What do you think?
Rate this book
On Epistemology
What is knowledge? Why do we want it? Is knowledge possible? How do we get it? What about other epistemic values like understanding and certainty? Why are so many epistemologists worried about luck? In ON EPISTEMOLOGY Linda Zagzebski situates epistemological questions within the broader framework of what we care about and why we care about it. Questions of value shape all of the above questions and explain some significant philosophical the obsession with answering the skeptic, the flight from realism, and the debate between naturalism and anti-naturalism. THE WADSWORTH PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS SERIES (under the general editorship of Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University) presents readers with concise, timely, and insightful introductions to a variety of traditional and contemporary philosophical subjects. With this series, students of philosophy will be able to discover the richness of philosophical inquiry across a wide array of concepts, including hallmark philosophical themes and themes typically underrepresented in mainstream philosophy publishing. Written by a distinguished list of scholars who have garnered particular recognition for their excellence in teaching, this series presents the vast sweep of today's philosophical exploration in highly accessible and affordable volumes. These books will prove valuable to philosophy teachers and their students as well as to other readers who share a general interest in philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
13 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 26, 2014
کتاب خانوم لیندا زاگزبسکی از دو حیث با کتابهای رایج در معرفتشناسی [/ اپستمولوژی] متفاوت است؛ یکی قرائت درخشاناش از شکّاکیّت و دیگری طرح رویکرد «معرفتشناسیِ فضیلت» در این رشتهی فلسفی. معرفتشناسیِ فضیلت در پی این است که صفاتی را، نه تنها در متعلَّقِ [= اُبژهی] معرفت، که در فردِ صاحبِ [= سوژهی] معرفت بجوید، تا معرفت از صرفِ «باورِ صادق» فراتر رود. ترجمهی کاوه بهبهانی، علاوه بر سلیقهاش در انتخاب متن، بسیار دقیق و کمنقص است. همین وسواس مترجم باعث شده است که کتابِ «قابل استفاده»ای در اختیار خواننده قرار بگیرد. که این البته چندان رایج نیست
Read
February 2, 2024Read Chapter 1, "Epistemic Value and What We Care About". Fascinating, unusual way to introduce topics in epistemology, while tying together a number of different issues and giving a glimpse at her own original view (in short, epistemology and value are much more entangled than one would think at first). I really like the way she argues that epistemology has a lot to do with what we care about, and I saw some glimpses of what would later become a popular view in the field, encroachment on belief, between the lines. I am not convinced that knowledge is generally a good thing to have, or that it is always better than mere true belief, as she argues, because we should also ask ourselves what we are employing our energies in when we inquire (the so-called "zetetic problem"), and I fear that a less experienced reader may misread some of her highly controversial opinions as basic consensus in the literature.
December 21, 2023
"I think we need to be aware that the two demands of conscientiousness pull us in opposing directions. If we are too careful in our beliefs, we may end up not having enough true beliefs about important matters to lead a good life. For example, it seems to me that the following questions are important:
Is there a God? Is there purpose in the universe? Does the life of an individual human being have the special value Kant called a dignity? If so, what is the source of that value? Do human beings have free will? Is a human being the same thing as a physical body? What makes one life more admirable than another? What kind of life should I wish for my children?
Answers to these questions can be conscientiously held, but if our standards for conscientiousness are as stringent as Clifford’s agnosticism about most ofthese questions would probably follow. On the other hand, Clifford is right that we need caution because beliefs can be dangerous to ourselves and to others. We want to avoid both ignorance about important matters and error about such matters. It is not at all obvious how to balance the two strategies."
"Frankfurt says bullshit is inevitable whenever people are required by circumstances to speak about something without knowing what they’re talking about, which is why it is so common in public life, and, I would add, among teachers. Frankfurt says there are also pressures to bullshit when citizens are expected to have opinions about everything they will vote about, and I have noticed that we are often asked our opinions about anything that appears in the news, including subjects that require special expertise, such as stem cell research, the consequences of various medical insurance proposals, and local politics in the Middle East. At the worst, Frankfurt says, bullshit undermines confidence that there is such a thing as objective truth. When that happens, there is a shift from the ideal of truthtelling to the ideal ofsincerity—the accurate representation ofoneself, rather than the accurate representation of what we take reality to be."
"Recently, there has been a lot of interest in this form of skepticism and some philosophers think it is a more significant threat to the possibility of knowledge than the skepticism of Descartes". This is for at least two reasons, one ofwhich I have already mentioned. Pyrrhonian skepticism is not based on the apparently outlandish possibility of being fooled about all of our experience by an Evil Genius, and it does not presuppose that you don’t know unless you have certainty. The standards for knowledge presupposed by the Pyrrhonists are quite ordinary. They argued that all a person needs for a justified belief is that the evidence for some proposition believed exceeds the evidence against it, no matter by how little, and they argued that skepticism follows from this quite reasonable assumption. Their arguments do not depend upon an excessively rigorous standard for knowledge."
"The Pyrrhonists had many arguments intended to show that the
evidence for some proposition p never exceeds the evidence against p. Here is a version of one Pyrrhonian argument that has shaped a great deal of later-twentieth-century epistemology.
The Regress Argument
(1) For any proposition p, I know p only if I am justified in believing p.
(2) I am justified in believing p only if I have evidence E that justifies p.
(3) No evidence E can justify a proposition unless E is justified.
(4) So E is justified only ifthere is evidence E1 that justifies E. (5) E1 is justified only ifthere is evidence E2 that justifies E1.
(6) E2 is justified only ifthere is evidence E3 that justifies E2. . . . ad infinitum.
Since the process of justification is never-ending, it follows that
(7) I am never justified in believing any proposition.
Hence, by (1) it follows (8) I do not know anything."
"A very large literature developed over the only two positions that were thought to block the inference to (7): foundationalism and coherentism."
"Roughly, the foundationalist maintains that the structure ofa justified or rational beliefsystem is like a brick wall, with a few ground level beliefs that are not supported by any other beliefs, but which support all the beliefs above them. In contrast, the coherentist maintains that the structure ofa justified beliefsystem is an interlocking network ofbeliefs. The foundationalist ends the regress in a set of foundational beliefs, whereas the coherentist maintains that the sequence of justifying beliefs loops back upon itself.
The foundationalist and the coherentist agree that there cannot be
an infinitely long chain of justifying reasons for a belief p. In the first place, we do not have an infinitely long chain of reasons justifying any ofour beliefs, and in the second place, even ifwe had an infinitely long chain of reasons, that would not be sufficient to justify the belief, so skepticism follows. The assumption that an infinite chain of reasons does not justify a
beliefbears an interesting similarity to an assumption used in the simplest version ofthe First Cause Argument for the existence ofGod. According to that argument, an object caused to exist by an infinitely long chain of causes has no cause for its existence, so there cannot be an infinite chain ofcauses. In the same way, the foundationalist and coherentist argue that a belief justified by an infinitely long chain of reasons is not justified; hence, there cannot be an infinite chain of reasons.
The foundationalist adds that the chain ofjustifying reasons cannot be circular. The intuition here is like the intuition that a chain of causes cannot be circular. The foundationalist argues that the chain of justifying reasons must end in a reason that is not itselfjustified by anything further, like a First Cause that is not caused by anything outside itself. Some foundationalists think that foundational beliefs are self-justifying, whereas others think that they are not in need of justification, or that they are justified by something other than a belief, such as an experience, which is not in need of justification.
The ideal of certainty as the property we should aim for in our
foundational (basic) beliefs has been under attack for some time now. I donot think anybody objects to the idea that certaintywould be aworthy goal ifit were attainable, andmost philosophers probably also agree that it is attainable for a restricted class ofbeliefs, such as beliefs about some of our present conscious states, but unfortunately, it is difficult to see how these beliefs can be sufficient to be the ultimate justification ofverymany of our other beliefs. But notice that if you think the regress argument shows that the chain ofjustifying reasonsmust end, there is nothing in that argument that requires that the chain ends in something certain.
Rather, the memory of drinking the coffee is an experience that directly justifies the belief that I drank a cup of coffee. The belief is foundational in that it is not based on any other belief, but it is not groundless; it does not appear out of nowhere.
Coherentists object that foundationalist theories cannot avoid ending the regress in something arbitrary. Ofcourse, it may not seem to us that it is arbitrary, but ifwe are conscientious believers, we need a reason to think that whatever stops the regress has the right property, a property that makes it justified and capable of conferring justification on the beliefs that depend upon it. But what would justify us in thinking that? Some philosophers have abandoned foundationalism and have embraced what seems to be the only alternative left by the regress argument except skepticism: coherentism."
"...we not only aim to have accurate perceptions and true beliefs, but we also aim to have appropriate emotions—to admire the admirable, fear the fearsome, pity the pitiful, and so on..."
"We live our lives with the belief that truth is within our grasp, and we assume that we know what the faculties are that get us to the truth, at least some of them. They include our perceptual faculties, memory, and cognitive faculties.
Somewhat more controversially, I think, they include emotions.Emotion dispositions can be reliable or unreliable, and particular emotions may fit or not fit their objects. But we cannot tell whether our emotion dispositions are reliable without using those same dispositions in conjunction with our other faculties. We cannot tell whether our disposition to pity is reliably directed at the pitiful, whether our disposition to disgust is reliably directed toward the disgusting, whether we reliably fear the fearsome, or admire the admirable, without appealing to further emotions."
"Skepticism undermines human agency by undermining the exercise of normal human faculties of believing and choosing."
"Like everybody else, the conscientious believer trusts her faculties without evidence that they are reliable as a whole, but she learns through the use of her own faculties that she is not always reliable, and of course, she learns the same thing about other people. We all make mistakes, but we can learn from our mistakes by learning that many of our mistakes follow patterns. There are situations in which we are prone to perceptual errors, mistakes in memory, invalid forms ofinference, influences ofemotion that tend to inhibit the acquisition of true beliefs, and so on.
For example, sometimes we ‘‘see’’ what we expect to see and
‘‘hear’’ what we expect to hear. When we repeatedly tell the story of an event, we become more sure of our recollections, so the more we retell a story, the more we convince ourselves that it is true, even if it is not. Social psychologists have also discovered forms of bias such as the fundamental attribution error, the tendency for observers to underestimate the influence ofthe situation on the behavior ofothers and to overestimate the extent to which it expresses the individual’s inner traits."
"A person weighs evidence for p differently than the evidence for not-p if she wants p to be true. That is common and interesting behavior, and it can be investigated empirically."
"The first two positions are forms of epistemic egoism. The extreme epistemic egoist thinks that the fact that someone else believes p is never a reason for her to believe p, not even when conjoined with evidence that the other person is reliable. She will never believe on testimony. Before believing p, she will demand proof of p that she can determine by the use of her own faculties, given her own previous beliefs. The weak epistemic egoist will treat the fact that someone else
believes p as a reason for her to believe p provided that she has evidence that the other person is reliable. She will accept certain beliefs on testimony, but only when she has evidence that the testifier is trustworthy. So both kinds of egoist think that the fact that someone else has a certain belief is never as such a reason for them to believe it.16 We can call extreme antiegoism ‘‘epistemic universalism.’’ The
epistemic universalist always treats the fact that another person believes p as a reason to believe p, but that reason can be defeated by evidence ofthe person’s unreliability or by evidence against p. For the universalist, then, the default position is to trust others. She needs a special reason not to trust them. For the weak egoist, the default position is to distrust others. She needs a special reason to trust them. The extreme egoist does not trust others, period. Many philosophers endorse some form ofepistemic egoism under the name ‘‘epistemic autonomy.’’ Elizabeth Fricker is a good example. She says: ‘‘This ideal type relies on no one else for any of her knowledge. Thus she takes no one else’s word for anything, but accepts only what she has found out for herself, relying only on her own cognitive faculties and investigative and inferential powers.’’ This is a clear endorsement of what I have called extreme epistemic egoism. But Fricker goes on to observe that without reliance upon the testimony of others, we would not know or believe very much, so while she accepts extreme egoism as the ideal, she defends the weakening of the ideal in practice due to human limitations, endorsing a form ofweak epistemic egoism."
"It can be illuminating to divide the senses in which something can be good into the desirable and the admirable. The things that are desirable are the things that are good for us. They make us thrive as human beings. Examples include long life, health and freedom from suffering, comfort and the variety of human enjoyments, friendship and loving relationships, and using our talents in satisfying work. To say that these things are desirable is not to say that their desirability cannot be outweighed by other goods. Most desirable things are only prima facie desirable; they are not desirable at all costs. For one thing, given some set of contingent circumstances, one of these goods can conflict with another. The pleasures ofa good life can harm our health; spending time with our friends can detract from creative activity; living an intellectually rich and creative life can be stressful. Living a healthy life can take time away from any of the other components of flourishing, including friends and creative activity, at least for those persons whose health requires considerable attention. Furthermore, some of these goods can conflict with morality. So to say that these goods are desirable is not to say that they are desirable in all circumstances, taking everything into consideration."
"If my colleague believes that the leaves on his maple tree are turning bright red, he can tell me, and if I trust him, I may believe it too, and if he knows the leaves are red, I may also know it, assuming the two of us satisfy whatever conditions your theory of knowledge requires. But there is no analogous way in which he can transmit his understanding of trees to me. Unlike beliefs, understanding is not passed along from a testifier to a recipient. The person’s own mind has to do the ‘‘work’’ of understanding. I think this is important in solving a puzzle about moral knowledge.
Some philosophers think there is something epistemically or morally deficient about a person who accepts moral beliefs on testimony. A conscientious person allegedly comes to her moral beliefs by using her own moral sense and background knowledge, and accepts no moral belief on the testimony ofanother person. There are no moral authorities."
"I find it interesting that in philosophers otherwise as diverse as the two most important ancient Greek philosophers, the medieval Christian Aquinas, and Spinoza the early modern Jew, what we ultimately aim for is an intellectual state. Many philosophers believe that epistemology became a core area ofphilosophy because of Descartes, and I would not deny that Descartes gets the credit for a methodology of philosophy that starts with epistemology. But I think there is another, more ancient reason why epistemology is so important. If our ultimate happiness resides in a state ofthe intellect, it is important that we figure out how to attain it."
Is there a God? Is there purpose in the universe? Does the life of an individual human being have the special value Kant called a dignity? If so, what is the source of that value? Do human beings have free will? Is a human being the same thing as a physical body? What makes one life more admirable than another? What kind of life should I wish for my children?
Answers to these questions can be conscientiously held, but if our standards for conscientiousness are as stringent as Clifford’s agnosticism about most ofthese questions would probably follow. On the other hand, Clifford is right that we need caution because beliefs can be dangerous to ourselves and to others. We want to avoid both ignorance about important matters and error about such matters. It is not at all obvious how to balance the two strategies."
"Frankfurt says bullshit is inevitable whenever people are required by circumstances to speak about something without knowing what they’re talking about, which is why it is so common in public life, and, I would add, among teachers. Frankfurt says there are also pressures to bullshit when citizens are expected to have opinions about everything they will vote about, and I have noticed that we are often asked our opinions about anything that appears in the news, including subjects that require special expertise, such as stem cell research, the consequences of various medical insurance proposals, and local politics in the Middle East. At the worst, Frankfurt says, bullshit undermines confidence that there is such a thing as objective truth. When that happens, there is a shift from the ideal of truthtelling to the ideal ofsincerity—the accurate representation ofoneself, rather than the accurate representation of what we take reality to be."
"Recently, there has been a lot of interest in this form of skepticism and some philosophers think it is a more significant threat to the possibility of knowledge than the skepticism of Descartes". This is for at least two reasons, one ofwhich I have already mentioned. Pyrrhonian skepticism is not based on the apparently outlandish possibility of being fooled about all of our experience by an Evil Genius, and it does not presuppose that you don’t know unless you have certainty. The standards for knowledge presupposed by the Pyrrhonists are quite ordinary. They argued that all a person needs for a justified belief is that the evidence for some proposition believed exceeds the evidence against it, no matter by how little, and they argued that skepticism follows from this quite reasonable assumption. Their arguments do not depend upon an excessively rigorous standard for knowledge."
"The Pyrrhonists had many arguments intended to show that the
evidence for some proposition p never exceeds the evidence against p. Here is a version of one Pyrrhonian argument that has shaped a great deal of later-twentieth-century epistemology.
The Regress Argument
(1) For any proposition p, I know p only if I am justified in believing p.
(2) I am justified in believing p only if I have evidence E that justifies p.
(3) No evidence E can justify a proposition unless E is justified.
(4) So E is justified only ifthere is evidence E1 that justifies E. (5) E1 is justified only ifthere is evidence E2 that justifies E1.
(6) E2 is justified only ifthere is evidence E3 that justifies E2. . . . ad infinitum.
Since the process of justification is never-ending, it follows that
(7) I am never justified in believing any proposition.
Hence, by (1) it follows (8) I do not know anything."
"A very large literature developed over the only two positions that were thought to block the inference to (7): foundationalism and coherentism."
"Roughly, the foundationalist maintains that the structure ofa justified or rational beliefsystem is like a brick wall, with a few ground level beliefs that are not supported by any other beliefs, but which support all the beliefs above them. In contrast, the coherentist maintains that the structure ofa justified beliefsystem is an interlocking network ofbeliefs. The foundationalist ends the regress in a set of foundational beliefs, whereas the coherentist maintains that the sequence of justifying beliefs loops back upon itself.
The foundationalist and the coherentist agree that there cannot be
an infinitely long chain of justifying reasons for a belief p. In the first place, we do not have an infinitely long chain of reasons justifying any ofour beliefs, and in the second place, even ifwe had an infinitely long chain of reasons, that would not be sufficient to justify the belief, so skepticism follows. The assumption that an infinite chain of reasons does not justify a
beliefbears an interesting similarity to an assumption used in the simplest version ofthe First Cause Argument for the existence ofGod. According to that argument, an object caused to exist by an infinitely long chain of causes has no cause for its existence, so there cannot be an infinite chain ofcauses. In the same way, the foundationalist and coherentist argue that a belief justified by an infinitely long chain of reasons is not justified; hence, there cannot be an infinite chain of reasons.
The foundationalist adds that the chain ofjustifying reasons cannot be circular. The intuition here is like the intuition that a chain of causes cannot be circular. The foundationalist argues that the chain of justifying reasons must end in a reason that is not itselfjustified by anything further, like a First Cause that is not caused by anything outside itself. Some foundationalists think that foundational beliefs are self-justifying, whereas others think that they are not in need of justification, or that they are justified by something other than a belief, such as an experience, which is not in need of justification.
The ideal of certainty as the property we should aim for in our
foundational (basic) beliefs has been under attack for some time now. I donot think anybody objects to the idea that certaintywould be aworthy goal ifit were attainable, andmost philosophers probably also agree that it is attainable for a restricted class ofbeliefs, such as beliefs about some of our present conscious states, but unfortunately, it is difficult to see how these beliefs can be sufficient to be the ultimate justification ofverymany of our other beliefs. But notice that if you think the regress argument shows that the chain ofjustifying reasonsmust end, there is nothing in that argument that requires that the chain ends in something certain.
Rather, the memory of drinking the coffee is an experience that directly justifies the belief that I drank a cup of coffee. The belief is foundational in that it is not based on any other belief, but it is not groundless; it does not appear out of nowhere.
Coherentists object that foundationalist theories cannot avoid ending the regress in something arbitrary. Ofcourse, it may not seem to us that it is arbitrary, but ifwe are conscientious believers, we need a reason to think that whatever stops the regress has the right property, a property that makes it justified and capable of conferring justification on the beliefs that depend upon it. But what would justify us in thinking that? Some philosophers have abandoned foundationalism and have embraced what seems to be the only alternative left by the regress argument except skepticism: coherentism."
"...we not only aim to have accurate perceptions and true beliefs, but we also aim to have appropriate emotions—to admire the admirable, fear the fearsome, pity the pitiful, and so on..."
"We live our lives with the belief that truth is within our grasp, and we assume that we know what the faculties are that get us to the truth, at least some of them. They include our perceptual faculties, memory, and cognitive faculties.
Somewhat more controversially, I think, they include emotions.Emotion dispositions can be reliable or unreliable, and particular emotions may fit or not fit their objects. But we cannot tell whether our emotion dispositions are reliable without using those same dispositions in conjunction with our other faculties. We cannot tell whether our disposition to pity is reliably directed at the pitiful, whether our disposition to disgust is reliably directed toward the disgusting, whether we reliably fear the fearsome, or admire the admirable, without appealing to further emotions."
"Skepticism undermines human agency by undermining the exercise of normal human faculties of believing and choosing."
"Like everybody else, the conscientious believer trusts her faculties without evidence that they are reliable as a whole, but she learns through the use of her own faculties that she is not always reliable, and of course, she learns the same thing about other people. We all make mistakes, but we can learn from our mistakes by learning that many of our mistakes follow patterns. There are situations in which we are prone to perceptual errors, mistakes in memory, invalid forms ofinference, influences ofemotion that tend to inhibit the acquisition of true beliefs, and so on.
For example, sometimes we ‘‘see’’ what we expect to see and
‘‘hear’’ what we expect to hear. When we repeatedly tell the story of an event, we become more sure of our recollections, so the more we retell a story, the more we convince ourselves that it is true, even if it is not. Social psychologists have also discovered forms of bias such as the fundamental attribution error, the tendency for observers to underestimate the influence ofthe situation on the behavior ofothers and to overestimate the extent to which it expresses the individual’s inner traits."
"A person weighs evidence for p differently than the evidence for not-p if she wants p to be true. That is common and interesting behavior, and it can be investigated empirically."
"The first two positions are forms of epistemic egoism. The extreme epistemic egoist thinks that the fact that someone else believes p is never a reason for her to believe p, not even when conjoined with evidence that the other person is reliable. She will never believe on testimony. Before believing p, she will demand proof of p that she can determine by the use of her own faculties, given her own previous beliefs. The weak epistemic egoist will treat the fact that someone else
believes p as a reason for her to believe p provided that she has evidence that the other person is reliable. She will accept certain beliefs on testimony, but only when she has evidence that the testifier is trustworthy. So both kinds of egoist think that the fact that someone else has a certain belief is never as such a reason for them to believe it.16 We can call extreme antiegoism ‘‘epistemic universalism.’’ The
epistemic universalist always treats the fact that another person believes p as a reason to believe p, but that reason can be defeated by evidence ofthe person’s unreliability or by evidence against p. For the universalist, then, the default position is to trust others. She needs a special reason not to trust them. For the weak egoist, the default position is to distrust others. She needs a special reason to trust them. The extreme egoist does not trust others, period. Many philosophers endorse some form ofepistemic egoism under the name ‘‘epistemic autonomy.’’ Elizabeth Fricker is a good example. She says: ‘‘This ideal type relies on no one else for any of her knowledge. Thus she takes no one else’s word for anything, but accepts only what she has found out for herself, relying only on her own cognitive faculties and investigative and inferential powers.’’ This is a clear endorsement of what I have called extreme epistemic egoism. But Fricker goes on to observe that without reliance upon the testimony of others, we would not know or believe very much, so while she accepts extreme egoism as the ideal, she defends the weakening of the ideal in practice due to human limitations, endorsing a form ofweak epistemic egoism."
"It can be illuminating to divide the senses in which something can be good into the desirable and the admirable. The things that are desirable are the things that are good for us. They make us thrive as human beings. Examples include long life, health and freedom from suffering, comfort and the variety of human enjoyments, friendship and loving relationships, and using our talents in satisfying work. To say that these things are desirable is not to say that their desirability cannot be outweighed by other goods. Most desirable things are only prima facie desirable; they are not desirable at all costs. For one thing, given some set of contingent circumstances, one of these goods can conflict with another. The pleasures ofa good life can harm our health; spending time with our friends can detract from creative activity; living an intellectually rich and creative life can be stressful. Living a healthy life can take time away from any of the other components of flourishing, including friends and creative activity, at least for those persons whose health requires considerable attention. Furthermore, some of these goods can conflict with morality. So to say that these goods are desirable is not to say that they are desirable in all circumstances, taking everything into consideration."
"If my colleague believes that the leaves on his maple tree are turning bright red, he can tell me, and if I trust him, I may believe it too, and if he knows the leaves are red, I may also know it, assuming the two of us satisfy whatever conditions your theory of knowledge requires. But there is no analogous way in which he can transmit his understanding of trees to me. Unlike beliefs, understanding is not passed along from a testifier to a recipient. The person’s own mind has to do the ‘‘work’’ of understanding. I think this is important in solving a puzzle about moral knowledge.
Some philosophers think there is something epistemically or morally deficient about a person who accepts moral beliefs on testimony. A conscientious person allegedly comes to her moral beliefs by using her own moral sense and background knowledge, and accepts no moral belief on the testimony ofanother person. There are no moral authorities."
"I find it interesting that in philosophers otherwise as diverse as the two most important ancient Greek philosophers, the medieval Christian Aquinas, and Spinoza the early modern Jew, what we ultimately aim for is an intellectual state. Many philosophers believe that epistemology became a core area ofphilosophy because of Descartes, and I would not deny that Descartes gets the credit for a methodology of philosophy that starts with epistemology. But I think there is another, more ancient reason why epistemology is so important. If our ultimate happiness resides in a state ofthe intellect, it is important that we figure out how to attain it."
June 27, 2015
This is the best primer for a philosophical topic I have ever read. (There are certainly a lot I haven't read, so take that with a grain of salt.) Zagzebski does a terrific job introducing readers to many of the issues in contemporary analytic epistemology, even briefly summarizing important arguments and criticisms, without getting too technical for the new initiate. I would most definitely recommend this book for new philosophers, those about to teach epistemology, and non-philosophers who want to understand what kinds of questions capture philosophers' attentions and why. The only negative comment I had was that Zagzebski used what seems to me to be a pretty fallacious (or ill-formed) analogy by which she intends to dispatch reliabilism, and she repeats the analogy a couple of times. Otherwise, her intro is inclusive of different answers given in the field, broad in the scope of epistemic problems raised, informative regarding historical and contemporary positions, and honest about the limits of such an introductory book, with solid recommendations for continued reading. She doesn't touch on other forms of epistemological inquiry (e.g., phenomenology, non-Western thought), but she does address much more than analyses of "knowledge."
May 20, 2025
زاگزبسکی روی نظام باورها تاکید زیادی میکنه، درسته که به حقیقت یک وجه رئالیستی و ارزش ذاتی میبخشه و ازین بابت یک رئالیست معرفتی محسوب میشه اما نحوه رسیدن به حقیقت براش بینهایت مهمه و روی بازبینی نظام باورها تمرکز داره؛ به این معنا که معیارهایی که داریم لزوما در طول زندگی سلب و سخت نیستن بلکه ممکنه در فرآیند شناخت چکشکاری بشن. قرار نیست انسانهایی باشیم که لزوما حقیقتها رو میدونیم، بلکه قراره کسانی باشیم که با شخصیت فکری درست و درخور اون دانستن باشیم. ازین بابت باید با فضیلتهای اخلاقی مثل صداقت و نداشتن تعصب و فکری باز.. با مرزهای شناخت روبرو بشیم. به نقل از او:«ما باید از فعل دانستن شروع کنیم نه گزاره دانسته شده».
در واقع کسی که میدونه، با چیزی که دانسته شده رابطه درونی پیدا میکنه.
زاگزبسکی هر نگاهی که فاعل شناسا رو کمرنگ کنه یا نادیده بگیره نقد میکنه. اساساً نگاهی مثل «مغز در خمره» و یا «نابغه فریبکار» بوزوما
اگرچه از نظر منطقی صحیح هستند اما اگر اون منطق منطبق بر واقعیت زندگی سوژه نباشه مشکلساز هست. در اینجا ایمان اهمیت زیادی پیدا میکنه، یعنی وفادارانه در مسیر شناخت باقی ماندن با وقوف بر این امر که انسان اشتباه میکنه و میتونه یادبگیره و رشد واقعی داشته باشه. رجوع به وجدان؛ وجدانی که مثل عضلهست و باید پرورانده بشه در طول مسیر شناخت ضروریه. شک، در نگرش کلان باعث رشده اگر درون شبکهای از اعتماد اخلاقی و عقلانی باشه، به عبارتی سوژه همچنان که ابزراهای شناختش رو بکار میگیره دائما باید درحال بازبینی و ارتقاء اونها هم باشه.
در واقع کسی که میدونه، با چیزی که دانسته شده رابطه درونی پیدا میکنه.
زاگزبسکی هر نگاهی که فاعل شناسا رو کمرنگ کنه یا نادیده بگیره نقد میکنه. اساساً نگاهی مثل «مغز در خمره» و یا «نابغه فریبکار» بوزوما
اگرچه از نظر منطقی صحیح هستند اما اگر اون منطق منطبق بر واقعیت زندگی سوژه نباشه مشکلساز هست. در اینجا ایمان اهمیت زیادی پیدا میکنه، یعنی وفادارانه در مسیر شناخت باقی ماندن با وقوف بر این امر که انسان اشتباه میکنه و میتونه یادبگیره و رشد واقعی داشته باشه. رجوع به وجدان؛ وجدانی که مثل عضلهست و باید پرورانده بشه در طول مسیر شناخت ضروریه. شک، در نگرش کلان باعث رشده اگر درون شبکهای از اعتماد اخلاقی و عقلانی باشه، به عبارتی سوژه همچنان که ابزراهای شناختش رو بکار میگیره دائما باید درحال بازبینی و ارتقاء اونها هم باشه.
December 16, 2021
An excellent introduction to epistemology.
January 25, 2014
Didn't realize that I forgot to review this book last week when I finished it.
This is my kind of intro to the topic of epistemology. Linda, whom I know, begins her presentation with a discussion of what we care about and writes that we want to know things about those things we care about. She is also interested in topics like understanding, the intellectual virtues, and wisdom, which were hardly discussed in epistemology when I was a student.
There has been a paradigm shift in epistemology, with Linda as one of the leaders, away from the dry, analytical discussions which focused on the latest counter-example to the Gettier problem for justification. In fact, Linda isn't doesn't think that "justified true belief" is the best definition of knowledge.
She still reviews many of the issues and arguments of late-twentieth century epistemology, but never gets caught up in their concerns. She does explore them for anything of import that we can take from them.
I enjoyed reading the book and brushing up on a topic I hadn't brushed up on since the 1990's.
This is my kind of intro to the topic of epistemology. Linda, whom I know, begins her presentation with a discussion of what we care about and writes that we want to know things about those things we care about. She is also interested in topics like understanding, the intellectual virtues, and wisdom, which were hardly discussed in epistemology when I was a student.
There has been a paradigm shift in epistemology, with Linda as one of the leaders, away from the dry, analytical discussions which focused on the latest counter-example to the Gettier problem for justification. In fact, Linda isn't doesn't think that "justified true belief" is the best definition of knowledge.
She still reviews many of the issues and arguments of late-twentieth century epistemology, but never gets caught up in their concerns. She does explore them for anything of import that we can take from them.
I enjoyed reading the book and brushing up on a topic I hadn't brushed up on since the 1990's.
August 12, 2013
A very good and clearly written for Zagzebski responsibilist position. In Addition, she discusses for the first time her view of Testimonial Knowledge which she develeops further in her newest book Epistemic Authority. The book can also used as an introduction to epistemology even though it does not cover everything.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews