Hilary Kornblith

Richard Feldman argues that a good deal more of Chisholm's approach can be saved than I allow in “Roderick Chisholm and the Shaping of American Epistemology.” More than this, Feldman argues that there are other, and still more defensible, forms of internalism. I argue here that the problems I presented for Chisholm's view are not so easily sidestepped either within Chisholm's system or by other forms of internalism.

This paper defends an approach to epistemology which treats the study of knowledge as on a par with the study of natural kinds. Knowledge is seen as a natural phenomenon subject to empirical investigation. In particular, it is argued that work in cognitive ethology is relevant to understanding the nature of knowledge, and that this approach sheds light on traditional philosophical questions about knowledge, including questions about the source of epistemic normativity.

Naturalism in philosophy has a long and distinguished heritage. This is no less true in epistemology than it is in other areas of philosophy. At the same time, epistemology in the English speaking world in the first half of die twentieth century was dominated by an approach quite hostile to naturalism. Now, at the close of the twentieth century, naturalism is resurgent.

Ernest Sosa draws a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge, and this distinction forms the centerpiece of his new book, A Virtue Epistemology . This paper argues that the distinction cannot do the work which Sosa assigns to it.

Some philosophers believe that epistemological theories are a priori knowable. Others weaken this claim slightly, arguing that epistemological theorizing is properly conducted “from the armchair.” It is argued here that even this claim is far too strong. This paper defends the view that epistemological theorizing must take account of empirical work in psychology, and, without this, epistemology inevitably loses touch with the very phenomena it seeks to account for.

Book Information Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses. By Laurence BonJour. Rowman and Littlefield. Lanham MD. 2002. Pp. viii + 289. Hardback, US$75. Paperback, US$23.95.