Stephen Hetherington

Epistemologists in general have long agreed that a belief’s being gettiered precludes its being knowledge. However, they have long disagreed on how to understand or explicate that preclusion relation. Of course, some suggestions attract more approval than others do. One of the most commonly favored ones talk, in modal terms, of epistemic safety and epistemic luck. But this chapter argues that such attempted explications fail, because they have not learned enough from the history of modal metaphysics. In particular, epistemologists who reach for such an approach when seeking to understand Gettier cases have unwittingly allowed themselves to be conceiving of such cases in counterpart-theoretic terms, even while deriving a putative result that depends instead on a kind of transworld identity for Gettier cases and for gettiered beliefs. Methodologically, this combination is not viable.

_Yes, But How Do You Know?_ is an invitation to think philosophically through the use of sceptical ideas. Hetherington challenges our complacency and asks us to reconsider what we think we know. How much can we discover about our surroundings? What sort of beings are we? Can we trust our own reasoning? Is science all it is cracked up to be? Can we acquire knowledge of God? Are even the contents of our own minds transparent? In inviting, lucid prose, Hetherington addresses these questions and more, using scepticism to illuminate many perennial philosophical puzzles.

_Self-Knowledge_ introduces philosophical ideas about knowledge and the self. The book takes the form of a personal meditation: it is one person’s attempt to reflect philosophically upon vital aspects of his existence. It shows how profound philosophy can swiftly emerge from intense private reflection upon the details of one’s life and, thus, will help the reader take the first steps toward philosophical self-understanding. Along the way, readers will encounter moments of puzzlement, then clarity, followed by more perplexity and further insights, and then—finally—some philosophical peace of mind.

_Being Philosophical_ guides readers through the perplexing initial moments of meeting philosophy by taking them inside philosophical thinking as an activity. In a beginner-friendly voice, Stephen Hetherington elucidates how intellectual ‘tools’ from a diversity of traditions, East and West, can enable us to start doing philosophy – that is, to think ‘from scratch’ in a philosophical way. He explores many classical topics and issues that have preoccupied philosophers from Plato, early Buddhists and Confucius to Karl Marx and beyond – selves, souls, identity, will, knowing and reasoning, acting morally, and more – and presents possible methods for responding to different theories. Inviting and conversational, _Being Philosophical_ is the book needed by every new philosophy student – or anyone wondering whether they might want to explore the world of philosophy.

_Metaphysics and Epistemology: A Guided Anthology_ presents a comprehensive introductory overview of key themes, thinkers, and texts in metaphysics and epistemology. Presents a wide-ranging collection of carefully excerpted readings on metaphysics and epistemology Blends classic and contemporary works to reveal the historical development and present directions in the fields of metaphysics and epistemology Provides succinct, insightful commentary to introduce the essence of each selection at the beginning of chapters which also serve to inter-link the selected writings.

Links ethical and social questions to build a new approach to metaphysics and epistemologyFundamentally, what are we? And what, if anything, do we know? Minds, bodies; free will; evil; meaningful lives; harmful deaths: do such properties make us whatever we are? Truth; rationality; fallibility; knowledge; observation, reason; sceptical doubts: are these also vital to our being whatever we are?You do not understand yourself and others until you have done battle with those questions. Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy shows you how to do that. It can help you to gain a better philosophy of people's lives. Become a better person too. Be surprised at how easily your thinking philosophically about reality and knowledge can lead to your reflecting on life's ethical complications.

What have the great philosophers written about the nature of knowledge? Epistemology: The Key Thinkers tells the story of how our thinking about knowledge has developed, introducing you to some of the problems and forces that have dominated the history of philosophy. Beginning with Plato, Aristotle, ancient sceptics, and the medievals, before moving to Descartes, the British empiricists, Kant, American pragmatism, and twentieth-century thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. V. O. Quine, Alvin Goldman, and beyond, each chapter guides you through the ideas, contribution, and legacy of a leading philosopher or movement. This second edition includes: · A new chapter covering medieval epistemology · Extended guides to further reading and future directions for epistemology The final chapter looks to the future, highlighting some of the very latest debates that energise philosophical writing today about knowledge and how we know what we know.

We defend a new, neurocognitive version of the view that knowing _that_ is a form of knowing _how_ and its manifestation. Specifically, we argue that knowing that _P_ is knowing how to represent the fact that _P_, ground such a representation in the fact that _P_, use such a representation to guide action with respect to _P_ when needed, store traces of such representations, and exercising the relevant know-how. More precisely, agents acquire knowledge via their neurocognitive systems and neurocognitive systems control organisms by building internal models of their environments and using such models to guide action. Such internal models _implicitly_ represent how things are. When agents’ implicit internal models are grounded in the fact that _P_ and are usable for guiding action with respect to _P_, agents have implicit knowledge that _P_. When agents acquire the additional capacity to manipulate language, they also acquire the capacity to _explicitly_ represent and express that the world is thus-and-so. When agents’ explicit internal models are appropriately grounded in the fact that _P_ and are usable for guiding action with respect to _P_, agents have explicit knowledge that _P_. Thus, both implicit and explicit knowing that _P_ are forms of knowing how to represent that _P_, ground such a representation in _P_, use such a representation to guide action with respect to _P_ when needed, store traces of such representations, and exercising the relevant know-how.

_Self-Knowledge_ introduces philosophical ideas about knowledge and the self. The book takes the form of a personal meditation: it is one person’s attempt to reflect philosophically upon vital aspects of his existence. It shows how profound philosophy can swiftly emerge from intense private reflection upon the details of one’s life and, thus, will help the reader take the first steps toward philosophical self-understanding. Along the way, readers will encounter moments of puzzlement, then clarity, followed by more perplexity and further insights, and then—finally—some philosophical peace of mind.

Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy introduces many of the more developed ideas, issues, and theories from this past century of epistemological reflection. By doing so it captures the current concerns of one of Western philosophy's greatest challenges: understanding the nature of knowledge. Covering recent discussions about scientific, social and self-knowledge, and attempts to understand knowledge naturalistically, contextually and normatively, it follows conceptions of knowledge that have been proposed, defended, replaced, and proposed anew by major contemporary philosophers.

This book is inspired by a single powerful question. What is it to be great as a philosopher? No single grand answer is presumed to be possible; instead, rewardingly close studies of philosophical greatness are developed. This is a scholarly yet accessible volume, blending metaphilosophy with the long history of philosophy and traversing centuries and continents. The result is a series of case studies by accomplished scholars, each chapter trying to understand and convey a particular philosopher's greatness: Lloyd P. Gerson on Plato, Karyn Lai on Zhuangzi, David Bronstein on Aristotle, Jonardon Ganeri on Buddhaghosa, Jeffrey Hause on Aquinas, Gary Hatfield on Descartes, Karen Detlefsen on du Châtelet, Don Garrett on Hume, Allen Wood on Kant, Nicholas F. Stang on Kant, Ken Gemes on Nietzsche, Cheryl Misak on Peirce, and David Macarthur on Wittgenstein. This also serves a larger philosophical purpose. Might we gain increased clarity about what philosophy is in the first place? After all, in practice we individuate philosophy partly through its greatest practitioners' greatest contributions. The book does not discuss every philosopher who has been regarded as great. The point is not to offer a definitive list of The Great Philosophers, but, rather, to learn something about what great philosophy is and might be, from illuminated examples of past greatness -- Provided by publisher.

Stephen Hetherington's prominent career within epistemology has been a series of distinctive, bold, varied and provocative arguments and ideas. Bringing together Hetherington's unique body of writing for the first time, this collection features previously published as well as new material that link his approaches to key issues including knowledge, justification, fallibility, scepticism and the Gettier Problem. Advancing our understanding of the systemic nature of Hetherington's thinking, Stephen Hetherington on Epistemology presents his distinctive perspective on some of philosophy's central questions about knowledge - an inviting blend of forensic detail and 'big picture' proposals.

Post-Gettier epistemology is increasingly modalized epistemology – proposing and debating modally explicable conditionals with suitably epistemic content (an approach initially inspired by Robert Nozick's 1981 account of knowledge), as needing to be added to 'true belief' in order to define or understand knowing's nature. This Element asks whether such modalized attempts – construed as responding to what the author calls Knowing's Further Features question (bequeathed to us by the Meno and the Theaetetus) – can succeed. The answer is that they cannot. Plato's and Aristotle's views on definition reinforce that result. Still, in appreciating this, we might gain insight into knowing's essence. We might find that knowledge is, essentially, nothing more than true belief.

"Divided chronologically into four volumes, The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History presents the history of one of Western philosophy's greatest challenges: understanding the nature of knowledge. Each volume follows conceptions of knowledge that have been proposed, defended, replaced, and proposed anew. Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy covers discussions about scientific knowledge, social knowledge, and self-knowledge, along with attempts to understand knowledge naturalistically, contextually, and normatively. How did contemporary epistemology begin? What shape is it now in? What future seems to await it? The past hundred or so years have included excitement, puzzlement, and apparent progress within epistemology. This volume conveys much of that philosophical ferment and energy."--Bloomsbury Publishing.