Week

              Topic (for lectures and tutorials)

Week 1

(Week beginning 24/2)

Introduction to Epistemology

An introduction to Epistemology, the theory of knowledge. What are some of the central problems in Epistemology? (eg What is knowledge? What (if anything) can we know? What should we believe?)

No tutorials this week.

Week 2

(w/b 2/3)

Scepticism about knowledge of the external world

Sceptics claim that we cannot have knowledge, in some particular domain, or, more radically, at all. What would motivate the claim that we cannot know anything? What would be the implications of doubting, for example, that there is an external world? Might we live in a world like The Matrix? We will look at the problem of Scepticism this week, and over the coming weeks we will consider some important ways that philosophers have tried to respond to the sceptical challenge.

Week 3

(w/b 9/3) 

Classical Foundationalism

Over the next few weeks, we will look at some ways to respond to the Regress argument for scepticism introduced in week 2. This week and next week, we will consider Foundationalism: the view that the regress terminates in beliefs that are basic in the sense that they do not require any other beliefs for their justification. If there are such beliefs, though, what is their source and what is it that justifies them? This week, we'll consider two important classical responses to these questions: Rationalism, according to which our basic knowledge comes through Reason; and Empiricism, which locates the source of our basic knowledge in sense experience.

Week 4

(w/b 16/3)

Contemporary Foundationalism

This week, we'll continue our study of Foundationalism by considering some problems with classical views, and some contemporary developments of Foundationalism. Can any version of Foundationalism provide an answer to the sceptic?

Week 5

(w/b 23/3)

Coherentism

Coherence theorists accept that there may be no particular truths that we can know with certainty that would provide a foundation for all our other beliefs, but believe that we can reasonably claim to have knowledge of beliefs that fit together in the right way. The reason I come to believe the things I do is that they make sense in the light of things I already believe: It is the coherence of my beliefs that justifies them. Does this provide an answer to scepticism? Or could my beliefs be coherent, but false?

Week 6

(w/b 30/3)

Responses to scepticism: Moore and Wittgenstein

This week we will consider two important Philosophical responses to scepticism, which aim to block the sceptic's arguments for our inability to know: Moore's defence of common sense against external world scepticism, and Wittgenstein's response to Moore and to the problem of scepticism.

Week 7

(w/b 6/4)

 The Gettier problem (and the ‘Gettier problem problem’)

This week, we will further examine the idea of justification. We will look at Gettier's challenge to the traditional conception of knowledge.

We’ll also be doing a bit of metaphilosophy. Although Gettier’s challenge has been extremely influential, its influence is taken by some as a sign of what’s wrong with analytic philosophy, so we’ll look at why that is, and look at the use of conceptual analysis in this debate.

No tutorials this week.

Week 8

(w/b 27/4)

Internalism vs Externalism

What does it mean to say that a belief is justified? Are my beliefs justified if I have good reasons for them? That's what we've been assuming until now, but if that assumption leads to scepticism and other problems about knowledge should we look elsewhere for the kind of justification we need for our beliefs to count as knowledge? Externalists claim that the justification of our beliefs depends on whether our beliefs are the kind of beliefs that are likely to be true, rather than on whether or not I have good reasons for them. We’ll look at some advantages and disadvantages of Externalism, with a particular focus on the question of whether Externalists can give an adequate account of the normativity of belief.

Week 9

(w/b 4/5)

 Epistemic Responsibility and Epistemic Luck

This week we'll look at some interesting recent arguments arising out of last week's considerations about normativity and Epistemic Responsibility. Is Epistemic Luck incompatible with knowledge? If so, how much of our purported knowledge does that undermine? Last week we looked at some thought experiments focussing on agents who (in some quite unusual circumstances) seemed to lack the right kind of responsibility for their beliefs, but is this actually more common than those thought experiments might suggest? Does this lead us back to scepticism?

Week 10

(w/b 11/5)

Virtue epistemology

Virtue epistemology can be seen as an attempt to give an account of epistemic justification that maintains the advantages of externalism, while also accounting for the normativity of belief. Are my beliefs justified if they are the result of the exercise of intellectual virtues? What are these virtues and how are they to be identified? 

Week 11

(w/b 18/5) 

Conspiracy theories 1

For the final two weeks of the unit, we're going to be bringing some of the theoretical background you've acquired to bear on an interesting contemporary problem: How to respond to the conspiracy theorist. This week, we will try to give an account of what counts as a conspiracy theory, and consider how it is that different people can use the same evidence to come to such radically different conclusions. 

What makes conspiracy theorists interesting from an epistemological point of view is that whatever we may think of their conclusions (Were the Obamas really reptilian aliens?  How much that the media tells us is really "fake news"?), it can be hard to see what people we judge to be conspiracy theorists are doing wrong, epistemologically. This week we'll consider how the kinds of theories of knowledge and justification we've developed over the course of the unit might actually be used to support or justify beliefs in certain kinds of conspiracy theory.

Week 12

(w/b 25/5)

Conspiracy theories 2

This week, we'll consider how epistemologists might respond to the kind of reasoning considered last week. How should we respond to conspiracy theorists if we don't want to accept their conclusions? This is a practical application of what you've been learning over the course of the unit. You may never meet a sceptic (or even someone who claims to be a sceptic) outside philosophy classes, but conspiracy theorists of various sorts are more common.

Week 13

(w/b 1/6)

Essay writing week - No lectures or tutorials.