Epistemology B

General data

Course ID:	3501-WISIP-EPB2
Erasmus code / ISCED:	08.1 Kod klasyfikacyjny przedmiotu składa się z trzech do pięciu cyfr, przy czym trzy pierwsze oznaczają klasyfikację dziedziny wg. Listy kodów dziedzin obowiązującej w programie Socrates/Erasmus, czwarta (dotąd na ogół 0) – ewentualne uszczegółowienie informacji o dyscyplinie, piąta – stopień zaawansowania przedmiotu ustalony na podstawie roku studiów, dla którego przedmiot jest przeznaczony. / (0223) Philosophy and ethics The ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education) code has been designed by UNESCO.
Course title:	Epistemology B
Name in Polish:	Epistemology B
Organizational unit:	Institute of Philosophy
Course groups:
ECTS credit allocation (and other scores):	(not available) Basic information on ECTS credits allocation principles: the annual hourly workload of the student’s work required to achieve the expected learning outcomes for a given stage is 1500-1800h, corresponding to 60 ECTS; the student’s weekly hourly workload is 45 h; 1 ECTS point corresponds to 25-30 hours of student work needed to achieve the assumed learning outcomes; weekly student workload necessary to achieve the assumed learning outcomes allows to obtain 1.5 ECTS; work required to pass the course, which has been assigned 3 ECTS, constitutes 10% of the semester student load. view allocation of credits
Language:	English
Type of course:	obligatory courses
Mode:	Classroom
Short description:	Epistemology is concerned with such questions as “What, if anything, do we know?”, “What is knowledge?”. Epistemology B is the continuation of the winter semester Epistemology A course. The course will have four main parts: (1) philosophical theories of mind and theories of belief, (2) philosophical theories of perception (and other sources of knowledge); (3) theories of truth (and the debate between realism and antirealism), (4) the challenge of skepticism.
Full description:	Epistemology B is the continuation of the winter semester Epistemology A course. The course will have four main parts: (1) philosophical theories of mind and beliefs, (2) philosophical theories of perception (and other sources of knowledge); (3) theories of truth (and the debate between realism and antirealism), (4) the challenge of skepticism. We will start by reviewing the basic positions in philosophy of mind and the basic theories of beliefs. We will then consider the debate between direct and indirect realism, the argument from illusion, a variety of philosophical theories of perception: sense-data, adverbial, intentionalist, disjunctivist. We will consider traditional as well as contemporary approaches to truth. Among others, we will talk about the correspondence, semantic, coherence, pragmatic as well as deflationist theories of truth. We will discuss scientific realism and antirealism as well as semantic antirealism (Putnam’s internal realism, Dummett’s program). We will consider various skeptical arguments and a variety of responses to the skeptic, among others: Moore’s argument for the existence of the external world, strategies involving the rejection of the closure principle, naturalism, contextualism, epistemological externalism, Wittgenstein’s arguments, Goodman’s new riddle of induction, Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat argument, Davidson’s radical interpretation argument.
Bibliography:	J. Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) D. O’Brien, 2017, An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, Cambridge: Polity. J. Nagel, 2014. Knowledge. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. M. Steup & E. Sosa, Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) S. Bernecker, Reading Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) E. Sosa, J. Kim, J. Fantl, M. McGrath, Epistemology, 2nd edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008
Learning outcomes:	Acquired knowledge - knows basic epistemological terminology in English (W03, W05) - knows the relation between epistemology and the main philosophical subdisciplines (W02) - knows the relation between epistemology and sciences of cognition (W02) - has knowledge of the main positions in epistemology (W06, W08) - understands the main epistemological problems (W06, W08) - knows what giving arguments and counterarguments consists in (W14) Acquired skills - is able to apply epistemological terminology correctly (U05) - is able to analyze epistemological arguments, identify its crucial premises as well as understand the relations between the conclusions and premises (U04, U07, U08, U09) - is able to give arguments for and against the main positions in contemporary epistemology (U07, U8, U09, U16) Acquired social competences - is open to discuss epistemological issues (K02) - is open to new proposals of solutions to problems (K02)
Assessment methods and assessment criteria:	See relevant section below (for a given academic year)

This course is not currently offered.

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Copyright by University of Warsaw.