Abstract
This chapter gives an overview of important philosophical accounts of knowledge. It starts with Plato’s idea of knowledge as a certain true judgement with an account which stands as the origin of the famous tripartite analysis of knowledge as justified true belief in modern epistemology. Descartes’ concept of knowledge as clear and distinct perception is introduced and shown that it leads to a radical and universal skepticism regarding empirical knowledge of the external world. It is argued that twentieth-century philosophy of cognition and philosophy of science has been more open to accepting concepts of knowledge in which epistemic justification of beliefs is fallible. Furthermore, recent trends in philosophical theories of knowledge, such as naturalistic approaches in epistemology as well as virtue epistemology and social accounts of knowledge, are described and connections to the global turn in cultural sciences are drawn.
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Notes
- 1.
Plato, Theaetetus 202c, in: Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997, p. 224.
- 2.
Plato, Meno 97e-98a, in Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997, pp. 895–896.
- 3.
René Descartes, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, in: Robert Maynard Hutchins (ed.), Great Books of the Western World, London: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952, p. 4.
- 4.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, B xxxix, p. 121 (note).
- 5.
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1993, fifth meditation, p. 85.
- 6.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969, p. 6.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 48.
- 8.
Edmund L. Gettier, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, in: Analysis 23 (1963), pp. 121–123.
- 9.
Elke Brendel, Grundthemen Philosophie – Wissen, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013, pp. 56–69.
- 10.
See Jonathan M. Weinberg/Shaun Nichols/Stephen Stich, Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions, in: Philosophical Topics 29(2001), pp. 429–460.
- 11.
See, for example, Edouard Machery/Stephen Stich/David Rose/Amita Chatterjee/Kaori Karasawa/Noel Struchiner/Smita Sirker/Naoki Usui/Takaaki Hashimoto, Gettier Across Cultures, in: Noûs (doi: 10.1111/nous.12110), 2015, pp. 1–20.
- 12.
See, for example, Jennifer Nagel, Epistemic Intuitions, in: Philosophy Compass 2(2007), pp. 792–819.
- 13.
Alvin Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Literature
Brendel, Elke, Grundthemen Philosophie – Wissen, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013.
Descartes, René, Meditations on First Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1993.
Descartes, René, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, in: Hutchins, Robert Maynard (ed.), Great Books of the Western World, London: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952, pp. 1–40.
Gettier, Edmund L., Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, in: Analysis 23(1963), pp. 121–123.
Goldman, Alvin, Knowledge in a Social World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Machery, Edouard/Stich, Stephen/Rose, David/Chatterjee, Amita/Karasawa, Kaori/Struchiner, Noel/Sirker, Smita/Usui, Naoki/Hashimoto, Takaaki, Gettier Across Cultures, in: Noûs (doi: 10.1111/nous.12110), 2015, pp. 1–20.
Nagel, Jennifer, Epistemic Intuitions, in: Philosophy Compass 2(2007), pp. 792–819.
Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.
Weinberg, Jonathan M./Nichols, Shaun/Stich, Stephen, Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions, in: Philosophical Topics 29 (2001), pp. 429–460.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969.
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Brendel, E. (2019). Knowledge. In: Kühnhardt, L., Mayer, T. (eds) The Bonn Handbook of Globality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90377-4_20
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