Understanding human knowledge: philosophical essays

New York: Oxford University Press (2000)
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Abstract

Since the 1970s Barry Stroud has been one of the most original contributors to the philosophical study of human knowledge. This volume presents the best of Stroud's essays in this area. Throughout, he seeks to clearly identify the question that philosophical theories of knowledge are meant to answer, and the role scepticism plays in making sense of that question. In these seminal essays, he suggests that people pursuing epistemology need to concern themselves with whether philosophical scepticism is true or false. Stroud's discussion of these fundamental questions is essential reading for anyone whose work touches on the subject of human knowledge.

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Chapters

Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge

The first essay of Stroud's collection may serve as an introduction to the guiding theme taken up in the other essays. Stroud examines the reasons why some epistemologists find unintelligible or ill‐formed not only the challenge of scepticism itself but also theories of knowledge that give... see more

Taking Scepticism Seriously

Stroud reviews Peter Unger's Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism in detail. Stroud describes Unger as attempting to demonstrate the compatibility of de facto scepticism with human agency and thought and as arguing that not only are the meanings of epistemic words compatible with a sceptical e... see more

The Allure of Idealism

Stroud explicates what is required of the Kantian project in order for it to establish the failure of scepticism or a significant contribution thereto. Stroud works out the conceptual relations between transcendental arguments in epistemology and an idealist background, and concludes that ... see more

Scepticism, ‘Externalism’, and the Goal of Epistemology

Stresses again the unavoidability of scepticism in a pursuit to defend a philosophical theory of knowledge and casts doubt on attempts to find solutions to the epistemological question other than scepticism itself. Ernest Sosa has given an externalist response to this stance, which Stroud ... see more

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Author's Profile

Barry Stroud
Last affiliation: University of California, Berkeley

Citations of this work

No Exception for Belief.Susanna Rinard - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (1):121-143.
Deep disagreement and hinge epistemology.Chris Ranalli - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):4975-5007.
How hard are the sceptical paradoxes?Alex Byrne - 2004 - Noûs 38 (2):299–325.

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References found in this work

Philosophical Scepticism.Ernest Sosa & Barry Stroud - 1994 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 68 (1):263 - 307.

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