The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology

Oxford Handbooks in Philosophy

by Paul K. Moser (Editor)

The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology contains 19 previously unpublished chapters by today's leading figures in the field. These chapters function not only as a survey of key areas, but as original scholarship on a range of vital topics. Written accessibly for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional philosophers, the Handbook explains the main ideas and problems of contemporary epistemology while avoiding overly technical detail.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

595 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2002

About the author

Paul Moser is an American analytic philosopher who writes on epistemology and the philosophy of religion. He is professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and editor of American Philosophical Quarterly. He is the author of many works in epistemology and the philosophy of religion, in which he has supported versions of epistemic foundationalism and volitional theism. His latest work brings these two positions together to support volitional evidentialism about theistic belief, in contrast to fideism and traditional natural theology. His work draws from some epistemological and theological insights of Blaise Pascal, John Oman, and H. H. Farmer, but adds (i) a notion of purposively available evidence of God’s existence, (ii) a notion of authoritative evidence in contrast with spectator evidence, and (iii) a notion of personifying evidence of God whereby some willing humans become salient evidence of God's existence.

Reviews

[Richard Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a huge book on epistemology containing 19 essays on various aspects. They are of variable quality - most good, a few very good, but three I found not so great - because they were impenetrable to me or badly written, (a common issue with philosophical texts).

The majority of the essays are of the “state of the nation” sort. Giving an overview of thinking in some aspect of epistemology. A few though are the more specific views of individual philosophers.

The publisher is Oxford University Press so you might imagine the contributors would be British. None are - it’s all American philosophers. This is no problem as UK and US analytic philosophy is quite close. So I just mention this as an observation rather than anything else.

I’m not sure this sort of book is meant to be read end to end, but I have just done this in preparation for a masters course in epistemology, it being a few years since I did my BA in Philosophy and I am a bit rusty. For the purposes of refreshing the memory and learning a few new things I found it a pretty good tool. Would I recommend it otherwise? To be honest, I’m not sure.

[Arya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good chapters