Project Details
Description / Abstract
We can come to know something by reasoning to it, as a conclusion, from premises that we know. Belief in the conclusion is warranted because belief in the premises is warranted. In such a case, it is natural to say that the wan-ant for the premises is transmitted to the conclusion. However this cannot, it seems, provide a general model for the acquisition of all knowledge, even if much knowledge is based on reasons. For reasoning needs premises, and it seems that in order to know that one's premises are secure, one must, In turn, have reasons for them. And so on ad Infinitum. If all knowledge is based on reasons, the process of reasoning can never get started. We therefore seem to be forced to acknowledge a category of basic knowledge. Basic knowledge, it appears, will need to be unsupported by articulate reasons, and therefore warranted in a way that does not depend on our having a warrant for anything else.
This train of thought raises some of the most challenging and intriguing puzzles in both traditional and contemporary philosophy. First and foremost, what distinguishes respectable basic knowledge from irrational or arbitrary belief? Knowledge, it seems, should involve belief formed in an intellectually responsible fashion; but how does one exercise responsibility on beliefs that are formed spontaneously, without a substructure of reasons? Where reasons give out so, it seems, does any scope for policing. The project will seek both to elaborate and to test answers to this sceptical challenge by reviewing different possible models for basic knowledge in different areas of our thought, including perceptual knowledge, knowledge by memory, basic mathematical and logical knowledge, and psychological self-knowledge. The work will be informed by, and will be concerned to address, the debate between two very different conceptions of our knowledge in the round: internalism, which holds that knowledge is true belief supported by some form of reflectively certifiable warrant; and externalism, which holds that all that's needed for knowledge is that certain other conditions be met, which reflection cannot always certify - for example, the reliability of the belief-forming method employed. Special attention will be given to a recent important Idea in this area of philosophy, namely that warrant need variably require evidence - that it can be a matter of what's called rational entitlement. A crucial test area for our findings, on which the late stages of the project will concentrate, will be the vexed issue of basic a priori knowledge: the kind of knowledge, seemingly characteristic of fundamental logic and mathematics, in which neither experience nor inference from other known facts plays any role.
This train of thought raises some of the most challenging and intriguing puzzles in both traditional and contemporary philosophy. First and foremost, what distinguishes respectable basic knowledge from irrational or arbitrary belief? Knowledge, it seems, should involve belief formed in an intellectually responsible fashion; but how does one exercise responsibility on beliefs that are formed spontaneously, without a substructure of reasons? Where reasons give out so, it seems, does any scope for policing. The project will seek both to elaborate and to test answers to this sceptical challenge by reviewing different possible models for basic knowledge in different areas of our thought, including perceptual knowledge, knowledge by memory, basic mathematical and logical knowledge, and psychological self-knowledge. The work will be informed by, and will be concerned to address, the debate between two very different conceptions of our knowledge in the round: internalism, which holds that knowledge is true belief supported by some form of reflectively certifiable warrant; and externalism, which holds that all that's needed for knowledge is that certain other conditions be met, which reflection cannot always certify - for example, the reliability of the belief-forming method employed. Special attention will be given to a recent important Idea in this area of philosophy, namely that warrant need variably require evidence - that it can be a matter of what's called rational entitlement. A crucial test area for our findings, on which the late stages of the project will concentrate, will be the vexed issue of basic a priori knowledge: the kind of knowledge, seemingly characteristic of fundamental logic and mathematics, in which neither experience nor inference from other known facts plays any role.
| Status | Finished |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 1/09/09 → 31/08/12 |
| Links | https://gtr.ukri.org:443/projects?ref=AH%2FD503116%2F2 |