In this paper, I develop a new interpretation of Quine’s epistemology in the hopes of clarifying the relationship between naturalized epistemology and traditional epistemology. Quine’s naturalized epistemology is commonly criticized on the grounds that it amounts to giving up on traditional epistemological projects in favor of projects in natural science. But, I argue, this criticism rests on a mistaken interpretation of Quine’s epistemology. This is because Quine’s naturalized epistemology retains an important meliorative (...) component; part of its aim is to improve our systems of beliefs. Quine’s approach emphasizes improving our beliefs by engaging in conceptual clarification, which is a central part of both traditional and naturalized epistemology, as well as, on Quine’s conception, scientific inquiry. Thus, I argue, a central task of naturalized epistemology is to clarify science from within. Once this is properly understood, it is evident that Quine’s naturalized epistemology constitutes a re-orientation, rather than a wholesale rejection, of the projects of traditional epistemology. (shrink)

In this article, I reply to Juli Eflin's “Epistemic Presuppositions and Their Consequences.” I query Eflin's construal of the aims, scope and method of traditional epistemology, and go on to evaluate several of the central characteristics of Eflin's positive account – pluralistic virtue epistemology.

After Hume, attempts to forge an empiricist epistemology have taken three forms, which I shall call the First, Middle, and Third Way. The First still attempts an a priori demonstration that our cognitive methods satisfy some criterion of adequacy. The Middle Way is pursued under the banners of naturalism and scientific realism, and aims at the same conclusion on non-apriori grounds. After arguing that both fail, I shall describe the general characteristics of the Third Way, an alternative epistemology (...) suitable for empiricism. (shrink)

The standard definition of knowledge and the concept of objective knowledge, as they were described in the epistemology sprung from the Vienna Circle, are too restricted in comparison with our natural disposal to admit different beliefs as reliable. The main guilt for this state of arts in epistemology belongs to the so- called, in Wolterstorff’s terms, “doxastic ideal”, namely, the traditional picture of the ideally formed beliefs. Locke’s view of entitlement was the modern expression of this ideal (...) and Hume’s analysis of beliefs about future was its first powerful criticism. If we succeed in rejecting this ideal, then it become possible to extend the epistemological analysis over other sorts of beliefs, religious beliefs included. (shrink)

A radical opponent of Western higher education asserts that its pedagogy and content depend on belief in objective truth and knowledge. This epistemology and education are attacked as exclusive and domineering toward women, minorities, and non-Westerners. The critic puts forward a pragmatist epistemology, leading to multi-cultural education aimed at social criticism and personal autonomy. The critic's dialogue with a defender of traditional epistemological ideas provides a critical introduction to the claims justifying many radical criticisms of Western curricula (...) and pedagogy. (shrink)

In Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa takes “reliabilist” virtue epistemology deep into “responsibilist” territory, arguing that “a true epistemology” will assign “responsibilist-cum-reliabilist intellectual virtue the main role in addressing concerns at the center of the tradition.” However, Sosa stops short of granting this status to familiar responsibilist virtues like open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. He cites three reasons for doing so: responsibilist virtues involve excessive motivational demands; they are quasi-ethical; and they are best understood, not as constituting (...) knowledge, but rather as putting one “in a position” to know. I elaborate on and respond to each of these concerns. I argue that none of them provides Sosa with a good reason for excluding responsibilist virtues from occupying a central role in his reliabilist virtue epistemology. I conclude that Sosa owes virtue responsibilism an even wider embrace. (shrink)

Traditional epistemological reflection on our beliefs about the world attempts to proceed without presupposing or ineliminably depending upon any claims about the world. It has been argued that epistemological externalism fails to engage in the right way with the motivations for this project. I argue, however, that epistemological externalism satisfyingly undermines this project. If we accept the thesis that certain conditions other than the truth of one's belief must obtain in the world outside of one's mind in order for (...) one to have knowledge (or justified belief) about the world, then there is no good intellectual motivation for taking up the traditional project. This results stands even if we accept the traditional theses that knowledge requires justified belief and that justified belief requires the ability to provide good reasons for one's belief. (shrink)

A Lockean metaphysics of belief that understands outright belief as a determinable with degrees of confidence as determinates is supposed to effect a unification of traditional coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected (...) phenomenon of “mistuned knowledge” – knowledge in the absence of rational confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured, even without token identity, given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification. (shrink)

Traditional epistemological reflection on our beliefs about the world attempts to proceed without presupposing or ineliminably depending upon any claims about the world. It has been argued that epistemological externalism fails to engage in the right way with the motivations for this project. I argue, however, that epistemological externalism satisfyingly undermines this project. If we accept the thesis that certain conditions other than the truth of one's belief must obtain in the world outside of one's mind in order for (...) one to have knowledge (or justified belief) about the world, then there is no good intellectual motivation for taking up the traditional project. This results stands even if we accept the traditional theses that knowledge requires justified belief and that justified belief requires the ability to provide good reasons for one's belief. (shrink)

[This is a paper that was originally written in 2017 and doesn't represent Silva's current thinking about degrees of confidence, conviction, and rationality.] Can there be knowledge and rational belief in the absence of a rational degree of confidence? Yes, and cases of "mistuned knowledge" demonstrate this. In this paper we leverage this normative possibility in support of advancing our understanding of the metaphysical relation between belief and credence. It is generally assumed that a Lockean metaphysics of belief that reduces (...) outright belief to degrees of confidence would immediately effect a unification of coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. Scott Sturgeon has suggested that the unification is effected by understanding the relation between outright belief and confidence as an instance of the determinable-determinate relation. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected phenomenon of “mistuned knowledge”—knowledge and rational belief in the absence of rational confidence. We contend that there are genuine cases of mistuned knowledge and that, therefore, epistemological unification must forego token identity of belief and high confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence even without token-identity. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification. (shrink)

The explanation [of scientific change and problem solving] must, in the final analysis, be psychological or sociological. It must, that is, be a description of a value system, an ideology, together with an analysis of the institutions through which that system is transmitted and enforced. Thomas Kuhn Traditional epistemology with its concentration… on knowledge in the subjective sense, is irrelevant to the study of scientific knowledge. Karl Popper.

Paul Churchland's philosophical work enjoys an increasing popularity. His imaginative papers on cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology are widely discussed. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979), his major book, is an important contribution to the debate on realism. Churchland provides us with the intellectual tools for constructing a unified scientific Weltanschauung. His network theory of language implies a provocative view of the relation between science and common sense. This paper contains a critical examination of Churchland's network (...) theory of language, which is the foundation of his philosophy. It is argued that the network theory should be seen as deriving its point from traditional empiricism. The network theory enables the empiricist to resist the phenomenalistic temptations inherent in his position, and to build a realist philosophy on the basis of the representative theory of perception. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the representative theory is presupposed by Churchland's main argument in favour of the network view. Churchland tends to conceive of himself as a naturalistic epistemologist. But the philosophical faction to which Churchland belongs is rather that of modern neo?Kantianism. (shrink)

Current debates about the integration of traditional and academic ecological knowledge struggle with a dilemma of division and assimilation. On the one hand, the emphasis on differences between traditional and academic perspectives has been criticized as creating an artificial divide that brands TEK as “non-scientific” and contributes to its marginalization. On the other hand, there has been increased concern about inadequate assimilation of Indigenous and other traditional perspectives into scientific practices that disregards the holistic nature and values (...) of TEK. The aim of this article is to develop a practice-based account of the epistemic relations between TEK and AEK that avoids both horns of the dilemma. While relations between TEK and AEK are often described in terms of the “holistic” nature of the former and the “mechanistic” character of the latter, we argue that a simple holism–mechanism divide misrepresents the epistemic resources of both TEK and AEK. Based on the literature on mechanistic explanations in philosophy of science, we argue that holders of TEK are perfectly capable of identifying mechanisms that underlie ecological phenomena while AEK often relies on non-mechanistic strategies of dealing with ecological complexity. Instead of generic characterizations of knowledge systems as either mechanistic or holistic, we propose to approach epistemic relations between knowledge systems by analyzing their heuristics in practice. (shrink)

Following the standard view, scientific theories are formal systems, which receive empirical content by way of certain correspondence rules. The task of philosophy of science is then to make explicit the structure of such systems. In contrast to this view, one can point to the French tradition in philosophy of science. What characterizes this tradition is recourse to historical study, which has evolved from an attempt to bridge the fields of philosophy of science and history of science by a closer (...) integration of conceptual and historical methods. My aim in this paper is to explore the emergence of historical epistemology in France and its later revival at an international level. Attention is directed at the presuppositions and motivations underlying such an approach. (shrink)

Many philosophers have equated the denial of foundationalism with a call for coherentist approaches to epistemology. I think such equations are spurious, and to show why this is so I contrast the views of a paradigmatic coherentist with an antifoundationalist alternative. This article examines the coherentism of Laurence BonJour with an eye toward the way in which BonJour's views fail to fully adopt the insights of their Sellarsian roots. In particular, I argue that BonJour's view endorses the philosophy of (...) mind that Wilfrid Sellars criticized in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" - which itself may be no sin , but is a problem given BonJour's express sympathies with Sellars and EPM. I begin by contrasting the approaches taken by BonJour in The Structure of Empirical Knowledge and by Sellars in EPM, arguing that one could deny foundationalism without, thereby, becoming a coherentist. (shrink)

Many philosophers have equated the denial of foundationalism with a call for coherentist approaches to epistemology. I think such equations are spurious, and to show why this is so I contrast the views of a paradigmatic coherentist with an antifoundationalist alternative. This article examines the coherentism of Laurence BonJour with an eye toward the way in which BonJour's views fail to fully adopt the insights of their Sellarsian roots. In particular, I argue that BonJour's view endorses the philosophy of (...) mind that Wilfrid Sellars criticized in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" - which itself may be no sin, but is a problem given BonJour's express sympathies with Sellars and EPM. I begin by contrasting the approaches taken by BonJour in The Structure of Empirical Knowledge and by Sellars in EPM, arguing that one could deny foundationalism without, thereby, becoming a coherentist. (shrink)

Standpoint epistemology, the view that social identity is relevant to knowledge-acquisition, has been consigned to the margins of mainstream philosophy. In part, this is because the principles of standpoint epistemology are taken to be in opposition to those which guide traditional epistemology. One goal of this paper is to tease out the characterization of traditional epistemology that is at odds with standpoint epistemology. The characterization of traditional epistemology that I put forth (...) is one which endorses the thesis of intellectualism, the view that knowledge does not depend on non-epistemic features. I then suggest that two further components – the atomistic view of knowers and aperspectivalism – can be usefully interpreted as supporting features of intellectualism. A further goal of this paper is to show that we ought to resist this characterization of traditional epistemology. I use pragmatic encroachment as a dialectical tool to motivate the denial of intellectualism, and consequently, the denial of both supporting components. I then attempt to show how it is possible to have a view, similar to pragmatic encroachment, that takes social identity, rather than stakes, to be the feature that makes a difference to what a person is in a position to know. (shrink)

I consider the problem liberalism poses for bioethics.Liberalism is a view that advocates that the state remain neutralto views of the good life. This view is sometimes supported by askeptical moral epistemology that tends to propel liberalismtoward libertarianism. I argue that the possibilities for sharedagreement on moral matters are more promising than is sometimesappreciated by such a view of liberalism. Using two examples ofpublic debates of moral issues, I show that commonly sharedintuitions may ground moral principles even if they (...) may be givendifferent weight by persons of different moral and religioustraditions. Nevertheless, the fact that the intuition andprinciple is widely shared may be sufficient to chart somedirections for public policy or cooperative action even if theydo not lead to complete agreement. As a result, I argue that aliberal communitarianism that presupposes a fairly minimalistepistemology is a legitimate approach to achieving sharedagreement in a pluralistic society. (shrink)

Probabilistic epistemology holds that probability is an essential ingredient of science and human knowledge at large, and that induction is a necessary constituent of the scientific method. Developed in some detail by a number of authors including Patrick Suppes, Richard Jeffrey and Brian Skyrms, this view has been embraced by so many, as to gradually become predominant. While probabilistic epistemology has been growing, awareness of its origins was somehow left behind. Probabilistic epistemology is usually seen as a (...) product of the encounter of logical empiricism with American pragmatism. Without denying the impact of such an encounter, it is argued that the probabilistic approach was already part of the European scenario before the dissolution of logical empiricism in the late 1930s. Notably, such an approach is not linked to a particular interpretation of probability, having been endorsed by upholders of different probability notions, including Janina Hosiasson, Frank Plumpton Ramsey, Bruno de Finetti, Harold Jeffreys, and Hans Reichenbach, to mention only those authors whose contribution is addressed here. The list could extend to the French probabilists Émile Borel and Maurice Fréchet, and others not considered in this survey. The work of so many authors operating at the four corners of Europe in the first decades of the 19th century reflects a European tradition in probabilistic epistemology, somewhat overshadowed in the literature by the attention paid to logical empiricism. (shrink)

With the rise of place-based models of education, credence needs to be given to epistemological traditions that curate individual understandings of and relations to the social world (i.e., places). The epistemological traditions that have been shared across generations of North American settler colonialists are at the center of this article. The dominant epistemology of settler society provides racialized, anthropocentric, and capitalistic understandings of places. Relations to place are cultivated through particular conceptions of nature, private property, and personhood, which remain (...) at the epistemic foundation of Western society. These conceptions are concomitant to modes of domination like white supremacy and settler colonialism, and ultimately constitute an ideal white male settler actor. This article suggests that place-based education carries the potential to offer epistemic resistance to domination, but first needs to engage in a more comprehensive understanding of settler traditions of place. (shrink)

An explication of the Maimonidean view that tradition--even when anchored in revelation---can be a mode of access to rationally justified moral requirements. The discussion focuses on the mutually reinforcing roles of enlarging understanding on the one hand, and engagement in practice on the other. Deepened understanding of the 'reasons for the commandments' can motivate commitment to practice, which in turn can aid in deepening understanding.

With a special reference to Jaina epistemology and logic.

Furthering our project of applying Plantinga’s epistemology to different world religions, we do a comparative study of Mormonism and Vaiśeṣika Hinduism and analyze whether they can utilize Plantinga’s epistemology in order to claim that their beliefs about God if true are probably warranted. Specifically, we argue that they cannot, as ultimately they are unable to account for the preconditions needed to make for an intelligible cognitive design plan, due to either affirming an infinite regress when it comes to (...) the designers of our cognitive faculties or affirming an infinite number of cosmological cycles in which our faculties are formed. (shrink)

In this sweeping volume, Christopher Norris challenges the view that there is no room for productive engagement between mainstream analytic philosophers and thinkers in the post-Kantian continental line of descent. On the contrary, he argues, this view is simply the product of a limiting perspective that accompanied the rise of logical positivism. Norris reveals the various shared concerns that have often been obscured by parochial interests or the desire to stake out separate philosophical territory. He examines the problems that emerged (...) within the analytic tradition as a result of its turn against Husserlian phenomenology and its outright rejection of what came to be seen as a merely "psychologistic" approach to issues of meaning, knowledge, and truth. Norris shows how these problems have resurfaced in various forms from the heyday of logical empiricism to the present. He provides critical readings of such philosophers as Willard Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Michael Dummett, Thomas Nagel, and John McDowell. He also offers a running discussion of Wittgenstein's influence and its harmful effect in promoting a placidly consensus-based theory of knowledge. On the continental side, Norris argues for a reassessment of Husserl's phenomenological project and its potential contribution to present-day Anglo-American debates in epistemology and philosophy of science. He discusses Bachelard, Canguilhem, and the French tradition of rationalisme applique as an alternative to Kuhnian conceptions of scientific paradigm change. This leads him to suggest a non-Wittgensteinian way around the problems that have dogged more traditional theories of knowledge andtruth. In two chapters on the work of Jacques Derrida, Norris explores the "supplementary" logic of deconstruction and compares it with other recent proposals for a nonstandard logic. Here again he stresses the community of interests between the two philosophical cultures and the extent to which continental thinking has engaged certain issues with a rigor largely ignored by Anglophone writers. By bringing a fresh perspective to questions that have often been considered the exclusive preserve of analytic philosophy, Norris offers an overview of current debates that is at once refreshingly open-minded and sure of its own argumentative bearings. (shrink)

Offers an extremely bold, far-reaching, and unsuspected thesis in the history of philosophy: Aristotelianism was a dominant movement of the British philosophical landscape, especially in the field of logic, and it had a long survival. British Aristotelian doctrines were strongly empiricist in nature, both in the theory of knowledge and in scientific method; this character marked and influenced further developments in British philosophy at the end of the century, and eventually gave rise to what we now call British empiricism, which (...) is represented by philosophers such as John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. Beyond the apparent and explicit criticism of the old Scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy, which has been very well recognized by the scholarship in the twentieth century and which has contributed to the false notion that early modern philosophy emerged as a reaction to Aristotelianism, the present research examines the continuity, the original developments and the impact of Aristotelian doctrines and terminology in logic and epistemology as the background for the rise of empiricism.Without the Aristotelian tradition, without its doctrines, and without its conceptual elaborations, British empiricism would never have been born. The book emphasizes that philosophy is not defined only by the ‘great names’, but also by minor authors, who determine the intellectual milieu from which the canonical names emerge. It considers every single published work of logic between the middle of the sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth century, being acquainted with a number of surviving manuscripts and being well-informed about the best existing scholarship in the field. ​. (shrink)

This book not only articulates a tradition-specific Pentecostal rationality of Biblical Pragmatism, but also provides the first intellectual history of a major British classical Pentecostal denomination. Pentecostal theologians increasingly acknowledge that their theological methodology should be informed by a Pentecostal rationality, epistemology and theological hermeneutics. Simo Frestadius offers such a Pentecostal rationality from a Foursquare perspective. Frestadius first analyses and evaluates some of the main contemporary Pentecostal rationalities and epistemologies to date, with a particular emphasis on the works of (...) Amos Yong and James K.A. Smith and L. William Oliverio Jr., before proposing that Alasdair MacIntyre's tradition-focused and historically-minded narrative approach is conducive in providing a more tradition-constituted Pentecostal rationality. Utilising the methodological insights of MacIntyre, the book then provides a philosophically informed historical narrative of a major British Pentecostal tradition, namely, the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance, by exploring its underlying context and roots as a classical Pentecostal movement, its emergence as a religious tradition, and its two major 'epistemological crises'. Based on this historical narration and analysis, it is argued that Elim's tacit Pentecostal rationality is best defined as Pentecostal Biblical Pragmatism in a Foursquare Gospel framework. This form of rationality is then developed vis-à-vis Elim's Pentecostal concept of truth, biblical hermeneutics, and pragmatic epistemic justification in dialogue with William P. Alston. In doing the above, the book not only articulates a tradition-specific Pentecostal rationality of Biblical Pragmatism but also provides the first intellectual history of a major British classical Pentecostal denomination. (shrink)

Bayesian epistemology addresses epistemological problems with the help of the mathematical theory of probability. It turns out that the probability calculus is especially suited to represent degrees of belief (credences) and to deal with questions of belief change, confirmation, evidence, justification, and coherence. Compared to the informal discussions in traditional epistemology, Bayesian epis- temology allows for a more precise and fine-grained analysis which takes the gradual aspects of these central epistemological notions into account. Bayesian epistemology therefore (...) complements traditional epistemology; it does not re- place it or aim at replacing it. (shrink)

This article evaluates Karl Popper's contribution to analytic philosophy, and outlines some of the contradictions in his work which make it difficult to locate in any particular tradition. In particular, the article investigates Popper's own claims to be a member of the rationalist tradition. Although Popper described himself as a member of this tradition, his definition of it diverged quite radically from that offered by other supporters of rationalism, like, for example, Mach, Carnap, and the logical positivists of the Vienna (...) Circle. The reason for this was that Popper believed the rationalist tradition, if it were to remain coherent and relevant, needed to overcome the dilemma posed by Hume's problem of induction. Popper believed that this problem rendered conventional understandings of rationalism, science, and inductive reasoning incoherent. This article suggests that Popper's principal contribution to modern philosophy was to reconfigure the rationalist tradition in such a way as to circumvent the problem of induction while preserving the rationalist commitment to reason, rational debate, and objective knowledge. Popper's reconfiguration of the epistemological bases of the rationalist tradition challenged dominant understandings of rationalist and analytic philosophy, and may be appropriately understood as part of a wider move among philosophers like Quine and Putnam to challenge conventional understandings of analytic philosophy, and of what philosophy itself could and could not achieve. It also informed a vision of social and political life (and of the social and political sciences) as rooted in principles of freedom, equality, and rational debate, but which cannot be fit within the traditional ideological landscape. (shrink)

So-called “traditional epistemology” and “Bayesian epistemology” share a word, but it may often seem that the enterprises hardly share a subject matter. They differ in their central concepts. They differ in their main concerns. They differ in their main theoretical moves. And they often differ in their methodology. However, in the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to build bridges between the two epistemologies. Indeed, many would say that there is just one (...) branch of philosophy here—epistemology. There is a common subject matter after all. In this paper, we begin by playing the role of a “bad cop,” emphasizing many apparent points of disconnection, and even conflict, between the approaches to epistemology. We then switch role, playing a “good cop” who insists that the approaches are engaged in common projects after all. We look at various ways in which the gaps between them have been bridged, and we consider the prospects for bridging them further. We conclude that this is an exciting time for epistemology, as the two traditions can learn, and have started learning, from each other. (shrink)

Many current problems surrounding science revolve around the complex epistemological framework that shapes a new vision of knowledge about reality. The traditional epistemological positions are characterized by the explanation of nature by means of concatenated facts; that is, as bricks attached to each other giving shape to the edifice of science. A conception of this nature showed that the idea of certainty was nothing more than a mere illusion, opening the way, on the contrary, to the idea of the (...) uncertainty of knowledge based on the descriptions of quantum physics, also a product of the non-reductionist conception of reality, thus criticizing the specular representation. This article addresses the main problems surrounding the critical conceptions that the emerging epistemology reveals about knowledge, pointing towards a much more complex vision of reality. (shrink)

What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.

Root, branch, and blossom, attention is intertwined with epistemology. It is essential to our capacity to learn and decisive of the evidence we obtain, it influences the intellectual connections we forge and those we remember, and it is the cognitive tool whereby we enact decisions about inquiry. Moreover, because it is both an epistemic practice and a site of agency, attention is a natural locus for questions about epistemic morality. This article surveys the emerging epistemology of attention, reviewing (...) the existing literature and sketching avenues for future investigation. It also argues for a reorientation of epistemology itself. This argument is the focus of Section 1. Section 2 briefly reviews philosophical accounts of attention, Section 3 focuses on issues in traditional, individualistic epistemology, and Section 4 turns to social epistemology. (shrink)

This volume provides a detailed resume of current knowledge about the classical Indian Philosophical systems of Nyaya and Vaisesika in their earlier stages, i.e ...

Starting from the acceptance of the Egalitarian Principle I exhibited a version which I considered too lax (BEP) and one I considered too strict (NEP), arriving at a version (MEP) which allows that there can be tolerance-limiting reasons for adhering to traditions but only if they are based on unreasoned knowledge claims. In fact, I hold that the situation most of us find ourselves in restricts such claims on religious topics to very general ones. Hence the choice between NEP and (...) MEP is not significant.It follows that we should take up one of two positions concerning religious traditions: either we argue from the shared assumptions of a variety of traditions without genuine participation in any of them; or we justify participation in one of them by noting various marks of reliability, such as serendipitous understanding. (shrink)

Abstract. Traditional epistemology of knowledge and belief can be succinctly characterized as JTB-epistemology, i.e., it is characterized by the thesis that knowledge is justified true belief. Since Gettier’s trail-blazing paper of 1963 this account has become under heavy attack. The aim of is paper is to study the Gettier problem and related issues in the framework of topological epistemic logic. It is shown that in the framework of topological epistemic logic Gettier situations necessarily occur for most topological (...) models of knowledge and belief. On the other hand, there exists a special class of topological models (based on so called nodec spaces) for which traditional JTB-epistemology is valid. Further, it is shown that for each topological model of Stalnaker’s combined logic KB of knowledge and belief a canonical JTB-model (its JTB-doppelganger) can be constructed that shares many structural properties with the original model but is free of Gettier situations. The topological model and its JTB-doppelganger both share the same justified belief operator and have very similar knowledge operators. Seen from a somewhat different perspective, the JTB-account of epistemology amounts to a simplification of a more general epistemological account of knowledge and belief that assumes that these two concepts may differ in some cases. The JTB-account of knowledge and belief assumes that the epistemic agent’s cognitive powers are rather large. Thereby in the JTB-epistemology Gettier cases do not occur. Eventually, it is shown that for all topological models of Stalnaker’s KB-logic Gettier situations are topologically characterized as nowhere dense situations. This entails that Gettier situations are epistemologically invisible in the sense that they can neither be known nor believed with justification with respect to the knowledge operator and the belief operator of the models involved. (shrink)