Analysing Knowledge

Abstract

The principal concern of epistemology has tended to be the philosophical exploration of propositional knowledge, where this involves offering an analysis of this notion. Call this the analytic project. In this book, we will be following mainstream epistemology in focusing on the analytical project. Even if one grants that it is right to make propositional knowledge our focus (some have questioned this), there are two (as we will see, interrelated) worries about the analytic project that we should consider from the outset (we will consider a third worry presently). The first is whether knowledge is the kind of thing that one can analyse in the first place. The second is what it means to offer an analysis of knowledge. Let us start with the second worry, since I think that this will shed light on why we need not be overly concerned about the first worry.