Basic information
Time and location
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our class sessions will be held remotely via Webex. To participate, click the Webex link in the course menu panel of our Blackboard page. Classes will be held on Wednesdays from 3:15pm to 6:15pm.
Course description
This course addresses some fundamental problems in epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and the conditions on justified (or rational) belief. We’ll investigate the structure of justification, including just what sorts of things count as evidence and just what role evidence plays in justifying our beliefs. We’ll also discuss what it takes for a belief to count as knowledge and what the relationship is between knowledge and justified belief. Along the way, we’ll examine some powerful skeptical arguments purporting to show that we can’t know, or have justified beliefs about, even the most ordinary facts about the world around us.
Structure
The course will combine lecture and discussion. Sessions will generally begin with a bit of lecture clarifying material from the week’s reading, after which we’ll move into a period of student-led critical discussion. We’ll then close the session either with another bit of lecture introducing relevant background material for the following week’s reading or, sometimes, with an argument mapping workshop.
Goals
The primary aims of the course are to familiarize students with some foundational issues in epistemology and to enable students to think analytically about these issues.
Materials
Some of the readings for the course are available in Richard Feldman’s textbook Epistemology, available here. All other readings are linked from our Schedule page. To access any of these readings, you must be (i) logged in to your University account and (ii) enrolled in this course (or otherwise explicitly granted access by me – if you need access, send me an email). You can log in to your University account here. All of the readings can also be accessed via the Content link in the menu panel of our Blackboard page.
The main tool we’ll be using for argument analysis is the free online tool MindMup – in particular, its Argument Visualization mode.
Policies
Work and expectations
Attendance is mandatory.
Critical discussion periods will be student-led. Starting in the third week of the course, one or more students will be responsible for chairing each session: directing the discussion based on the week’s readings and students’ responses to those readings (see below). We’ll decide on a chairing rotation early in the semester, and it will be added to our Schedule page.
In order to facilitate discussion (and to clarify to me what points need to be emphasized in lecture), you’ll be required to submit a short response to each week’s assigned readings: two questions or comments, 150 words at most. These responses should either (i) request clarification about something from the reading you had trouble understanding or (ii) bear on the guiding questions I’ve posted for that week’s reading. You should email your response to me and to that week’s chair(s) by the end of the day on the Monday before our class session.
The other assignments for the course will be three argument maps, a short midterm paper, and a slightly longer final paper (which may be a newly revised and expanded version of your midterm paper, if you like). See the Assignments page for more details.
Grading
Your grade in the course will be calculated as follows:
- Chairing and class participation (including attendance): 10%
- Weekly reading responses: 15%
- Argument maps: 20%
- Midterm paper: 20%
- Final paper: 35%
Academic support
If you have any problems with the course, please do get in touch with me. If you need to talk about any problems affecting your work, please contact the Head of the Department, Alexander Hieke (alexander[dot]hieke[at]plus[dot]ac[dot]at).