Epistemology Personalized

Philosophical Quarterly 67 (269):813-834 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Recent epistemology has focused almost exclusively on propositional knowledge. This paper considers an underexplored area of epistemology, namely knowledge of persons: if propositional knowledge is a state of mind, consisting in a subject's attitude to a (true) proposition, the account developed here thinks of interpersonal knowledge as a state of minds, involving a subject's attitude to another (existing) subject. This kind of knowledge is distinct from propositional knowledge, but it exhibits a gradability characteristic of context-sensitivity, and admits of shifty thresholds. It is supported by a wide range of unexplored linguistic data and intuitive cases; and it promises to illuminate debates within epistemology, philosophy of religion, and ethics.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

God and Interpersonal Knowledge.Matthew A. Benton - 2018 - Res Philosophica 95 (3):421-447.
Knowledge and God.Matthew A. Benton - 2024 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Contrastive Self-knowledge.Sarah Sawyer - 2014 - Social Epistemology 28 (2):139-152.
The epistemology of “On Sense and Reference”.Junyeol Kim - 2023 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 2 (2):1-17.
Virtue Epistemology as Anti-luck Epistemology.Alexey Z. Chernyak - 2021 - Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 58 (4):77-94.
"What Is Knowledge?".Linda Zagzebski - 1999 - In John Greco & Ernest Sosa, The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 92-116.
Knowing Persons.David Matheson - 2010 - Dialogue 49 (3):435-453.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-03-09

Downloads
1,738 (#9,685)

6 months
265 (#11,823)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Matthew A. Benton
Seattle Pacific University

Citations of this work

Acquaintance.Matt Duncan - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (3):e12727.
Knowledge of things.Matt Duncan - 2020 - Synthese 197 (8):3559-3592.
Hope: Conceptual and Normative Issues.Catherine Rioux - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (3).

View all 34 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and lotteries.John Hawthorne - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and practical interests.Jason Stanley - 2005 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Reference and Consciousness.John Campbell - 2002 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

View all 78 references / Add more references