What is Epistemology

Stephen Hetherington's book is a first-rate introduction to contemporary epistemology. It covers a wide range of topics that shape contemporary debate. In the first chapter, Hetherington makes the aim of this book explicit. It aims at encouraging readers to be epistemological. That is, readers are advised to actively question the received epistemology and continue investigation. This aim is rather different from merely elucidating current views and reviewing extant debates. In the second chapter, kinds of knowledge are distinguished and characterised. In doing so, readers are presented with some initial data regarding knowledge. Hetherington discusses kinds of, sources of, and forms of knowledge. For example, whether individual and group both have knowledge? Whether knowledge arises from reason, memory, testimony, and perception? With these data in mind, readers are looking forward to a theory of knowledge. In the third chapter, the traditional theory of knowledge, i.e., the justified true belief account of knowledge, is presented. The components of knowledge are clearly analysed.

Epistemology · Epistemology of Wikipedia · Extant taxon · Perception · Social epistemology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Psychology