PHIL20490 Knowledge & Scepticism

Academic Year 2024/2025

"A common refrain heard around New Scientist‘s offices in recent weeks has been “episte… what?!” Even among educated and well-informed people, epistemology – the study of knowledge – is neither a familiar word nor a well-known field of enquiry. But it has never been more important." [New Scientist Editorial, 29 March 2017]

This course provides an introduction to epistemology: the study of knowledge (the name 'epistemology comes from the Greek words 'epistēmē', meaning 'knowledge', and 'logos', meaning 'science or study of'). Epistemology has always been one of the central - if not *the* central -- areas of philosophy, and it has a great deal of relevance both theoretically and practically. The purpose of the course is to help you to understand some of the core questions and theories of epistemology, and to help you to think about the questions for yourself so you can form your own independent views about them.

Why is epistemology so important? Because knowledge is generally seen the primary goal of inquiry, whether in ordinary life (I want to *know* when the bus will arrive) or in any area of expertise (I want the doctor to *know* what's wrong with me, and the mechanic to *know* how to fix my car). But what exactly do want when we want to know something, or when we want someone else to know something? What's the difference between knowing something, and just having an opinion about it? (The difference matters: I hope the surgeon *knows* how to do the operation, rather than just having an opinion about it!) Does knowing something require believing it? Can you know something that's not true? In other words, what exactly *is* knowledge?

Philosophers have been especially interested in the question of what knowledge is, because if we can answer that question, we can start to answer another important question: what can we really know? What sort of knowledge is possible? For example, many philosophers throughout history have argued that we can't know what the objects outside our own minds are *really* like; they argue that we can only really know how things outside our minds *seem* to us, or how they impact on our senses. According to these philosophers, our knowledge of the world outside our minds never really extends beyond our own sensations. This idea -- that we are, to some extent, trapped in our own sensations -- has been a recurring theme not only in philosophy in both the East and West, but in different global religions and in science fiction.

The philosophical view that we can't know anything (or anything much) about the world outside our own sensations is called 'philosophical scepticism'. But even if we reject philosophical scepticism, there are questions about knowledge we still have to answer. For example, there are questions about the different *sources* of knowledge. Is perception is a source of knowledge, and if so, how? Is memory a source of knowledge, and if so, how? Is reason by itself a source of knowledge, and if so, how? And there are questions about how we can know certain kinds of things. For example, how do we know what's morally right and wrong? How do we know what's possible and impossible? How do we know about the future? Epistemologists address these questions, and more.

There is also an important connection between knowledge and evidence. It's natural to think that in order to know something, we have to have reasons for believing it -- in other words, we need to have some *evidence* in support of our belief. But how strong does our evidence have to be to give us knowledge? Can someone know something without having *any* evidence for it? Do we need reasons for accepting our evidence -- in other words, do we need evidence for our evidence? What form does evidence have to take? For example, do we have to be able to reflect on our evidence in order to have knowledge? Can a group of people know something based on 'shared' evidence? Can babies and animals have knowledge, and if so, what does that tell us about the relationship between knowledge and evidence, or about the nature of evidence?

Many of the traditional questions and theories of epistemology are focussed on knowledge from a largely theoretical perspective. But recently there has been a much greater (and welcome) focus in epistemology on the *social* and *ethical* dimensions of knowledge. For example, the philosopher Miranda Fricker argues in her 2007 book *Epistemic Injustice* that there is a specific kind of injustice that involves holding certain people to higher standards of evidence because of their social identity (for example, as having a certain gender or ethnic identity). Others have argued that whether we should believe something doesn't just depend on whether it is rational to do so, but whether believing it would contribute to social structures of injustice. In both cases, questions of knowledge are connected with ethical questions concerning injustice and oppression. And epistemology also has a political dimension. For example, what exactly do people mean when we say that 'conspiracy theories', 'fake news', and 'epistemic bubbles' pose a threat to democracy? What sort of epistemic duties do individual people -- as opposed to e.g. governments and private companies -- have in an environment that contains lots of bad information?

The course is divided into two halves. In the first half, we address some of the traditional questions in epistemology, such as: what is knowledge, and how does it relate to belief? What is the relation between knowledge and evidence? Should we take philosophical scepticism seriously?

In the second part of the course, we address questions concerning the *social* and *ethical* dimensions of knowledge, such as: are there ethical as well as rational standards of belief? How do we gain knowledge from others, and are there forms of injustice specifically connected with the transmission of knowledge? How should we understand concepts like 'conspiracy theories', 'fake news', and 'epistemic bubbles'?