KURT SYLVAN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON (UK)
PH.D., RUTGERS UNIVERSITY (NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ, USA)
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 EPISTEMOLOGY
FALL 2017          

Meets Mondays from 11-12 in 34/5003
and Wednesdays from 9-11 in 58/1039

SCHEDULE OF READINGS

For each week, the readings mainly divide into required,
strongly recommended, and optional further readings.  I include the
optional readings just in case you find the topic especially interesting
and would like to write a paper on it or simply learn more.

Note that a great many of the readings can be found online
(see links for use when connected to campus internet), and also in 
Epistemology: An Anthology (eds. Sosa, Kim, Fantl and McGrath).

Note on Terminology.  Epistemology is an area with a lot of technical jargon.  Accordingly,
a lexicon for the class can be found here, to which further entries will be periodically added.
Although it would be nice to entirely avoid such jargon, it is impossible to read the literature
without seeing a lot of it, and some issues cannot be clearly discussed without such jargon.

Part 1.  Skepticism

Week 1: The Structure of Skeptical Arguments
 
Required reading:
Fumerton, Richard.  ‘The Structure of Skeptical Arguments and its Meta-Epistemological Implications’
 
Strongly recommended reading:
Weintraub, Ruth.  ‘Knowledge, Justification, and Truth’

 
Optional further reading:
Cohen, S.  ‘Two Kinds of Skeptical Argument’

Greco, J.  ‘External World Skepticism’
Klein, P.  ‘Skepticism’
Pritchard, D.  ‘The Structure of Sceptical Arguments’
Pritchard, D.  Selection from What Is This Thing Called Knowledge?
Stroud, B.  ‘The Problem of the External World’
Weintraub, R.  The Sceptical Challenge, chapters 3 and 4.

Week 2: Ambitious, Modest, and Moorean Responses to Scepticism
 
Required reading:
Rinard, Susanna.  ‘Reasoning One’s Way out of Skepticism’

 
Strongly recommended reading:
Pryor, James.  ‘The Skeptic and the Dogmatist’

Pryor, James.  ‘What’s Wrong with Moore’s Argument?’
 
Optional further reading:
Chalmers, D.  ‘The Matrix as Metaphysics’

Moore, G. E. ‘A Defense of Common Sense’
Moore, G. E.  ‘Proof of an External World’
Moore, G. E.  ‘Certainty’
Sosa, E.  ‘Philosophical Skepticism and Epistemic Circularity’
Stine, G.  ‘Skepticism, Relevant Alternatives, and Closure’
Vogel, J.  ‘Cartesian Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation’
Williamson, T.  ‘Scepticism and Evidence’

Part 2. Foundationalism and its Critics
                   
Week 3: Introducing Foundationalism vs. Coherentism
 
Required reading:
Hasan, Ali. and Fumerton, Richard.  ‘Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification’

 
Strongly recommended reading:
Sosa, E.  ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’

Murphy, P.  ‘Coherentism in Epistemology’
 
Optional further reading:
Alston, W. ‘Two Types of Foundationalism’

Alston, W.  ‘Has Foundationalism Been Refuted?’
Bonjour, L. ‘Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?’
Elgin, C.  ‘Non-Foundationalist Epistemology’
Dancy, J.  ‘Coherence Theories’
Klein, P.  ‘Human Knowledge and the Infinite Regress of Reasons’
Poston, T.  ‘Basic Reasons and First Philosophy: A Coherentist View of Reasons’
Pryor, J.  ‘Is There Immediate Justification?’
 
Week 4: Foundherentism
 
Required reading:
Haack, Susan.  ‘Foundationalism vs. Coherentism: A Dichotomy Disclaimed’

 
Strongly recommended reading:
Haack, S.  ‘A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification’

Haack, S.  ‘Foundherentism Articulated’
 
Optional further reading:
BonJour, L.  ‘Haack on Justification and Experience’

Haack, S.  ‘Reply to BonJour’
McGrew, L. and McGrew, T.  ‘Foundationalism, Probability, and Mutual Support’
Tramel, P. ‘Haack’s Foundherentism is a Foundationalism’

Part 3: Internalism vs. Externalism

Week 5: Introducing Internalism (and its Problems)
 
Required reading:
Hasan, A.  ‘Access Internalism, Mentalism, and Reliabilism’

 
Strongly Recommended reading
Conee, E. and Feldman, R.  ‘Internalism Defended’

 
Optional further reading:
Fales, E.  ‘The Given and Knowledge’

Feldman, R.  ‘Justification Is Internal’
Fumerton, R.  ‘Traditional (Internalist) Foundationalism’
Poston, T.  ‘Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology’
Schoenfield, M.  ‘Internalism without Luminosity’

Week 6, Part 1: Problems for Internalism, Continued
 
Required reading:
Goldman, A.  ‘Internalism Exposed’

 
Strongly recommended reading:
Srinivasan, A.  ‘Radical Externalism’

 
Optional further reading
Bergmann, M.  ‘Justification without Awareness’

Goldman, A.  ‘The Internalist Conception of Epistemic Justification’
Goldman, A.  ‘Internalism, Externalism, and the Architecture of Justification’
Sosa, E.  Selections from Epistemic Justification.
Srinivasan, A.  ‘Normativity without Cartesian Privilege’
 
Week 6, Part 2 and Week 7, Part 1: Externalism
 
Required reading:
Goldman, A. ‘What Is Justified Belief?’

Zagzebski, L.  ‘From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology’
 
Optional further reading:
BonJour, L.  ‘Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge’

Cohen, S.  ‘Justification and Truth’
Conee, E. and Feldman, R.  ‘The Generality Problem for Reliabilism’
Fumerton, R.  Selection from Metaepistemology and Skepticism.

Part 4: The Gettier Problem

Week 7, Part 2 and Week 8, Part 1: The Gettier Problem Introduced
 
Required reading:
Gettier, E.  ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’

Zagzebski, L.  ‘The Inescapability of Gettier Problems’
 
Optional further reading:
Appiah, A.  Selection from Thinking It Through

Fumerton, R.  Selection from Epistemology
Pritchard, D.  Selection from What Is This Thing Called Knowledge?
Sosa, E.  Selection from Epistemology
Zagzebski, L.  Selection from On Epistemology

​Week 8, Part 2: Failed Solutions
 
Required reading:
Ichikawa, J. J. and Steup, M.  ‘The Analysis of Knowledge’

 
Optional further reading:
Clark, M.  ‘Knowledge and Grounds’

Goldman, A. ‘A Causal Theory of Knowing’
Harman, G.  Selections from Thought
Klein, P.  ‘Knowledge, Causality, and Defeasability’
Lehrer, K. and Paxson, T.  ‘Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief’
Nozick, R.  Selection from Philosophical Explanations
Roush, S.  Selection from Tracking Truth
Sosa, E. ‘How to Defeat Opposition to Moore’
Williamson.  Selection from Knowledge and its Limits
 
Week 9: Sosa’s Solution
 
Required reading:
Sosa, E.  Selections from Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1

 
Optional further reading:
Lackey, J.  ‘Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know’

Pritchard, D.  ‘Apt Performance and Epistemic Value’
Sylvan, K.  ‘Can Performance Epistemology Explain Higher Epistemic Value?’
Turri, J.  ‘Manifest Failure: The Gettier Problem Solved’

Part 5: Epistemic Sources

​Week 10: Testimony
 
Required reading:
Lackey, J.  ‘Knowing from Testimony’

 
Strongly recommended reading:
Lackey, J.  Selection from Learning from Words

 
Other recommended introductions/overviews
Adler, J.  ‘Epistemological Problems of Testimony’

Lackey, J.  Introduction to The Epistemology of Testimony
Pritchard, D.  Selection from What Is This Thing Called Knowledge?
Zagzebski, L.  Selection from On Epistemology
 
Optional further reading: primary texts
Burge, T.  ‘Content Preservation’

Coady, C. A. J.  Testimony: A Philosophical Study
Faulkner, P.  ‘The Social Character of Testimonial Knowledge’
Fricker, E.  ‘Against Gullibility’
Fricker, E.  ‘Second-Hand Knowledge’
Fricker, M.  ‘Towards a Virtue Epistemological Account of Testimony’
Goldberg, S.  ‘Reductionism and the Distinctiveness of Testimony’
Moran, R.  ‘Getting Told and Being Believed’
Reid, T.  Selection from An Inquiry into the Human Mind and the Principles of Common Sense
 
Week 11: Memory
 
Required reading:
Salvaggio, M.  ‘The Justification of Reconstructive and Reproductive Memory Beliefs’

 
Recommended introductions/overviews:
Frise, M.  ‘Epistemology of Memory’

Michaelian, K. and Sutton, J.  ‘Memory’
Senor, T.  ‘Epistemological Problems of Memory’
 
Optional further reading:
Bernecker, S.  Memory: A Philosophical Study
Frise, M.  ‘Preservationism in the Epistemology of Memory’
Huemer, M.  ‘The Problem of Memory Knowledge’
Lackey, J.  ‘Memory as a Generative Epistemic Source’
Senor, T.  ‘Internalistic Foundationalism and the Justification of Memory Beliefs’
Senor, T.  ‘Preserving Preservationism: A Reply to Lackey’

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