Knowledge and Reality: Contemporary Approaches

Catalog description

This course will investigate questions involving knowledge and reality, focusing on philosophers who wrote at some time from the latter half of the 19th century up to the present day. The questions will typically be from among the following: What is “knowing”? How are claims to be justified to count as knowledge? Do different types of knowledge require a single type of justification, or do they have different types? Does science have a privileged role in knowing what’s real? If so, what is it about science that provides for this? Is reality given or is it constructed/constituted in some way? If the latter, how is this done? Do any of these play a role in that construction/constitution: brain-structure, perception, concepts and conceptual schemes, language, power relations, human activity? What are the basic features of reality? Physical stuff, time, natural kinds, laws of nature, power, events, history, possible worlds? Are common and/or philosophical ways of thinking about the world “metaphysical”, as many have claimed? What exactly is meant by “metaphysical”.