Spring 2004

Theory of Knowledge Handouts and Lecture Notes

General Handouts

• Philosophical Terms and Methods
• How To Read a Philosophy Paper
• Participation in Section
   
• Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper
• Topics for First Papers
• Topics for Second Papers
• Policies on Late Papers
• What the Different Grades Mean

Lecture Notes

Introduction

• Introduction
• Philosophical Issues in The Matrix  (Internet Movie Database | Official Matrix Website| Philosophy & the Matrix)
• Clarifying the Notion of Knowledge
• Does Knowledge Require Certainty?
• Knowledge, Truth, and Realism
  • What's So Bad about Living in the Matrix?

Questions about Knowledge

• The Dreaming Argument in More Detail
  • Descartes' First Meditation
  • Stroud's Chapter 1
  • David and Jean Blumenfeld, "Can I Know That I Am Not Dreaming?"
• Closure and Relevant Alternatives
• The Gettier Problem
• Extra-Evidential Accounts of Knowledge
  • Dretske's Relevant Alternatives Theory
  • Gettier, Goldman, and Perceptual Discrimination
  • Nozick's Theory of Knowledge
• Contextualism about Knowledge

Questions about Evidence and Justification

• The Regress Argument
• Sense-Data and Cartesian Foundationalism
• Reliabilism
  • Goldman, "What is Justified Belief?"
  • BonJour's Critique of Goldman
  • Feldman and Conee, Internalism Defended
• Foundationalism and Coherentism
  • BonJour's Arguments against Foundationalism
  • Coherentism and its Critics
  • Alston's Defense of Foundationalism
  • Pryor's Dogmatism

[Theory of Knowledge] [Syllabus] [Notes and Handouts] [James Pryor] [Philosophy Links] [Philosophy Dept.]