Table of Contents

Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction

The Aims of Epistemology
Some Important Concepts
Tradition and Revision
Key Concepts

CHAPTER ONE Skepticism

First Skirmishes with Skepticism
Cartesian Skepticism

• Box: Academic and Pyhrronian Skepticism
  The Dream Argument
  The Demon Argument
  The Skeptic’s Requirements

Hume, Skepticism, and Entitlement

• Hume’s Assumptions
  The Rationality of Our Inductive Inferences
  Box: Types of Induction
  Hume and Common Sense
  Box: Reasons and Causes

Skepticism and the Defense of our Cognitive Practices

• Is Skepticism Inevitable?
  Two Types of Defense

Responding to the Skeptic

• Is Certainty Necessary for Knowledge?
  Box: Descartes and the Probable
  Show-and-Tell: Ruling Out That One Is Dreaming
  Contextualism: Shifting Standards
  Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation
  Induction Again

Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER TWO An Introduction to the Analysis of Knowledge

The Traditional Analysis

• Truth Conditions
  Motivating the Traditional Analysis
  Box: Theories of Truth

Gettier and the Traditional Analysis

• Gettier-type Counterexamples
  Box: Bertrand Russell and Gettier-type Counterexamples
  A Defense of the Traditional Analysis

Some Strategies for Handling Gettier Problems

• A General Diagnosis
  Causal Theories
  Indefeasibility Theories
  Box: Strong and Weak Conditions
  No-False-Premise Views

The Significance of Gettier
Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER THREE Reliabilism

Reliability and Knowledge

• Two Versions of Reliabilism
  Reliabilism and Perceptual Knowledge
  Box: More on Reliable Indicator Theory
  Reliabilism and the Traditional Analysis

Reliabilism and JustificationObjections to Reliabilism

• The Generality Problem
  Identifying Process Types
  Is Reliability Sufficient?
  Evil Demons—Again

Reliabilist Responses and Revisions

• Normal Worlds and Weak Justification
  Box: Reliabilism and Skepticism
  Clairvoyancy

Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER FOUR Structure and Sources of Justification: Foundationalism

The Regress Argument
Motives For Foundationalism

• Options for the Regress Argument
  A Motive for Foundationalism

Two Types of Foundationalism

• The Basic Structure
  Box: Foundationalism as a Theory of Knowledge
  Strong Foundationalism
  Neoclassical Foundationalism
  Modest Foundationalism
  Box: Can Reliabilists Be Foundationalists?
  Features of Modest Foundationalism

Objections To Foundationalism

• Strong Foundationalism and Basic Beliefs
  Levels of Justification
  Independent Information and Modest Foundationalism
  The Cognitive Status of Experience

Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER FIVE Structure and Sources of Justification: Coherence Theory

The Intuitive Idea

• Mutual Support
  Two Views of Coherence
  Box: Linear Coherence

Coherence, Perception, and Belief

• The Nature of Coherence
  Perceptual Beliefs and Coherence
  What Do You Believe?
  Box: Is the Doxastic Presumption True?

“Cycles and Loops” Lehrer’s View of Coherence

• Justifying Trustworthiness

Objections to Coherence Theory: Liberal or Conservative?

• Liberality
  Conservatism

The Isolation Objection

• Box: The Isolation Objection and Its Cousins

Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER SIX Externalism and Internalism

Externalist and Internalist Features of Justification
Epistemic Responsibility

• Responsibility: Goals and Means
  Are Beliefs Voluntary?
  Box: Doxastic Voluntarism

Cognitive Access

• Strong and Weak Accessibility
  Objections and Responses

Attempted Reconciliation

• Alston’s Internalist Externalism
  Sosa’s Virtue Perspectivism
  Box: Do Externalists Change the Subject?

Prospects for Reconciliation
Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER SEVEN Naturalized Epistemology

Tradition and Naturalism

• A Traditional Picture
  Naturalism and Epistemology
  Box: Facts and Values

Quine’s Vew of Naturalized Epistemology

• First Philosophy
  Box: Quine and the Rejection of the A Priori
  The Normative Character of Naturalized Epistemology
  Box: Science Studies Science: The Strong Programme
  The Goal of Inquiry
  The Goal of Inquiry: Normative and Natural
  Box: Evolutionary Epistemology

Naturalized Epistemology and Supervenience
Tradition, Reduction, and Supervenience

• Quinean and Modest Naturalized Epistemology
  Three Options

Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER EIGHT Feminist Epistemology

Traditional Epistemology, Science, and Knowledge Products

• Scientific Method and Values

Objectivity

• Should We Want Objectivity?

Reason
A New Look for Epistemology

• Feminist Empiricism
  Box: Coherentism and Feminist Epistemology
  Feminist Standpoint Epistemology
  Feminist Naturalized Epistemology

Does Feminist Epistemology Look Different?

• Box: Ecological Naturalism

The “Feminist” in “Feminist Epistemology”

• Feminist Epistemology in a Chapter

Key ConceptsReview QuestionsFor Further Study

CHAPTER NINE A Priori Knowledge

The A Priori and Necessity

• An Epistemological Distinction: A Priori and A Posteriori
  A Metaphysical Distinction: Necessary and Contingent Propositions

Historical Theories of the A Priori

• The Traditional Theory of A Priori Knowledge
  Box: The Principle of Contradiction
  Kant and the Synthetic A Priori
  Box: Hume and Kant on Analytic and Synthetic Judgments (Propositions)

Contemporary Views of the A Priori

• Linguistic Accounts of the A Priori
  The Traditional, the Linguistic, and the Truth
  Quinean Reservations
  Necessity and the A Priori
  No Experience Required: Synthetic A Priori Propositions

Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

CHAPTER TEN Perception

The Simple Story: Naïve Realism
Naïve—An Illusion?

• Further Arguments Against Naïve Realism
  Box: Blindsight?

The World of Sense Data

• An Intuitive Approach
  Some Common Features

Representative Realism

• Primary and Secondary Qualities
  A Lockean Response or No Way Out?
  Science to the Rescue?
  Some Reactions to Representative Realism

Phenomenalism

• Berkeley’s Factual Phenomenalism
  Linguistic Phenomenalism
  Is Linguistic Phenomenalism Plausible?
  Box: Linguistic Phenomenalism and the Skeptic
  Berkeley Again

Reviving Direct Realism

• Adverbial Theory
  The Doxastic View

Perceptual Experience and Realism
Key Concepts
Review Questions
For Further Study

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Jack S. Crumley II is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the philosophy department at the University of San Diego

Reviews

“The second edition of Crumley’s An Introduction to Epistemology offers readers a clearly written, highly accessible, comprehensive, and insightful up-to-date introduction to the main issues, concepts, and players in contemporary Anglo-American epistemology.” — James Maffie, Colorado State University“ … an outstanding resource for students and instructors at both introductory and advanced levels.” — Patrick Rysiew, University of Victoria