Survey in the History of Ancient Philosophy



Introduction to Theories of Knowledge (Phil 125w)

Pennsylvania State University, University Park

MWF 1.25-2.15p, 116 Electrical Engineering West

Monday 24 Aug – Friday 11 Dec 2015

Instructor: Christopher Moore

Department of Philosophy

Office: 204 Sparks Building

Email: c.moore@psu.edu

Office Hours: M 3.30-4.30p, W 12.15-1.15, and by appointment

TA: Nicole Yokum

Department of Philosophy

Office: 228 Sparks Building

Email: nqy5050@psu.edu

Office Hours: F 2.30-5p

Required Texts

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, tr. Roberts (Hackett)

Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, tr. Meinecke (Hackett)

Plato, Theaetetus, tr. Levett (Hackett)

Sextus Empiricus, Selections from the Major Writings, tr. Etheridge (Hackett)

Montaigne, Selections from the Essays, tr. Frame (Harlan Davidson)

Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, tr. Cress (Hackett)

Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Winkler (Hackett)

Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Popkin (Hackett)

Proust, Swann’s Way, tr. Davis (Penguin)

Course

Knowledge and life

To know is to live in accordance with the truth. If the possibility of so living is open to us, then so to the possibility of failing so to live. We would fail by unwittingly living in accordance with something other than truth. This would be the case were we to act on untested beliefs, which include fantasies, assumptions, habitual preferences, delusions, dreams, and hallucinations. The fact that we have the idea of “truth” means that we think that the world (including ourselves as part of it) exists in a certain way, and that we would live better were we to recognize that way. The fact that we have the idea of “knowledge” means that we think that there is a sensitivity to the way the world exists, and that would live better were we to develop that sensitivity to direct our actions and beliefs. Truth and knowledge are both normative, meaning that they are guidelines for good living, meaning in turn that we ought to seek them. Put in another way, the ethical life involves the pursuit of knowledge and thereby the pursuit of truth.

Indeed, were we to go through our days with no concern for knowledge—reacting unthinkingly, impulsively, even randomly—we might have reason doubt that we were living a human life and not just the life of an animal or plant. Now, it might seem that animals and plants never fail to act in accordance with the way the world is; they appear to live in the flow of evolutionarily-tuned perception and impulse. Yet this cannot quite be so—dogs sometimes bark up the wrong tree; houseplants growing toward a window sometimes topple themselves into darkness. We say that dogs know their masters, and that plants know where the sun is. Nevertheless, the burden on humans to hone their abilities to know how the world really is, and then to know what they can know about it, seems stronger, or more legitimate, than it is for animals and plants. And so we frown on those who live as though their thoughts and actions need not be calibrated to the world, as though they are either independent of the world or necessarily track the world. It is not that all knowledge takes effort, study, and cleverness; for some knowledge is extremely easy to get. It is instead that appreciating knowledge in a human life means appreciating that we can make mistakes in our living, mistakes based on our misprision (erroneous judgment) about the world. It is a recognition of our fallibility. It need not lead to fatal skepticism or sleep-ruining anxiety, the suspicion that we are always mistaken, or could always be mistaken, or may just as well always be mistaken. And indeed, as we become better at knowing, and as we accumulate more knowledge, we may rightly grow more comfortable with the world and ourselves. But a certain vigilance, scrutiny, and openness may be proper to human life; this at any rate seems to be the moral consequence of epistemology.

The scope of epistemology

The theory of knowledge—“epistemology”—is a capacious study. We get a hint at its breadth from the official course description for Phil 125:

“Historical and contemporary views on the foundations and conditions of knowledge, belief, justification, and truth, conception, perception, and interpretation.”

The history of epistemology is as long as the history of philosophy. The earliest philosophers, including Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, assessed our confidence in our beliefs about religion (the supernatural), wisdom (the reflective), and common sense (the perceptual). All philosophers since them have shared their interests.

In more contemporary periods, excitement and puzzlement about knowledge has hardly abated. Discussion and research returns continually to the core issue, the nature and importance of knowledge, but also asks new or freshly reworded questions. These questions concern the biological or cognitive or evolutionary grounds; the role of the body and emotion; the importance of social context, relations of influence, and life experience; and the biases caused by models of knowledge drawn from science, theology, or government.

The focused question on knowledge involves laying out the ways we think of knowledge, for example, knowing how to fix a car or how to read literature; knowing my own name or that I exist; knowing a friend or an enemy; knowing physics or the history of the US; or knowing that I do not really know anything, or that my views are colored by my experience as a teacher. It also involves relating knowledge to various conditions, including certainty, reliability, immediacy, infallibility (cannot be wrong), incorrigibility (cannot be corrected), usefulness, revelatoriness.

The study of belief aims to discern what a belief is—a mental object, a conscious state about the world, a constellation of psychological dispositions, an ideal of inference—and how it represents or links to something in the world. This study thereby takes up the nature of mind quite generally, and its connection both with the physical world and with reasons or motivations to do or think this or that.

When we talk of justification we refer to the reasons we give for saying we know something, rather than that we have just guessed, or surmised, or lucked upon it. After all, we can accidentally come upon a true belief; but we say it is not knowledge because our belief would not change if the facts changed; there is just a momentary coinciding of belief and reality. Justification appeals to the particular responsive linkage between our belief and reality. These linkages might be perceptual, inferential, intuitive, inspired, or imaginative.

We might think of perception and conception together. We investigate perception to understand how information about the world or our bodily milieu enters our minds through our senses (or whether this is even the best description of what happens). We investigate conception to understand how that information, once it is in our minds, can be thought about and otherwise interact with other aspects of our mind (reason, memory, imagination, cataloguing, etc.).

Finally, interpretation amounts to making the broad swathes of knowledge we accumulate relevant to us; it is making it meaningful. Sometimes the study of interpretation goes under the name “hermeneutics”; but it is also at the core of literary, cultural, and historical investigation.

Epistemology and philosophy

The title “theory of knowledge” suggests that this subject, as multifaceted as it is, is simply a sub-discipline of philosophy. In support of this is the fact that epistemology has its dear and proper questions, canonical texts, and core vocabulary. But for some epistemologists, or some philosophers, the theory of knowledge is, more than any other formal sub-discipline, what philosophy is. From this perspective, the other branches of philosophy serve it, or rather are outgrowths of its comprehensive study. Metaphysics would study the nature of the world such that we can or cannot know it; ethics is about the knowledge we might have about acting well around other people; aesthetics concerns the knowledge we have about art; and logic formalizes the inferential rules that go into expanding or testing our knowledge. People who believe in the primacy of epistemology might even appeal to support their view to a fable of etymology, that “philosophy,” from the Greek philosophia, originally meant “love of wisdom.” Wisdom, they might say, is an epistemic state, and loving it means not just striving for it but recognizing it for what it is, which means distinguishing it from other, non-wisdom, states. To think then of philosophy as loving wisdom is to think of it as aiming to understand what wisdom is, how to achieve it, and how to verify that one has in fact achieved it—all epistemic questions.

How ought we to think about epistemology scheduling or encroaching on the rest of philosophy? We might think it is in fact a hypothesis, among a range of other similar hypotheses, for example that ethics coordinates all our philosophical questions, or metaphysics does. Let us assume that one plausible view of philosophy is that it is conscientiously using reason to live better. Then perhaps epistemology is the most important way to make a coherent attempt at doing so. We can try it, and see where it gets us. It remains possible that some other route might get us where we want—or at least help us understand what it is that we want—faster, or with more certainty, or with more public appreciation. Epistemology has at least as much claim on us to experiment with it as do other sub-disciplines, and so we will give it a try.

Self-knowledge

One way we will deal in this class with the expansiveness of epistemology is to focus often on a specific question, addressing the others mostly when they arise in answering our directing question. That specific question, for this semester, is about self-knowledge. Knowing oneself was taken to be of existential import by the classical Greeks and by their philosophers in turn. Thus at least they had confidence in the importance of self-knowledge, even if they did not know its meaning it all its detail. This turns us in the following directions:

• how is knowing another person like knowing oneself?

• what exactly is the self that we can or would like to know?

• what good does having self-knowledge provide?

• what kind of knowledge (knowledge that, knowledge how, etc.) is self-knowledge?

• what are the obstacles to self-knowledge (self-delusion, soul-blindness)?

• how ought we to relate our self-conception and self-inventory to self-knowledge?

We will also reflect on the possibility that self-knowledge is the central issue of epistemology, and thereby also the central issue of philosophy. But to do this we cannot simply study the most recent philosophical works on self-knowledge. For institutional reasons, the philosophy of self-knowledge has, for many people in the 20th and 21st centuries, become a small subset of epistemological questions. An historical vantage on self-knowledge, especially in the canonical philosophical works of epistemology, will help us to rediscover its theoretical, practical, and interpretative significance.

Class time

Most classes will involve general conversation about the reading. Sometimes students will work in small groups on directed-reading assignments. Other times I will present some philosophical or historical background. At all moments, every student should be engaged by talking, listening, taking notes, and being otherwise visibly attentive.

Papers

All papers are to be written in Times New Roman, 12 point font, 1” margins, 1.5 spacing, with a title and full heading information (name, course, assignment, date), and are to be submitted hardcopy, on no more sides of paper than the page-length allows, unless told otherwise. No late papers accepted.

For each paper, make sure you cite (by writing the page number in parentheses) every time you could have written your sentence only by knowing what the author has written. You should also make sure that your paper has been carefully read through for spelling, grammar, organization, and argumentative cogency. Each paper should show complete familiarity with all relevant reading.

On one occasion, we will return your paper to you with comments and a request for a revision meeting but with no grade. You will obligated to come to the TA’s next office hours (or make alternative arrangements on the day you receive your paper), and to submit a revised paper by the date agreed upon with your TA. Any failure to meet these requirements or to improve your paper results in a failed paper.

Paper 1: Heraclitus [20 pts]

One page. You are to explain what it is to know the logos by (i) contrasting it with what it is to know other matters, (ii) explaining the three metaphors of knowing mentioned in the first fragment, and (iii) describing how one might fail to know the logos.

Paper 2: Heraclitus and Greek tragedy [30 pts]

Two pages. The first page is to be a rigorous revision of Paper 1 in light of comments, classroom discussion, and your own reflection. In the second page, start by discussing the most significant thing(s) that Prometheus knows that Oedipus does not know and that Oedipus knows that Prometheus does not know. Finish by suggesting which thing that either protagonist knows (or fails to) is closest to Heraclitus’ logos, and why.

Paper 3: Plato’s dialogues [20 pts]

One page. The interlocutors in the Theaetetus cannot explain how knowledge is possible; the interlocutors in the Charmides cannot explain how self-knowledge is possible. Briefly explain the argumentative obstacle to both sorts of explanation. Then answer this question: how if at all do the interlocutors reveal (perhaps unwittingly) that knowledge or self-knowledge is in fact possible?

Paper 4: Skepticism [30 pts]

Two pages. The first page is to be a rigorous revision of Paper 3 in light of comments, classroom discussion, and your own reflection. In the second page, start by explaining whether or not (and for what reasons) Sextus thinks (i) knowledge and (ii) self-knowledge are possible. Then consider whether, in your view, a Skeptic would need either (or both) knowledge or self-knowledge to substantiate his or her Skeptical view.

Paper 5: Montaigne [20 pts]

One page. It may appear that Montaigne gets to know himself by writing about himself. But this is odd, because it would seem he would need to know himself before writing about himself. First, explain, using examples from the assigned texts, how Montaigne could come to know himself by writing about himself. Then, giving actual examples from your own life, describe cases in which you learn about yourself by writing.

Paper 6: Descartes [20 pts]

One page. Descartes claims that he can never doubt that he is at the moment doing some kind of thinking. Briefly explain his reasoning, and state the relevance of this claim to his argument in the Meditations. Then explain whether you think Descartes could not fail to know what kind of thinking he is at any moment doing (e.g., doubting, wishing, surmising, knowing etc.). Either way, explain why. In the final lines, speculate on the importance of the answer to this question.

Paper 7: Hume [20 pts]

Two pages. Begin by writing out a four-five line prompt of the variety on display here, on your choice of topics concerning our reading of Hume, either in its own terms or in relationship to earlier readings. Then respond to your prompt.

Paper 8: Locke [20 pts]

One page. Locke claims that there are no innate ideas; instead we are like “white paper” and accumulate ideas through experience either external or internal. Explain the difference between an idea and a piece of knowledge. Then list and discuss the features of humans that are necessary for knowledge to come into being. One route: a piece of white paper could not itself have knowledge; think about what more there must be.

Final paper: Proust [70 pts]

Topic(s) to be announced. Includes submission of all in-class assignments.

Administrative details

Grades

A 233-250 – Extraordinary

A- 225-232

B+ 217-224

B 208-216 – Good

B- 200-207

C+ 192-199

C 175-191 – Acceptable

D 150-174 – Minimal pass

F 000-149 – Fail

Technology

Please check class-related emails each weekday, and respond within a day. I will do the same. I will email you additional handouts if I do not distribute paper copies. Please check with fellow students to ensure you have not missed any handouts. At no point may you look at or touch your phone or other electronic device unless asked to do so. Failure to follow this policy may result in lowering your course grade by two letters. You must silence such devices; vibrate mode is not acceptable. I may also restrict use of computers and tablets, as necessary, unless we discuss good-faith reasons for their use.

Absences and lateness

Because the value of the course depends largely on the conversations during the seminars, attendance is required. Repeated failure to attend may result in lowering your grade by up to two letters. If you must miss or have missed class because of legitimate university or medical activities, you must tell this to the TA in person, preferably in office hours and ahead of time. Because class begins immediately with student presentations, any tardiness is unacceptably disruptive and limits your learning. Continued lateness will lower your grade by up to two letters.

Accessibility

Penn State welcomes students with disabilities into the University’s educational programs. If you have a disability-related need for reasonable academic adjustments in this course, contact the Office for Disability Services (ODS) located in Boucke Building Room 116 at 814-863-1807(V/TTY). For further information regarding ODS, please visit their web site at equity.psu.edu/ods/. I should be notified as early in the semester as possible regarding the need for reasonable academic adjustments.

Cheating

Academic dishonesty in any portion of the academic work for this course shall be grounds for failing the entire course and communication of dishonesty to the College. This includes, but is not restricted to, plagiarism or cheating on any homework, quiz, or paper. Please ask about any case you’re concerned about. For details on the PSU policy, see psu.edu/oue/aappm/G-9.html.

Reading and Assignment Schedule

Topic, Reading, and Assignment Schedule

Aug M 24 Introduction to epistemology. Objects and ways of knowing.

Syllabus. Introductions.

W 26 Heraclitus as epistemologist. Three metaphors for knowing the logos.

Read: Fragments of Heraclitus.

F 28 The origins of self-knowledge. In-class assignment: earliest memory.

Write: Paper 1, on Heraclitus

M 31 Prometheus: human skills, foreknowledge, and self-understanding.

Read: Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

Sep W 02 Oedipus and tragic knowledge.

Read: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, lines 1-910

F 04 Oedipus’ self-recognition. In-class assignment: self rediscovery.

Read: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, lines 911-1526

Write: Paper 2, on Heraclitus and Greek tragedy

M 07 NO CLASS

W 09 Wisdom and knowledge.

Read: Plato, Theaetetus, 142a-151d

F 11 Protagorean relativism and Heraclitean flux.

In-class assignment: ‘by believing it I make it so.’

Read: Plato, Theaetetus, 151e-169e

M 14 Self-contradiction arguments.

Read: Plato, Theaetetus, 170a-186e

W 16 True belief.

Read: Plato, Theaetetus, 187a-201c

F 18 True belief with an account. In-class assignment: acquiring knowledge.

Read: Plato, Theaetetus, 201c-210a

M 21 Knowing oneself.

Read: Plato, Charmides, 153a-165b5

W 23 Knowing knowledge.

Read: Plato, Charmides, 165b6-176d5

F 25 The epistemology of self-knowledge. In-class assignment: ignorance.

Write: Paper 3, on Plato’s dialogues

M 28 Pyrrhonian Skepticism and the ‘modes.’

Read: Sextus Empiricus, Selections, pp. 31-45, 54-59, 72-76

W 30 The sayings of the Skeptics.

Read: Sextus Empiricus, Selections, pp. 78-99

Oct F 02 Not knowing about humans. In-class assignment.

Read: Sextus Empiricus, Selections, pp. 100-108, 131-140

M 05 Some problems with Skepticism.

Write: Paper 4, on Skepticism

W 07 Michel de Montaigne and writing a life.

Read: Montaigne, Essays: Frame’s Introduction; “To the Reader”;

“Of the Education of Children”

F 09 How to read Montaigne. In-class assignment.

Read: Montaigne, Essays: “Of Idleness”;

“It is Folly to Measure the True and False by Our Own Capacity”

M 12 The limits of knowledge.

Read: Montaigne, Essays: “Apology for Raymond Sebond”

W 14 The knowledge of and for life.

Read: Montaigne, Essays: “Of Experience”

F 16 Writing a life, redux. In-class assignment.

Write: Paper 5, on Montaigne

M 19 The method of doubt. The evil genius.

Read: Descartes, Meditations I

W 21 Cogito ergo sum.

Read: Descartes, Meditations II

F 23 Knowledge of God.

Read: Descartes, Meditations III

M 26 An epistemically merciful God.

Read: Descartes, Meditations IV

W 28 Knowing the mind.

Read: Descartes, Meditations V-VI

F 30 Self-knowledge in Descartes. In-class assignment.

Write: Paper 6, on Descartes

Nov M 02 Philosophy and religion.

Read: Hume, Dialogues, Parts I-II

W 04 Arguments from design, inference, and abduction.

Read: Hume, Dialogues, Parts III-VI

F 06 A priori and a posteriori. In-class assignment.

Read: Hume, Dialogues, Parts VII-X

Write: Paper 7, on Hume

M 09 Rationalism (innate ideas) and empiricism (no innate ideas).

Read: Locke, Essay, Bk 1, ch. 1, §1-15, + “Contents” for Bk 1.

W 11 ‘Like white paper’: the acquisition of simple ideas.

Read: Locke, Essay, Bk 2, ch. 1, §1-10, 21-25; ch. 2-3; ch. 6; ch. 7 §7-10; ch. 8 §1-17, 23-26

F 13 The operations of the mind. In-class assignment.

Read: Locke, Essay, Bk 2, ch. 9; ch. 10 §1-8; ch. 11 §1-9; ch. 12

M 16 Critique of one’s own ideas.

Read: Locke, Essay, Bk 2, ch. 19 §1; ch. 29 §1-15, ch. 30; ch. 32 §1-7, 15

W 18 The nature of knowledge and its connection to certainty.

Read: Locke, Essay, Bk 4, ch. 1 §1-8; ch. 2 §1-3, 14; ch. 3 §1-6; ch. 4 §1-13

F 20 A response to Cartesian skepticism and confidence. In-class assignment.

Read: Locke, Essay, Bk 4, ch. 9-11

Write: Paper 8, on Locke

M 23 NO CLASS: THANKSGIVING

W 25 NO CLASS: THANKSGIVING

F 27 NO CLASS: THANKSGIVING

M 30 ‘For a long time, I went to bed early’

Read: Proust, Swann’s Way, pp. 3-30

Dec W 02 ‘les petites madeleines’

Read: Proust, Swann’s Way, pp. 30-48

F 04 ‘the steeple of Saint-Hilaire.’ In-class assignment.

Read: Proust, Swann’s Way, pp. 48-82

M 07 ‘I was not quite Bergotte’s only admirer’

Read: Proust, Swann’s Way, pp. 82-117

W 09 ‘the Méséglise way’

Read: Proust, Swann’s Way, pp. 118-169

F 11 ‘the Guermantes way.’ In-class assignment.

Read: Proust, Swann’s Way, pp. 169-191

TBA Write: Final Paper

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