What is this thing called Knowledge?

Citation

Pritchard, D. (2023). What is this thing called Knowledge? (5th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The fifth edition has 22 short chapters, most of seven to thirteen pages, grouped into six parts that each pose a question. A preface and a "How to use this book" section come first; a guide to further reading, a glossary of terms and an index come last. Every chapter opens with a list of its sections and closes with a chapter summary, study questions, introductory and advanced further reading and free internet resources, and text boxes introduce key concepts and major philosophers. The publisher describes the fifth edition as revised throughout, with a new part on social epistemology (Part 4). The chapters are largely independent, so instructors can choose among them.

Part 1: What is knowledge? (Chapters 1–6: Some preliminaries; The value of knowledge; Defining knowledge; The structure of knowledge; Rationality; Virtues and faculties)

Chapter 1 distinguishes types of knowledge and sets out its two basic requirements, truth and belief, before asking what separates knowing from merely getting it right. Chapter 2 asks why we should care about knowledge, contrasting the instrumental value of true belief with the value of knowledge and using Plato's image in the Meno of the statues of Daedalus, which run away unless tethered. Chapter 3 begins with the problem of the criterion and moves on to Gettier cases, which the study questions ask readers to construct for themselves. Chapter 4 relates knowledge to justification and presents Agrippa's trilemma with its three responses: infinitism, coherentism and foundationalism. Chapter 5 separates epistemic rationality from justification and asks what its goal is and how much it matters. Chapter 6 covers reliabilism, a Gettier-style problem for it, and virtue epistemology, ending with the externalism/internalism distinction.

Part 2: Where does knowledge come from? (Chapters 7–10: Perception; Testimony and memory; A priority and inference; The problem of induction)

Chapter 7 sets out the problem of perceptual knowledge and the main responses: indirect realism, idealism, transcendental idealism and direct realism. Chapter 8 asks whether testimony and memory need independent grounds to be trusted, contrasting views that demand such grounds with "credulist" views that give these sources a default standing, which can be developed along externalist lines. Chapter 9 distinguishes a priori from empirical knowledge, discusses introspective knowledge, and introduces deduction, induction and abduction. Chapter 10 presents the problem of induction and responses to it, including Karl Popper's proposal that science proceeds by falsification rather than induction.

Part 3: What kinds of knowledge are there? (Chapters 11–13: Scientific knowledge; Religious knowledge; Moral knowledge)

Chapter 11 asks what science is, how to separate it from pseudo-science (with reference to a 1982 US court case decided by Judge William Overton), and what Kuhn's account of scientific revolutions implies. Chapter 12 asks whether there is any religious knowledge, setting out the evidentialist challenge and the responses of natural theology, fideism and reformed epistemology. Chapter 13 takes up scepticism about moral facts and about moral knowledge and then theories of the nature of moral knowledge, beginning with classical foundationalism.

Part 4: What are the social dynamics of knowledge? (Chapters 14–15: Disagreement; Ignorance and epistemic injustice)

New in this edition, the part opens with peer disagreement, contrasting conciliationism, the view that disagreement with an epistemic peer should always lower one's confidence, with alternatives. Chapter 15 contrasts traditional views of ignorance with ignorance as a normative standing, introduces vice epistemology, and explains Miranda Fricker's distinction between testimonial and hermeneutical injustice.

Part 5: How can the theory of knowledge be applied to particular domains? (Chapters 16–19: Technology; Education; Law; Politics)

These applied chapters examine our growing dependence on technology and whether knowledge can be "extended" into devices; the epistemic goals of education and the place of intellectual virtue and technology in it; puzzles about legal evidence, including merely statistical evidence and rules of evidence that may work against reaching the truth; and the epistemology of political life. Among the topics these chapters treat are misleading testimony spread for political ends and fake news on social media.

Part 6: Do we have any knowledge? (Chapters 20–22: Scepticism about other minds; Radical scepticism; Truth and objectivity)

Chapter 20 presents the problem of other minds and the argument from analogy often attributed to Mill. Chapter 21 develops radical scepticism through the closure principle and sceptical hypotheses such as the brain in a vat, and assesses responses including contextualism. Chapter 22 closes the book with questions about truth and objectivity.

Key Concepts

Part 1: What is knowledge?

• Knowing versus getting it right: knowledge requires more than true belief arrived at by luck.
• Gettier cases: justified true beliefs that fail to be knowledge.
• Agrippa's trilemma: the choice between an infinite chain, a circle or a stopping point in the justification of belief, answered by infinitism, coherentism and foundationalism.
• Virtue epistemology: knowledge as true belief that results from the exercise of reliable cognitive abilities.

Part 2: Where does knowledge come from?

• Direct and indirect realism: whether perception gives us awareness of the world itself or only of experiences that represent it.
• Credulism: the view that testimony and memory may be trusted by default, without independent grounds.
• Problem of induction: the challenge to justify inferences from observed to unobserved cases.

Parts 3–4: Kinds of knowledge; Social dynamics

• Falsificationism: Popper's view that science advances by testing bold hypotheses against refutation.
• Evidentialist challenge: the demand that religious belief be supported by adequate evidence.
• Peer disagreement and conciliationism: how to respond when an equally informed and capable person disagrees.
• Epistemic injustice: wrongs done to people in their capacity as knowers, in testimonial and hermeneutical forms.

Parts 5–6: Applied epistemology; Scepticism

• Extended knowledge: the idea that knowledge can depend on technology integrated into our cognition.
• Statistical evidence: the puzzle of why strong statistical evidence alone seems insufficient for a legal verdict.
• Closure principle: if one knows a proposition and knows it entails another, one knows the second, the premise used in radical sceptical arguments.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built for teaching. Each chapter has a section list, summary, study questions, two levels of further reading and internet resources, and the book adds a glossary and a guide to further reading. Markus Lammenranta, quoted by the publisher on an earlier edition, singles out the summaries, reading suggestions and largely independent chapters as making the book flexible for instructors and students.
• Unusual breadth for a first textbook. Besides the core topics (definition, structure and sources of knowledge, scepticism), it covers scientific, religious and moral knowledge, social epistemology, and applications to technology, education, law and politics.
• Up to date. The new part on disagreement, ignorance and epistemic injustice, and chapters on fake news, extended knowledge and statistical evidence, connect the subject to current research and public concerns.
• Short chapters. At about ten pages each, chapters can be set as single readings for a seminar.

Limitations

• Breadth at the cost of depth. With 22 chapters in under 300 pages, many topics, especially in Parts 3 and 5, receive an overview rather than sustained argument, and students moving on to research articles will need a more systematic textbook.
• Thin history. Historical figures (Plato, Hume, Mill, Kuhn) appear as they bear on particular problems; there is no chapter-by-chapter treatment of the history of epistemology.
• Edition differences. Each edition has added and reorganised chapters (the fourth introduced the applied chapters, the fifth the social epistemology part), so readings and page numbers set from earlier editions may not match.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the course's main first textbook for epistemology. Jennifer Nagel's Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction is a much shorter overview that can be read in a few sittings before starting Pritchard, or alongside Parts 1 and 6, which cover similar ground. After Pritchard, Noah Lemos's An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge and Robert Audi's Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction take the theories of knowledge and justification further and in more depth, and are the natural next step for students who want more argument per topic.

The two research monographs in the course build on particular chapters. Chapter 6, on reliabilism and virtue epistemology, is the right preparation for Ernest Sosa's A Virtue Epistemology. Williamson's Knowledge and Its Limits, which argues that knowledge cannot be analysed into belief plus further conditions, is best approached after Chapters 2 and 3 on the value and definition of knowledge, which present the analytical project Williamson rejects.

How to Use This Book

No previous study of philosophy is needed; the book's own "How to use this book" section explains its features and is worth reading first. For a one-term introduction, Parts 1, 2 and 6 form the core (Chapters 1–10 and 20–22). Part 4 is now the natural place for social epistemology, and the chapters of Parts 3 and 5 can be chosen to suit the course or a student's interests: Chapter 11 for those also studying philosophy of science, Chapter 18 for law students, Chapter 16 or 19 for those interested in technology or politics.

Use the apparatus actively. Read the section list before each chapter and the summary after it, then answer the study questions in writing without looking back; several ask you to build your own examples, such as a Gettier case or an application of Agrippa's trilemma, which is the best test of understanding. The glossary is useful for revision, and the introductory further reading is the place to go before attempting the advanced items.