A Naturalistic Epistemology: Selected Papers [Hardcover]

This volume draws together influential work by Hilary Kornblith on naturalistic epistemology. This approach sees epistemology not as conceptual analysis, but as an explanatory project constrained and informed by work in cognitive science. These essays expound and defend Kornblith's distinctive view of how we come to have knowledge of the world.This volume draws together influential work by Hilary Kornblith on naturalistic epistemology. The naturalistic approach sees epistemology not as a matter of analysis of concepts, but as an explanatory project constrained and informed by work in the cognitive sciences. These essays expound and defend Kornblith's distinctive view of how we come to have knowledge of the world. He offers critical discussion of alternative approaches, such as foundationalism, the coherence theory of justification, internalism, and externalism; and he discusses social epistemology, the role of intuitions in philosophical theorizing, epistemic normativity, and the ways in which philosophical theories may be informed by empirical considerations. Kornblith aims to show how an epistemology which is based in the sciences of cognition may provide the understanding and intellectual illumination which has always been the goal of philosophical theorizing.AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Beyond Foundationalism and the Coherence Theory2. Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible Action3. How Internal Can You Get?4. The Unattainability of Coherence5. Epistemic Normativity6. A Conservative Approach to Social Epistemology7. Naturalism: Both Metaphysical and Epistemological8. Knowledge in Humans and Other Animals9. Does Reliabilism Make Knowledge Merely Conditional?10. Naturalism and Intuitions11. A Reliabilist Solution to the Problem of Promiscuous Bootstrapping12. Why Should We Care about the Concept of Knowledge?13. Reasons, Naturalism, and Transcendental PhilosophyHilary Kornblith,University of Massachusetts, AmherstHilary Kornblith is Professor of lƒ9