What is knowledge?

Abstract

The seminar aims at a clarification of the concept of knowledge as it is built in our experiential relations to the world. An analysis is needed of the difference between knowledge and belief, of the relation between objectivity and knowledge, and of the role of reasons for having knowledge. Additionally, the legitimacy of different types of knowledge claims should be evaluated.

Objective

If things are going well, active students will acquire some knowledge of the arguments pro and con the thesis, that knowledge is justified, true belief. Furthermore, one will gain some insights in the role of reasons for knowledge and in the merits and misgivings of a naturalistic account (see below, section „Inhalt“) of knowledge. Finally, one will be a bit more familiar with some elements within the Western tradition of philosophical epistemology (e.g. empiricism, rationalism).

Content

Obviously, knowledge plays a crucial role in our everyday life. We need it for making a diagnosis, for starting our computers, for telling the stranger the right way to James Joyce‘s grave at Zürichberg, or for establishing peace and cultivating democracy. The gain and the transmission of knowledge have been becoming subject to complex, much time consuming, expensive, and socially organzied activities in commercial labs, in universities and in schools. Understanding what „knowledge“ means, is one of the building blocks of these activities. Another constituent for knowledge production and transmission is the presupposition that we could and actually do know a lot of things. We are becoming aware of this presupposition and of that understanding when knowledge claims are challenged. Think of skeptics in the climate debate, doubting in principle the validity of complex climate models, think of religious people contesting a Darwinian account of man‘s nature, or, finally, think of the moral relativists sitting in the backoffices of the Chinese government, and denying that human rights are the content of an insight, as the periodic table in chemistry is the content of a complex insight! Those opponents of certain knowledge-claims do not argue that nobody truly believes in the results of certain computer based general circulation models of climate change, or in a Darwinian account of nature, or in the legitimacy of human rights. They argue that such beliefs are certainties. But certainty and knowledge are two completely different things. So the question becomes pressing: What is knowledge? And do we have knowledge? More cautiously: Are there identifiable conditions under which we are justified in our knowledge-claims? Who decides what counts as knowledge for good reasons? What are the experts for knowledge? Do we have knowledge simply in virtue of our biological nature? (Hard boiled naturalists are answering: „Yes, knowledge is nothing else but the ability of an organism to fulfill certain functions.“) And if so, what type of knowledge is this knowledge? Is it a non-linguistic know-how (= an ability), in contrast to a propositional knowing-that (= a justified, true belief expressible by an assertion) - Those are the questions, which we will discuss in the seminar.

Resources