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This chapter is devoted to a detailed analysis of Ṣadrā's theory of knowledge. As Ṣadrā insists on the principiality of existence in all philosophical problems, it begins with a survey of his elaborate vocabulary of existence. Ṣadrā revises many of the erstwhile discussions of existence and rejects essence or quiddity (māhiyyah) as having no reality of its own. Instead, he proposes the “gradation” (tashkīk), “primacy”, and unity of existence as the main terms of his analysis. The chapter then turns to the relationship between existence and intelligibility. Ṣadrā holds that existence is intrinsically intelligible and does not need an outside agent such as a knower to be predicated of meaning-properties. Furthermore, existence is value-laden in that it is the source of such axiological qualities as goodness, perfection, and plenitude. His analysis thus ties together the three aspects of classical philosophy: ontology, epistemology and axiology.

This chapter outlines the systematic connections between beliefs about laws of nature and a small assortment of other beliefs. The examination has been carried out predominantly in what may be called a conceptual model, focusing on inferences so as to sidestep the problem of ontological commitment. This may be likened to examining John's tacit theory of knowledge without affirming whether or not anyone has any knowledge, whether there is any such thing.

Nāgārjuna’s discussion of epistemology focuses on the relation between means of knowledge (pramāṇa) and objects of knowledge (prameya). He investigates in particular how the means of knowledge themselves are supposed to be established: are they somehow self-established, or do the objects of knowledge establish them? Nāgārjuna concludes that neither of these alternatives is satisfactory. Another question concerns the temporal relation between objects and means of knowledge. Do they come into existence at the same time or does one precede the other? Neither of these it taken to be acceptable by Nāgārjuna either. The chapter concludes by outlining the aims of Nāgārjuna’s epistemological theory.

This chapter serves as a critical examination of Williamson's theories of knowledge and evidence. It argues that certain details of the theory are less successful than those of similar theories that have been previously defended. It notes that Williamson may have made a mistake in downplaying the process element in process reliabilism (PR). The chapter also discusses evidence, and shows that Williamson holds that a person's body of evidence is the only thing he/she knows.

This chapter discusses two possible solutions to the value-of-knowledge problem. It first discusses the conditional probability solution, which was formulated and defended by Erik Olsson. It then considers the “value autonomization”, which has been developed and defended by the author of this book. The chapter then stresses that the swamping problem is equally problematic for many theories of knowledge and internalist theories. The chapter also introduces the concepts of type instrumentalism and token instrumentalism.

Begins by distinguishing different varieties of nominalism. All adherents of nominalism agree in rejecting mathematical and other abstract entities, and many have attempted to develop nominalist interpretations of scientific theories that appear to involve mathematical objects, with some (hermeneutic nominalists) claiming that these interpretations reveal what the theories really meant all along, and others (revolutionary nominalists) admitting that what they are developing are new, replacement theories. Before beginning our examination of these interpretative projects, we stop to examine critically their presuppositions, beginning with the distinction between abstract objects and concrete objects. We devote special attention to epistemological arguments and semantical arguments for nominalism, based on causal theories of knowledge and causal theories of reference. We also consider why more nominalists have not been content simply to adopt instrumentalism, which declares science to be a useful fiction, and offers no reinterpretation to turn theory into fact.

In June 1913, Wittgenstein's objection to Russell's multiple relation theory of judgment led Russell to give up writing his book on Theory of knowledge. It is one of the most famous incidents in their interaction, and has sometimes been presented as a turning point in their relationship, when the roles of master and pupil were reversed. This chapter discusses Russell's original multiple relation theory, his revised theory, Wittgenstein's objection, and the fate of the multiple relation theory. It then considers the attempts by commentators to explain what Wittgenstein's objection amounted to, specifically that of Griffin's.

This chapter lays out Proust's theory of knowledge, according to which the data of sense are first filtered through the intuition, where they suffer perspectival distortion of both a general and an individual nature; and then through the intellect, where, depending on the type of data in question, they are either rectified or further distorted. This theory explains the otherwise unaccountable importance given by Marcel to the enigmatic text he penned as a youth, a “prose poem” describing three steeples of Martinville. The prose poem, it turns out, shows both perspectival operations at work, the universal and individual; the paragraphs that frame it, meanwhile, testify to the subsequent work of the intellect. Of the images, some directly reflect Marcel's idiosyncratic network of associations, the way his mind uniquely organizes the data of experience, and others — those based on metonymic connections — indirectly reveal Marcel's continuing belief in the aura of places. Proust's view is not merely that perspective is momentous, inexorably conditioning an individual's experience of the world, as well as rendering that experience fundamentally incomprehensible to others; it is also that perspective is valuable. We may well begin by seeking accurate knowledge of the external world, and by repeatedly bumping up, in frustration, against the perennially curved and coloured glass of perspective. But if we are good Proustians, we will make the Copernican turn, realizing that what blocked our access to our ostensible goal was in fact that which was, all along, most worthy of being known. The secret to life consists of redirecting attention, in recognizing that an apparent liability is, in reality, our greatest asset.

The analysis of knowledge embedded in the theory is traditional in form but not in content. It is in the tradition of undefeated justified true belief analyses. The salient character of the theory of knowledge is contained in the theory of justification, which is the intersection of the subjective, the mental operations of the knower, and the objective, the truth about reality. The coherence theory of justification on which the coherence theory of knowledge rests effects the truth connection and explains the intersection between the mind and the world. The explanation depends on people's conception of themselves as trustworthy with respect to some matters is some circumstances, and untrustworthy about other matters in other circumstances. If people are as trustworthy as they think they are, then acceptance is justified.

This chapter discusses Dewey's theory of knowledge. The intellectualist sees knowledge as something absolutely certain, which is contemplatively seen, by a mind that is at most contingently embodied, working on its own. For Dewey's anti-intellectualism what is sought is rational and corrigibly fallible belief, actively achieved, even made or constructed, and with the aid of conceptual instruments of human design, by an intelligent but embodied organism that is a natural part of the world it seeks to know, engaged on this undertaking as a collaborating member of a society of intelligent organisms of the same kind.

This chapter argues that the cognitive science of the knowledge behind skilled action is consistent with the view of knowing how, and its relation to skill, argued for in the book. First, the chapter shows that the notion of procedural knowledge as it is discussed in the cognitive science literature could be identified with knowing how in the sense in the sense defended in the book. Secondly, an argument for the view that all propositional knowledge is declarative knowledge in the cognitive scientific sense is considered and rejected. Another set of arguments that uses the cognitive neuroscience literature to show that procedural knowledge is not propositional knowledge are shown to rest on an insufficient appreciation of externalist insights about knowledge. Various arguments for the view that knowing how to do something is non-conceptual in nature are considered. Finally, the chapter argues that the literature of the verbal overshadowing effect confirms some of the previous morals on what it is to act for a reason.

This chapter discusses Søren Kierkegaard's theory of knowledge, his critique of Hegelian metaphysics, his treatment of scepticism, and his conception of subjective truth. These are not only important and interesting in themselves; they also provide a background against which to understand his ethical and religious writings. Kierkegaard's conclusion is that the purely disengaged approach to knowledge can eventually lead only to scepticism, which is not theoretically refutable, but which can only be broken with by an act of will, a refusal to accept the validity of the wholly disengaged stance. In this chapter, however, a different kind of knowledge becomes possible, based not on the effort to be objective, but on a commitment to subjectivity, on passionate concern, rather than dispassionate observation.

This chapter argues that the theory of knowledge has had a long and distinguished career. In Britain, it has been the central philosophical discipline since Locke, apart from a short interruption in the late nineteenth century and from its demotion to a subordinate role since about 1960. It does not deserve this subordination; there are signs that it is still alive and well and that it has recently developed in a socially valuable way.

This chapter discusses the notion of truth and its relations to the theory of knowledge and linguistic meaning. It examines the conflicts between the Correspondence Theory and the Coherence Theory. The Correspondence Theory states that reality contains the enjoyment of experience and the forming and holding of beliefs, while the emphasis of the Coherence Theory is on the logical interrelatedness and mutual dependence of the beliefs that make up our systems of beliefs.

I argue for a unified theory of knowledge how that is compatible with the reductionist variety of intellectualism: knowledge how is reducible to knowledge that. But, I argue, there are knowledge states that are not justification entailing and knowledge states that are not belief entailing. Both kinds of knowledge state require the possession of practical abilities. I conclude by arguing that the view defended naturally leads to a disjunctive conception of abilities as either essentially involving mental states or as not essentially involving mental states. Only the former kind of ability is a kind of knowledge state, that is, a knowledge how state.