Principles of Inquiry: Ways of Knowing
| Date | Topic | Reading | Discussion Projects, etc. |
| May 17 | Introduction | none | Intuitions about knowledge |
| May 24 | Explaining knowledge | Modern Epistemology, Chapters 1 and 2 | |
| May 31 | Cartesian skepticism | Epistemology: The Big Questions, pp.5-19 and pp.352-365 | |
| June 7 | From defining 'knowledge' to justifying beliefs | Modern Epistemology, Chapters 3 and 4 | |
| June 14 | Justification 2 - foundations | Modern Epistemology, Chapters 5 and 7; Chisolm, "The Myth of the Given" in Alcoff (pp.169-186) | Empirical vs. A Priori |
| June 21 | Justification 3 - coherence | Modern Epistemology, Chapter 8; Sosa, "The Raft and the Pyramid" and BonJour, "The Elements of Coherentism" in Alcoff (pp.187-231) | We divided into small groups and each group explained one of the criticisms of coherentism and the coherentist's reply |
| June 28 | Deductive inference --Exam 1st hour of class-- |
Modern Epistemology, Chapter 9 and the Logic Appendix | |
| July 5 | No class | ||
| July 12 | Inductive inference | Modern Epistemology, Chapters 10 and 11; Haack, Manifesto, Chapter 5, "Puzzling Out Science" and pp.83-87 of the previous essay; also Chapter 1, if you want a sense of "where she's coming from" | Discussion Project on Induction |
| July 19 | Naturalized Epistemology | Modern Epistemology, Chapter 12; articles by Quine, Kim, and Rooney in Alcoff (pp.253-305) | |
| July 26 | Rorty: Should epistemology be abolished or reformed? | Modern Epistemology, Chapter 13; Articles by Rorty and Tiles in Alcoff (pp.336-348, 411-439); Haack, Chapter 1; Rorty "Solidarity or Objectivity" (handout) | Paper assignment; |
| August 2 | How is science social? | Rorty, "Science as Solidarity" and Hacking, selection from The Social Construction of What? (handouts); Haack, Chapter 6 | Rorty's review of Hacking |
| August 9 | Feminist Epistemology: Does gender make a difference to knowledge? | Elizabeth Anderson, "Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science" (handout, available online here); Haack, Chapter 7; articles by Lloyd, Mills, Scheman and Code in Alcoff (pp. 365-410, 124-151) (Yes, this is too much, but get as far through the list as you can. Do, however, make pp.129-132 in Code's article a high priority.) | |
| August 16 | Multiculturalism and epistemology | Patricia Hill Collins, "Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology"; Samuel Imbo, "Is African Philosophy Unique?"; Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Old Gods, New Worlds" (all handouts); Haack, Chapters 8 and 9 | Possible final exam questions |