This course is an introductory survey of the major issues in epistemology, the theory of knowledge. It is topic-oriented rather than history-oriented. This emphasis means we will often consider problems independently of their historical context. Hopefully, what is lost by way of historical grounding will be balanced by a gain in interest in the issues themselves. In this class, we will address what are arguably the really deep problems of epistemology: How do humans come to know? What is knowledge, anyway? How can we ever be sure to know anything? For instance, how can be be sure that we are not brains in vats, or that we don't live in the Matrix? What could possibly justify our confidence in what we take ourselves to know? What are the rules for making inferences that generate new knowledge? How do humans learn? Can machines learn, too? What do cognitive science and neuroscience teach us about human knowledge? And finally, does gender influence our conceptions of knowledge, and if so, how?

Along with serving as an introduction to some philosophical puzzles, the course also hopes to develop and foster good argumentative skills and critical thinking on the part of the student. Combined with the fact that philosophical texts are frequently difficult for beginning students, this makes the course relatively challenging for an introductory course. But for those with a speculative turn of mind, it should be fun.

Damon Crockett, dccrocke "at" ucsd "dot" edu, office hours: Mondays 11am to 1pm, office: 8089 HSS

Final exam

The final will take place on Tuesday of finals week (9 June 2009), from 11:30am to 2:29pm in Center Hall 216.

30 April 2009: Update of reading list on induction

As I announced in class, I shuffle the readings for section on induction around a bit. Upon reflection, I don't want to change too much. The updated readings list is as follows:

5 May:

• Huemer, "Inductive inference" (Huemer, 293-297)
• Earman and Salmon, 55-66 (Note the page change)
• *Hume, Enquiry (Huemer 298-310, not mandatory)

7 May:

• Earman and Salmon, 43-49 (only Sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3)
• *Earman and Salmon, 42 and 49-55 (not mandatory)

2 June:

• Anderson, "Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science", SEP article: concentrate on the first five sections.

Course materials such as lecture notes, handouts, etc will be made available as they will be used in class.

• Syllabus
• Topic 0: Organization of course and clickers
• Topic 1: Introduction: Perception and a priori knowledge
• Topic 2: The conceptual analysis of knowledge
• Topic 3: Scepticism, brains in vats, and the matrix
• Topic 4: Justification
• Topic 5: Induction and confirmation
• Topic 6: Epistemology naturalized
• Topic 7: A neurocomputational perspective
• Topic 8: Feminist epistemology

Study guide for the midterm and final exams:

• Midterm Study Guide (link now active)
• Final Study Guide (link now active)

Paper prompt:

• Short paper topics (due 28 April 2009)

I have written a leaflet concerning plagiarism, which is absolutely mandatory reading. This is a first draft, please let me know if you have comments or suggestions.

For useful tips on how to write a great paper, see Manuel Vargas`s short handout on How to Write Philosophy Papers That Don`t Suck.

The following materials are mandatory for this course:

• Book: Michael Huemer (ed.), Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, Routledge, 2002. This book costs about $35 and is available at the Price Center bookstore.
• You will need a so-called "clicker", an InterWrite student response device that is available from the Price Center bookstore for $46.70 (new) or $35.05 (used). Make sure to get a new clicker operating at radio frequency and not an old infrared one or an "iClicker". For more information, visit http://clickers.ucsd.edu/.
• A number of readings for this course are available from e-reserves: Link to this course`s e-reserves page
• Two articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are mandatory readings: William Talbott, Bayesian epistemology, and Elizabeth Anderson, Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science.

Note: These additional materials will not be tested in exams. They serve to give you some background or to offer some additional food for thought.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is an excellent source for academically serious, yet relatively accessible survey articles on many, many topics in philosophy, including epistemology. For this course, the survey article on knowledge by Matthias Steup is pertinent: Epistemology

A relatively new, but outstanding, source of very accessible material to many issues covered in this class are the Philosophy Bites podcasts of top philosophers interviewed by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton. They are absolutely free. So next time you ride to school, make sure to upload some of them beforehand to your iPod! Relevant for this class are for example:

• Edward Craig - What is Philosophy? (Edward Craig, editor of the Routledge Encylopedia of Philosophy and author of Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction gives an interesting angle on the nature of philosophy, how it relates to other kinds of thinking, and what makes good philosophy good.)
• M.M. McCabe on the Paradox of Inquiry (In Plato's dialogue The Meno, Socrates presents an apparent paradox that makes our ability to learn anything new puzzling. M.M. McCabe discusses this apparent paradox and its relevance in this episode of Philosophy Bites.)
• Simon Blackburn on Plato's Cave (What is the nature of reality? Is the world as it appears, or is there something timeless behind the world of appearances? Simon Blackburn discusses one of the most famous images in Philosophy: Plato's cave.)
• Miranda Fricker on Epistemic Injustice (Testimonial injustice occurs when others fail to treat you seriously as a source of knowledge. In this interview Miranda Fricker, author of a recent book on the topic, explains this concept which lies at the intersection between epistemology and political philosophy.)
• Barry Stroud on Scepticism (Can I trust my senses? Can I tell that I'm not now dreaming? Some philosophical sceptics have maintained that we can't know anything for certain. Barry Stroud discusses the challenge posed by such sceptics in this episode of Philosophy Bites.)
• A C Grayling on Descartes' Cogito (Anthony Grayling, author of a recent biography of Rene Descartes, explores Descartes' Cogito argument, the pivotal argument of the Meditations, in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of Philosophy Bites.)

General Comments

What matters is not the absolute number of your scores, but your performance relative to everybody else in the class. That is why it`s important for you to know where you stand with respect to the class average, and that`s why I give the class averages of those who did the assignment for all assignments below.

I grade to the curve. That means that the top 25-30% of the students in this class (including all who take it for a letter grade or a P/NP, but not including the withdrawals W) will get a grade in the A range (A+, A, A-), the next 25-35% a grade in the B range (B+, B, B-), the next 25-30% a grade in the C range (C+, C, C-), and the remaining 5-25% a D or an F. This is the minimum I guarantee; if the class has worked very well and no one deserves a D or an F, I will adjust the curve upwards, accordingly.

Short paper

Short Paper Grading Rubric

Your paper is worth 20 points total. Your score will be determined by your performance in the following three categories:

• Writing (5 points): mechanics, clarity, organization
• Exposition (10 points): accuracy, clarity, comprehensiveness
• Critique (5 points): effectiveness, originality

Grading Comments

The overall class mean was 16.08. Damon has found that a common error was a misinterpretation of Locke and Berkeley, as he explains in his comments.

Midterm

Here are some comments concerning common errors or other issues noted by the TAs. The class average on the midterm was 12.3 (out of 25).

Overall, the exams were pretty bad. There were some bright spots, but it appears that many of you either didn't study or are simply having serious problems understanding the material. I'm not all that surprised, as attendance in section is extremely low.

Some substantive remarks:

• Semantic externalism is not the thesis that words refer to external objects. BOTH (semantic) internalists and externalists believe that our words refer to external objects. Externalism is the view that one cannot refer to external objects unless she has an appropriate causal history with those objects. An isolated Martian, for example, cannot refer to trees (in either word or thought), even if a tree-like image pops into her head.
• Externalism regarding justification is NOT the view that all true beliefs count as knowledge. Nor is it the view that all true beliefs are justified in virtue of their being true. Generally speaking, externalism is the thesis that a belief is justified only if there exists an appropriate causal connection between the subject's holding that belief and the fact believed. Put somewhat crudely, the fact that P should have something to do with my believing that P.
• Also, you cannot state the thesis of externalism simply by repeating Stalnaker's 'big picture' assessment of it. Externalism is a specific thesis about justification and it needs to be characterized in those terms.
• A surprising number of you confused the terms 'inferential' and 'inductive' in the identification section of the exam. As it happens, induction is a type of inference, but unfortunately, the definitions are not interchangeable.

Back to top