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Philosophy Through the Year offers and lively and welcoming space in which to learn about philosophy – and start to ask and explore philosophical questions with others. In each instalment, we will look at one set of big philosophical issues – the problem s and questions that have been puzzling people for well over two thousand years. Tutors will give short introductions to some of the most important ideas and arguments in each topic, and provide short philosophical texts for participants to read, think about, and discuss together.
Knowledge
In this instalment we look at a question that has always been central to philosophy: what is knowledge, and how do we acquire it? What is the difference between knowledge and opinion; is there a difference between having true beliefs, and knowing a truth (if we end up with true beliefs by accident, or as a result of good luck, can we really say that we have ‘knowledge’). And then there are questions about what sorts of knowledge are available: can we ever get knowledge about matters that go beyond our senses? Can we have knowledge about God, the soul,freedom, goodness? Plato and Aristotle, two of the founders of Westernphilosophy, disagreed on some of these questions, and versions of this disagreement continue through the Mediaeval period, right up to the present day.
Welcome to this half-term’s philosophy topic: theories of knowledge – or to use the standard philosophical polysyllable “epistemology”. This is probably the area of philosophy which most clearly links together all the other bits that philosophy deals with. So, if you’ve attended the other courses in the series, some things that we’ve already looked at will pop up again, though viewed from a slightly different angle. As ever it will be helpful to do some thinking about the questions in order to be able to understand why the ideas of philosophers over the millennia might count as answers. So please have a look at the preliminary questions before each session. In addition, if you can bear it and have time, please read text 5 before the first session, because I am going to ask you to look at that text in small groups.
Good luck!
Preliminary Questions:
- Suggest three different ways of completing the sentence “I know…”
- When would you say “I know that X” (choose any X)?
- When would you say “Ermintrude knows that X” (choose any Ermintrude, any X)?
Defining knowledge: Follow-up Texts 1 – 3, 5.
Aristotle
Theaetetus
Republic
Gettie
Preliminary Questions:
- Suggest three things that you know for certain
- How would you prove that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is the sum of the square on the other two sides?
- How would you prove the law of gravity?• How would you prove that eating people is wrong?
The quest for certainty: Follow-up Texts 16, 6 + 20, 7, 22, 13
Standard model (Al-Ghazālī/Ibn Sīnā)
Descartes
Locke
Bacon
Ayer
Preliminary Questions:
- Suggest three things that you are sure about, but about which you could be mistaken.
- Why is it so difficult to argue with someone who is committed to a conspiracy theory?
- How do you explain the sense of a gap between reasonable and unreasonable doubt, when the same sceptical question can give rise to both?
Scepticism and critical realism: Follow-up Texts 21, 4, 9+23, 10 + 17
Sextus
Razi
Hume
Kant
Preliminary Questions:
- How do I know that someone waving is waving to me?
- How do I know what a quark is?
- How do I know that queue-jumping is wrong?
Knowledge as construction: Follow-up Texts 11, 12, 18, 19
Louise M. Antony
Wittgenstein
Quine
Hoffman and Sing
Preliminary Questions:
- How do we know God?
- How do Christians know that Jesus is of one being with the Father?
- How do we know that value is real?
Knowledge, God and value: Follow-up Texts 14, 15, 24, 25
Rahner
Newman
Parfit
McGilchrist
Texts
John Moffatt SJ works at the London Jesuit Centre. His first degree was in Classics. He taught in London secondary schools intermittently between 1985 and 2016 and has worked briefly in University Chaplaincy. He has been involved with teenage and adult faith education in Britain and South Africa and has recently completed a doctorate in medieval Islamic philosophy.
