case for Closure (Hawthorne in CDE)
- Chapter 1: Introducing the Puzzle (KL)
Part II: Contextualism and Invariantism
- Chapter 2: Contextualism and the Puzzle (KL)
- Is Knowledge Contextual? (CDE)
- Chapter 4: Sensitive Moderate Invariantism (KL)
Part III: Justification and the A Priori
- Is Justification Internal? (CDE)
- Is there A Priori Knowledge? (CDE)
Grading
Your grade will to a large extent be based on three papers, which count equally. The average from these three assignments together with your participation, preparedness and other short writing assignments will determine the overall grade for this course.
The papers will be on topics from the course and will have a length of about 7 pages (double-spaced, 11 or 12 pt font, and 1" margins). Here is the schedule of due dates for papers:
- First papers Due (in class): Feb 28
- Comments Due (in class): March 5.
- Final Revisions Due (mailbox, HU 130): March 9.
- Second paper due (in class): April 16
- Comments Due (in class): April 18
- Final Revisions Due (in class): April 23
- Final paper due (mailbox, HU 130): May 7, at 5pm.