Experience, Reason, and Truth

Catalog description

A central issue in Western philosophy has been whether reason or experience (or some of both?) provides the foundations for human knowledge. This course explores that question by looking at various "empiricist" vs. "rationalist" debates from the 17th century to the present day. We will focus on the problems encountered in trying to give an adequate account of the our knowledge of the external world, the structure of our minds, and the nature and limitations of human knowledge. The scope of our investigation will extend to the nature of mathematical knowledge, to "thought experiments" in both science and philosophy, and to "nativism" vs. "empiricism" issues in contemporary cognitive science and moral theory. The course has two main goals: (1) to study key metaphysical and epistemological issues surrounding the nature of human knowledge and (2) to help improve our analytical and critical skills by extracting and evaluating various relevant philosophical arguments.