01 / Reading Guide
Reading Guide
Knowledge and evidence: follow a reason to its source
Compare an open epistemology introduction, a systematic source-based course and knowledge-first theory, then analyse an original testimony-and-defeat packet.
Study route and exercise: University Reading List editorial project.
Who this book is for
For students beginning epistemology who want more than a list of definitions. The chapters can support a first course or guided independent reading, especially when paired with short original arguments. Readers learn to ask which account of knowledge is being defended and what a proposed counterexample actually challenges.
Prerequisites
No earlier philosophy course is assumed. Practice identifying a conclusion and the reasons offered for it. The probability chapter is easier with elementary probability, but formal mathematics is not a prerequisite for the whole volume.
What it covers
The volume examines analyses of knowledge, justification, rationalism, empiricism, Kant and skepticism. Later chapters connect knowing with value, intellectual duty and virtue, Bayesian approaches, social relations and feminist epistemology. The combination helps readers see that evaluating an individual belief and evaluating a community’s practices are related but different tasks.
How to use it
Keep a notebook of cases in which someone has a true belief. Ask what additional condition would make that belief knowledge, then test the condition against another case. Reconstruct one skeptical argument premise by premise and locate the reply’s disputed assumption. When reading social epistemology, identify whose testimony counts as evidence and why. Follow references to an original text before treating an introductory formulation as the final position.
Edition and sources
Published by Rebus Community in August 2021, this collection has Brian C. Barnett as book editor and Christina Hendricks as series editor. The print ISBN is 9781989014264. The official site supplies the complete text under CC BY 4.0 except where otherwise noted; the electronic edition has a different ISBN. Publisher or author record.
