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Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications)
Epistemology: A Beginner's Guide
Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge. Without knowledge, scientific enquiry is meaningless and we can’t begin to analyse the world around us. What is knowledge? How do you know you are not dreaming? Should we trust our senses? Presuming no prior experience of philosophy, this book covers everything in the topic from scepticism and possible worlds to Kant’s transcendentalism. Clear and readable, Epistemology: A Beginner’s Guide is essential reading for students and aspiring thinkers.
190 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 16, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
October 26, 2021
A little too many thought experiments
July 27, 2024
This is a book that it is easier to respect than to like. I do not necessarily consider it of vital importance for me to actively enjoy reading a book if I find it useful and instructive, and in this case I was definitely more interested in the arguments about what constitutes knowledge than I was about the entertainment value of this book. As someone who enjoys philosophy in general and epistemology in particular [1], there was much interest I had in this book, as I wanted to see what sort of debates there were about the foundations of knowledge. What I found certainly met my expectations. The author did a good job at disguising his own opinions about knowledge and the conditions that are necessary for it, but one got the feeling at the same time that there was an air of unreality about much of the discussion, as if human beings were competent to be judges of what constitutes knowledge and what does not, which is not a conclusion I am ready to come to. Indeed, a great deal of the discussion in the book hinged on various problems faced when people try to define what is and what is not knowledge for themselves.
This book is almost two hundred pages in length and is divided into nine chapters that are thematically organized. The first chapter looks at how we define knowledge (1) and spends a lot of time looking at what elements are necessary for something to be considered to be knowledge, which include truth. After this the author examines the strength of belief and evidence (2) that are required to make truth claims acceptable to an audience of philosophers, by no means a straightforward issue. The author then turns to the issue of justification and various intriguing Gettier problems that indicate how problematic the issue of justification can be (3) before turning to justification in its relationship to questions of internal and external validity of one's thinking and reasoning processes (4). After this the author contrasts foundationalism and coherentism as ideas about the basis of knowledge (5) and looks at the issues of a priori knowledge, what makes knowledge analytic as opposed to synthetic, and what basis is necessary for the existence of firm knowledge (6). The last three chapters of the book examine the problematic issue of knowledge based on sense-experience (7) as well as the approach of skepticism (8) and some new approaches to epistemology like feminist epistemology that the author subjects to some pretty fierce criticism in light of their political biases (9) before including some suggestions for future reading (not wikipedia) and an index.
In reading this book it is pretty clear that there are serious disputes all up and down the line when it comes to knowledge and the grounds and justifications people have in claiming it. It would appear, at least to this observer, that a great deal of the issues that come with regards to epistemology relate to the wide gulf that exists between our desire to see ourselves (or at least those wiser members of our species) as arbiters of truth and error and as authorities when it comes to what constitutes knowledge and what does not, but yet we are continually confronted by the limits of our own perspectives, by the shaky foundations of our reason, and by the limitations and fallibility of our senses and our means of acquiring the raw material of information from which we can draw insights. We desire to be on a firm foundation but find it difficult to justify our confidence in our own reason, by which we seek to claim the authority to be our own lawgivers and judges, and that lack of humility exposes us to continual problems in squaring the circles of our existence. This book can be praised for being forthright about the seriousness of the disputes and issues.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
This book is almost two hundred pages in length and is divided into nine chapters that are thematically organized. The first chapter looks at how we define knowledge (1) and spends a lot of time looking at what elements are necessary for something to be considered to be knowledge, which include truth. After this the author examines the strength of belief and evidence (2) that are required to make truth claims acceptable to an audience of philosophers, by no means a straightforward issue. The author then turns to the issue of justification and various intriguing Gettier problems that indicate how problematic the issue of justification can be (3) before turning to justification in its relationship to questions of internal and external validity of one's thinking and reasoning processes (4). After this the author contrasts foundationalism and coherentism as ideas about the basis of knowledge (5) and looks at the issues of a priori knowledge, what makes knowledge analytic as opposed to synthetic, and what basis is necessary for the existence of firm knowledge (6). The last three chapters of the book examine the problematic issue of knowledge based on sense-experience (7) as well as the approach of skepticism (8) and some new approaches to epistemology like feminist epistemology that the author subjects to some pretty fierce criticism in light of their political biases (9) before including some suggestions for future reading (not wikipedia) and an index.
In reading this book it is pretty clear that there are serious disputes all up and down the line when it comes to knowledge and the grounds and justifications people have in claiming it. It would appear, at least to this observer, that a great deal of the issues that come with regards to epistemology relate to the wide gulf that exists between our desire to see ourselves (or at least those wiser members of our species) as arbiters of truth and error and as authorities when it comes to what constitutes knowledge and what does not, but yet we are continually confronted by the limits of our own perspectives, by the shaky foundations of our reason, and by the limitations and fallibility of our senses and our means of acquiring the raw material of information from which we can draw insights. We desire to be on a firm foundation but find it difficult to justify our confidence in our own reason, by which we seek to claim the authority to be our own lawgivers and judges, and that lack of humility exposes us to continual problems in squaring the circles of our existence. This book can be praised for being forthright about the seriousness of the disputes and issues.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
October 2, 2019
6-7/10.
Good overview, but barely an introduction - the 200pp of Martin's book are insufficient to do much more than to familiarize the readers with the names of major schools, ideas, and seminal arguments in epistemology. The work is, however, well-balanced (far from an 'opinionated introduction' as Armstrong's to universals or Feser's to Aquinas), both historically - no undue weight is given to a specific period of granted the epistemological turn in philosophy at the end of the 19th century and the medieval world's focus on metaphysics as first philosophy - and scholastically. I am unable to tell where the author stands with any certainty. At times I think he is a foundationalist, but I may be reading my own epistemology in to the text where a coherentist could say the same.
Good overview, but barely an introduction - the 200pp of Martin's book are insufficient to do much more than to familiarize the readers with the names of major schools, ideas, and seminal arguments in epistemology. The work is, however, well-balanced (far from an 'opinionated introduction' as Armstrong's to universals or Feser's to Aquinas), both historically - no undue weight is given to a specific period of granted the epistemological turn in philosophy at the end of the 19th century and the medieval world's focus on metaphysics as first philosophy - and scholastically. I am unable to tell where the author stands with any certainty. At times I think he is a foundationalist, but I may be reading my own epistemology in to the text where a coherentist could say the same.
February 9, 2020
In the absolute most general terms, philosophy might be said to be man’s endless grappling with three interrelated questions: What is there (what exists)?; How should we live?; and How do we know? The formalized study of this last question is epistemology.
While the very word epistemology makes undergrad philosophy students’ eyes roll into the backs of their heads, Martin makes the topic accessible and generally enjoyable, though, like some other areas of philosophy, certain subject matter can be pedantic. Here are the book’s main ideas:
BLAME THE FRENCH
While the question “How do we know what we know?” is as old as philosophy itself, it wasn’t until a few centuries ago that the Frenchman Rene Descartes seemed to finally pry the lid completely off this can of epistemological worms, igniting a debate that, as we shall see, only seems to get less settled with time. In one of the great ironies of history, Descartes’ project to shore things up in the knowledge department actually set in motion a process that will culminate in the 21st century with professional philosophers having highly technical, highly esoteric, and highly serious (to them at least) debates about how they can be sure the cup of coffee on the table in front of them is actually there. Here is a simplified play-by-play of what got philosophy into this crazy mess:
-In an effort to put the concept of knowledge on a more sure footing, Descartes writes a series of philosophical tracts which have been summarized and immortalized in the famous saying Cogito, Ergo Sum: I think, therefore I am. The bedrock of Descartes’ epistemology is “a priori” beliefs – those beliefs that are supposedly valid without reference to external sense experience from objects or events (such as certain mathematical concepts, or a strongly felt intuition of the existence of God, or the fact that you can think about thinking). Though he doesn’t realize it at the time, Descartes is etching out his place as one of the fathers of the school of Rationalism, where a priori beliefs reign supreme.
-With the wit, style, and accent that only the Scottish can muster, David Hume delivers a skeptical counterpunch, putting an exclamation point on a line of thinking developed by Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley: sense experiences – “a posteriori” beliefs that is – are the necessary, unavoidable building blocks of knowledge. Descartes can think about thinking all he wants, but real knowledge comes through our experience in, and interaction with, the external physical world. In the school of Empiricism, a posteriori beliefs are king, and for many years epistemology more or less consists of a series of debates between Rationalists and Empiricists.
-In what will turn into perhaps the greatest (and most perplexing) philosophy project of all time, the Prussian Immanuel Kant attempts to synthesize Rationalism and Empiricism into a single school of thought. A key pillar of this marriage is the idea of analytic and synthetic propositions. A satisfactory explanation of these two concepts is beyond the scope of our current discussion, but, in short, their function was to elucidate the interconnectedness of a priori and a posteriori beliefs, showing that, in their own way, both were essential building blocks of knowledge. In other words, Kant attempted to show that the Rationalists and Empiricists could finally lay down their arms since they were actually both right; their only real error was believing their competing theories to be mutually exclusive. How well Kant actually wed the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions is debated to this day, partly due to the opaque, highly complex nature of his writings which has left them open to numerous interpretations.
-In the late 19th century, German logician Gottlob Frege moves Kant’s ideas of the analytic and synthetic into the realm of linguistics, where standardized sentence structures (which translate nicely into the world of formal logic in which Frege lived) finally seem to provide some clarity to all of Kant’s abstruse concepts. Again, explaining the details of Frege’s method would be tedious, but the takeaway is this: formal logic and the syntax of language enter the scene as gatekeepers and standard-bearers for what passes as knowledge. The nascent school of Analytic Philosophy feels a true sense of optimism, as it seems they are finally on a path that might lead to real consensus in the world of epistemology.
BLAME THE AMERICANS
-This optimism is short-lived however. In the mid-twentieth century, American Willard Quine releases an article that, to many philosophers, shows the analytic/synthetic concepts to be nothing more than a bunch of – and I’m using a technical term here – mumbo jumbo. Quine argues that epistemology should stop concerning itself with propagating endless theoretical debates about what the word “knowledge” means. He claims the only real knowledge is scientific knowledge, and once we move outside the scientific realm, mere beliefs* are all we have. For Quine and his acolytes, the implications are clear: epistemology needs to reinvent itself as a branch of natural science, using empirical evidence and observation to describe the belief-formation process as it actually happens in real life – vice trying to establish rules, standards, and laws for what constitutes a “justified” belief or “real” knowledge since, outside of science, there is no such thing.
*Quine said our beliefs are best viewed as a giant self-supporting web. When we come up against something novel and need to decide if we believe it, we see how well it fits with our already existing beliefs. If it seems to match well enough, we accept it; if it doesn’t, we don’t (if you’re getting a mental image of interior decorating right now, you’re on the right track). To many philosophers, this smells like heresy – as if each individual’s “web of beliefs” gets to set the rules for what constitutes knowledge.
-Before Quine’s ideas have even been fully digested by the philosophic community, another American named Thomas Kuhn inadvertently turns everything upside down once again. Like Descartes’ story, there is some irony involved with Kuhn. Setting out to better understand how scientists approach their research, Kuhn’s work actually had far greater (and unintended) implications in the worlds of philosophy, psychology and anthropology than of science proper. Kuhn’s extended essay seemed to show that the selection and application of supposedly objective standards among competing scientific theories was often a highly subjective affair, despite scientists’ efforts to act otherwise (witness the current state of theoretical physics and quantum mechanics). This discovery was as surprising as it was embarrassing. Quine had just convinced much of the philosophic community that objective knowledge could only be found in the realm of natural science, but Kuhn seemed to show that subjectivity is an incurable part of any human enterprise, science included.
Where do things stand now? What defines knowledge? A priori beliefs? A posteriori? Language? Logic? Science? Some of these? All of these? None of these? Martin’s assessment isn’t a happy one:
“This represents the current philosophical state of play: all the varieties of theory have their partisans, who are working to try to get around the objections we’ve looked at –and more.”
The good news is that, until someone figures out something better, philosophers can continue to debate whether or not that cup of coffee is real.
CRITIQUES
At the end of his 1926 book The Story of Philosophy, eminent historian Will Durant made a wry but prescient observation, noting that philosophy was slowly losing its focus on the question of how we should live in favor of a “crumbling corner” called epistemology. Again, while Martin does a great job making epistemology accessible to the lay reader, he falls a little short in making it relevant. One could easily read this book, more or less understand all the concepts presented – deontology, basic beliefs, things-in-themselves, sense-datum, possible worlds, and everything else already discussed above – and then simply ask “So what?” In Martin’s defense, this isn’t as simple a question as it appears. I’ll try to give a brief but hopefully satisfactory answer:
Though we don’t often realize it, many of the practical aspects of our day-to-day lives are derivations of abstract, theoretical answers to the question “How should we live?” – one of the “big three” we mentioned earlier that drive philosophic pursuits. For example, if you live in a communist society, the practical ramifications of the communist system to your daily life are myriad. Yet despite these concrete realities, Communism is, at heart, a series of highly theoretical beliefs about human nature, the direction of human history, and, most importantly, how humans should live.
Now, like all good theorists, Marx, Engels, and their later acolytes right up to present times have had to marshal arguments and evidence in support of their theories. Some are a priori, some are a posteriori; some are synthetic, some analytic; some are passionate emotional appeals, some are economic data sets. Is each argument and piece of evidence acceptable though? Well, the answer largely depends on your epistemological outlook – even if you’ve never heard of epistemology. If the only argument/evidence in support of Communism you find compelling are the economic data sets, you might just be an empiricist in disguise.
The point is this: the question “How do we know?” may seem detached from the hubbub of our daily lives, but it becomes an unavoidable consideration when we try to justify whatever answer we have to the “How should we live?” question. You can’t answer one without also answering the other.
Whether giving the latest sales pitch to new investors at work or explaining to your son why he isn’t allowed to eat crayons, every argument you advance in life is being filtered through people’s epistemological lenses, where they make judgements about what constitutes true knowledge and justified belief versus what they take to be – and here’s that technical term again – a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
While the very word epistemology makes undergrad philosophy students’ eyes roll into the backs of their heads, Martin makes the topic accessible and generally enjoyable, though, like some other areas of philosophy, certain subject matter can be pedantic. Here are the book’s main ideas:
BLAME THE FRENCH
While the question “How do we know what we know?” is as old as philosophy itself, it wasn’t until a few centuries ago that the Frenchman Rene Descartes seemed to finally pry the lid completely off this can of epistemological worms, igniting a debate that, as we shall see, only seems to get less settled with time. In one of the great ironies of history, Descartes’ project to shore things up in the knowledge department actually set in motion a process that will culminate in the 21st century with professional philosophers having highly technical, highly esoteric, and highly serious (to them at least) debates about how they can be sure the cup of coffee on the table in front of them is actually there. Here is a simplified play-by-play of what got philosophy into this crazy mess:
-In an effort to put the concept of knowledge on a more sure footing, Descartes writes a series of philosophical tracts which have been summarized and immortalized in the famous saying Cogito, Ergo Sum: I think, therefore I am. The bedrock of Descartes’ epistemology is “a priori” beliefs – those beliefs that are supposedly valid without reference to external sense experience from objects or events (such as certain mathematical concepts, or a strongly felt intuition of the existence of God, or the fact that you can think about thinking). Though he doesn’t realize it at the time, Descartes is etching out his place as one of the fathers of the school of Rationalism, where a priori beliefs reign supreme.
-With the wit, style, and accent that only the Scottish can muster, David Hume delivers a skeptical counterpunch, putting an exclamation point on a line of thinking developed by Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley: sense experiences – “a posteriori” beliefs that is – are the necessary, unavoidable building blocks of knowledge. Descartes can think about thinking all he wants, but real knowledge comes through our experience in, and interaction with, the external physical world. In the school of Empiricism, a posteriori beliefs are king, and for many years epistemology more or less consists of a series of debates between Rationalists and Empiricists.
-In what will turn into perhaps the greatest (and most perplexing) philosophy project of all time, the Prussian Immanuel Kant attempts to synthesize Rationalism and Empiricism into a single school of thought. A key pillar of this marriage is the idea of analytic and synthetic propositions. A satisfactory explanation of these two concepts is beyond the scope of our current discussion, but, in short, their function was to elucidate the interconnectedness of a priori and a posteriori beliefs, showing that, in their own way, both were essential building blocks of knowledge. In other words, Kant attempted to show that the Rationalists and Empiricists could finally lay down their arms since they were actually both right; their only real error was believing their competing theories to be mutually exclusive. How well Kant actually wed the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions is debated to this day, partly due to the opaque, highly complex nature of his writings which has left them open to numerous interpretations.
-In the late 19th century, German logician Gottlob Frege moves Kant’s ideas of the analytic and synthetic into the realm of linguistics, where standardized sentence structures (which translate nicely into the world of formal logic in which Frege lived) finally seem to provide some clarity to all of Kant’s abstruse concepts. Again, explaining the details of Frege’s method would be tedious, but the takeaway is this: formal logic and the syntax of language enter the scene as gatekeepers and standard-bearers for what passes as knowledge. The nascent school of Analytic Philosophy feels a true sense of optimism, as it seems they are finally on a path that might lead to real consensus in the world of epistemology.
BLAME THE AMERICANS
-This optimism is short-lived however. In the mid-twentieth century, American Willard Quine releases an article that, to many philosophers, shows the analytic/synthetic concepts to be nothing more than a bunch of – and I’m using a technical term here – mumbo jumbo. Quine argues that epistemology should stop concerning itself with propagating endless theoretical debates about what the word “knowledge” means. He claims the only real knowledge is scientific knowledge, and once we move outside the scientific realm, mere beliefs* are all we have. For Quine and his acolytes, the implications are clear: epistemology needs to reinvent itself as a branch of natural science, using empirical evidence and observation to describe the belief-formation process as it actually happens in real life – vice trying to establish rules, standards, and laws for what constitutes a “justified” belief or “real” knowledge since, outside of science, there is no such thing.
*Quine said our beliefs are best viewed as a giant self-supporting web. When we come up against something novel and need to decide if we believe it, we see how well it fits with our already existing beliefs. If it seems to match well enough, we accept it; if it doesn’t, we don’t (if you’re getting a mental image of interior decorating right now, you’re on the right track). To many philosophers, this smells like heresy – as if each individual’s “web of beliefs” gets to set the rules for what constitutes knowledge.
-Before Quine’s ideas have even been fully digested by the philosophic community, another American named Thomas Kuhn inadvertently turns everything upside down once again. Like Descartes’ story, there is some irony involved with Kuhn. Setting out to better understand how scientists approach their research, Kuhn’s work actually had far greater (and unintended) implications in the worlds of philosophy, psychology and anthropology than of science proper. Kuhn’s extended essay seemed to show that the selection and application of supposedly objective standards among competing scientific theories was often a highly subjective affair, despite scientists’ efforts to act otherwise (witness the current state of theoretical physics and quantum mechanics). This discovery was as surprising as it was embarrassing. Quine had just convinced much of the philosophic community that objective knowledge could only be found in the realm of natural science, but Kuhn seemed to show that subjectivity is an incurable part of any human enterprise, science included.
Where do things stand now? What defines knowledge? A priori beliefs? A posteriori? Language? Logic? Science? Some of these? All of these? None of these? Martin’s assessment isn’t a happy one:
“This represents the current philosophical state of play: all the varieties of theory have their partisans, who are working to try to get around the objections we’ve looked at –and more.”
The good news is that, until someone figures out something better, philosophers can continue to debate whether or not that cup of coffee is real.
CRITIQUES
At the end of his 1926 book The Story of Philosophy, eminent historian Will Durant made a wry but prescient observation, noting that philosophy was slowly losing its focus on the question of how we should live in favor of a “crumbling corner” called epistemology. Again, while Martin does a great job making epistemology accessible to the lay reader, he falls a little short in making it relevant. One could easily read this book, more or less understand all the concepts presented – deontology, basic beliefs, things-in-themselves, sense-datum, possible worlds, and everything else already discussed above – and then simply ask “So what?” In Martin’s defense, this isn’t as simple a question as it appears. I’ll try to give a brief but hopefully satisfactory answer:
Though we don’t often realize it, many of the practical aspects of our day-to-day lives are derivations of abstract, theoretical answers to the question “How should we live?” – one of the “big three” we mentioned earlier that drive philosophic pursuits. For example, if you live in a communist society, the practical ramifications of the communist system to your daily life are myriad. Yet despite these concrete realities, Communism is, at heart, a series of highly theoretical beliefs about human nature, the direction of human history, and, most importantly, how humans should live.
Now, like all good theorists, Marx, Engels, and their later acolytes right up to present times have had to marshal arguments and evidence in support of their theories. Some are a priori, some are a posteriori; some are synthetic, some analytic; some are passionate emotional appeals, some are economic data sets. Is each argument and piece of evidence acceptable though? Well, the answer largely depends on your epistemological outlook – even if you’ve never heard of epistemology. If the only argument/evidence in support of Communism you find compelling are the economic data sets, you might just be an empiricist in disguise.
The point is this: the question “How do we know?” may seem detached from the hubbub of our daily lives, but it becomes an unavoidable consideration when we try to justify whatever answer we have to the “How should we live?” question. You can’t answer one without also answering the other.
Whether giving the latest sales pitch to new investors at work or explaining to your son why he isn’t allowed to eat crayons, every argument you advance in life is being filtered through people’s epistemological lenses, where they make judgements about what constitutes true knowledge and justified belief versus what they take to be – and here’s that technical term again – a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
November 9, 2019
I really enjoyed the first few chapters of this book. The writing was engaging, clear and simple. I think the author got tired of putting an effort in later on in the book as his sentences started lacking any normal sense. I could just about understand the concepts he was trying to deliver, and I think he should have provided more background on the nature of the Epistemic questions themselves, and the debates between contemporary philosophers as to their different approaches on the theory of knowledge, belief, truth and justification.
Overall - a good beginners guide to Epistemology.
Overall - a good beginners guide to Epistemology.
June 3, 2019
اینجوری می نویسم که کتابی به نسبت روان و مطالب عمومی و نه اختصاصی معرفت شناسی غربی رو به صورت خوبی توضیح داده بود، انتظار این که به تمام زوایا و اقوال فلاسفه توی این کتاب پی ببریم بیهوده س و نویسنده هم خودش خواستار توضیحات مقدماتی معرفت شناسی هست.
این کتاب در حوزه معرفت شناسی غربی هم باز در مقایسه با باقی کتاب های معرفت شناسی جنبه مقدمه رو داره.
اما برای شروع در مسیر قرار گرفتن ذهن و اشنایی اون با مفاهیم کتاب خوش ساختی هست.
این کتاب در حوزه معرفت شناسی غربی هم باز در مقایسه با باقی کتاب های معرفت شناسی جنبه مقدمه رو داره.
اما برای شروع در مسیر قرار گرفتن ذهن و اشنایی اون با مفاهیم کتاب خوش ساختی هست.
November 6, 2021
I found it helpful.
October 18, 2022
Provides a good entry into the major themes covered in any introduction to epistemology course although might be in passing considered a bit unfriendly to novice readers of philosophy. This is especially true in the opening sections of the book where we as readers are not given a proper introduction in my view to the questions concerning epistemologists historically (see chapter " Defining 'knowledge' "). It would also have aided to provided a short introduction on propositional logic as well as easing the reader into the use of variables in the formulation of arguments.
The book does however progress nicely and it seems both more readable as well as engaging to the reader.
My contention in an other ways excellent entry to epistemology has mostly as mentioned to do with the opening section of the book where more structure and definitions would have been helpful. For example the concepts of internalism and externalism relating to understanding knowledge in an internal state vs asking what needs to be true about facts in the world in order for me to claim to have knowledge could have been introduced already in the opening portion instead what is done in the book ( it is referenced here in chapter 4- 'internalism, externalism and justification').
As a very welcome bonus the references to other books listed in the end of the book along with general recommended tips is very handy for further explorations to the subject. Also looking forward to comparing this book with 'knowledge- a very short introduction ' by Jennifer Nagel when I get the chance.
I all absolutely would recommend this book as an entry to epistemology.
(Note: I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system increases in my humble opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars of a given book.)
The book does however progress nicely and it seems both more readable as well as engaging to the reader.
My contention in an other ways excellent entry to epistemology has mostly as mentioned to do with the opening section of the book where more structure and definitions would have been helpful. For example the concepts of internalism and externalism relating to understanding knowledge in an internal state vs asking what needs to be true about facts in the world in order for me to claim to have knowledge could have been introduced already in the opening portion instead what is done in the book ( it is referenced here in chapter 4- 'internalism, externalism and justification').
As a very welcome bonus the references to other books listed in the end of the book along with general recommended tips is very handy for further explorations to the subject. Also looking forward to comparing this book with 'knowledge- a very short introduction ' by Jennifer Nagel when I get the chance.
I all absolutely would recommend this book as an entry to epistemology.
(Note: I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system increases in my humble opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars of a given book.)
May 11, 2020
Epistemology, known for its complex philosophical jargon, is the study of knowledge. How we can have it, how we know things, whether what we know can ever be justified. Knowledge, philosophers believe, depends on justified (based on evidence), true (based in reality) belief. Belief by itself cannot be justified or true because it is just something we think is true. Thus, belief (if it is to be real knowledge) depends on the truth and justification of the claim. The book further discusses what type of justification philosophers argue for (internalism, externalism). I will not trouble you with definitions, but both fields propose interesting problems, most notable are the Gettier cases. And of course, Martin also touches on rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism and the objections that can be made to each of these fields. Martin is very balanced and simple which is crucial for such a complicated field of study. I must say Epistemology will probably not be a field I read more on in the future but it was interesting to dip my toes into it albeit fallibly. A v helpful read.
March 11, 2020
It's Fine
The book is precisely what it says it is, a good intro to concepts (and concepts of concepts), terminology, the outlines of methodology. Good suggestions for more in-depth reading (though necessarily somewhat dated). I will say that if you're an atheist and find yourself irritated by early philosophers assumptions, hang on until the 80% mark.
The book is precisely what it says it is, a good intro to concepts (and concepts of concepts), terminology, the outlines of methodology. Good suggestions for more in-depth reading (though necessarily somewhat dated). I will say that if you're an atheist and find yourself irritated by early philosophers assumptions, hang on until the 80% mark.
January 20, 2024
Quite brilliant!
Don't try to read philosophers before you read a general guide, and Espistomology is where you must start. And this is a terrific book about it. Wish I'd read it before trying to understand Kant and Hume!
Don't try to read philosophers before you read a general guide, and Espistomology is where you must start. And this is a terrific book about it. Wish I'd read it before trying to understand Kant and Hume!
October 18, 2024
A good introductory work on epistemology. The first half on 20th century and contemporary epistemology is where it shone, but it then faded as it tried to rush through far too many disparate topics, from scepticism to innate ideas and induction to the synthetic a priori.
March 18, 2020
Very helpful for beginners. Each theory is explained thoroughly. Highly recommend for those who want to learn the basics of epistemology.
January 31, 2021
Not a bad intro to epistemology. It didn't start very well, but it got much better as it went along.
July 27, 2021
Great book. Well written
If you want to learn epistemology start with this book
If you want to learn epistemology start with this book
February 11, 2025
Decent introduction book. Gets you into understanding Epistemology and the use of thought experiments help you understand the concept better.
February 4, 2026
I wanted to read this book because epistemology is a difficult subject, and I have always been drawn to philosophy—especially with a certain wariness toward people who display great confidence about things that later turn out not to be as solid as they claimed. In that sense, this is a useful book, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how knowledge is supposed to work.
What becomes clear very quickly is that epistemology is not a tidy field. There are serious disputes at every level about what knowledge is, how it is justified, and what grounds people have for claiming it at all. Much of the trouble seems to arise from a deep tension: we want to see ourselves—or at least our wisest thinkers—as reliable arbiters of truth and error, yet we are constantly confronted by the limits of our own perspectives, the fragility of our reasoning, and the fallibility of our senses. We want firm foundations, but we struggle to justify our confidence in the very faculties we use to look for them.
That desire to be our own lawgivers and judges, without fully reckoning with our cognitive humility, leaves us perpetually trying to square circles. One of this book’s strengths is that it does not shy away from that discomfort. It takes the depth of these problems seriously, instead of smoothing them over with false certainty.
What becomes clear very quickly is that epistemology is not a tidy field. There are serious disputes at every level about what knowledge is, how it is justified, and what grounds people have for claiming it at all. Much of the trouble seems to arise from a deep tension: we want to see ourselves—or at least our wisest thinkers—as reliable arbiters of truth and error, yet we are constantly confronted by the limits of our own perspectives, the fragility of our reasoning, and the fallibility of our senses. We want firm foundations, but we struggle to justify our confidence in the very faculties we use to look for them.
That desire to be our own lawgivers and judges, without fully reckoning with our cognitive humility, leaves us perpetually trying to square circles. One of this book’s strengths is that it does not shy away from that discomfort. It takes the depth of these problems seriously, instead of smoothing them over with false certainty.
July 15, 2010
What do you know? How do you know you know? Is it knowledge or belief? What are your criteria for deciding?
This was a very clearly written overview of the philosophical sub-specialty of epistemology. I didn't want to have to "study", I wanted to mostly read, and Martin made this possible. Martin took a balanced approach by not weighing in on what he thought the correct approach was, but showed the various arguments on all sides (briefly) and urged the reader to decide what he/she thought. He gives good sources at the end for further reading. Well-written and well-presented for those just dipping their toes in for the first time.
This was a very clearly written overview of the philosophical sub-specialty of epistemology. I didn't want to have to "study", I wanted to mostly read, and Martin made this possible. Martin took a balanced approach by not weighing in on what he thought the correct approach was, but showed the various arguments on all sides (briefly) and urged the reader to decide what he/she thought. He gives good sources at the end for further reading. Well-written and well-presented for those just dipping their toes in for the first time.
January 25, 2016
Two quotes come to mind to describe this book...
"Thinking is hard. Thinking about some problems is so hard it can make your head ache just thinking about thinking about them...whenever we find thinking hard, it is because the stony path to truth is competing with seductive, easier paths that turn out to be dead ends. Most of the effort in thinking is a matter of resisting these temptations. We keep getting waylaid and have to steel ourselves for the task at hand.” - Dan Dennett
"You can’t do much carpentry with your bare hands and you can’t do much thinking with your bare brain." - BO DAHLBOM
"Thinking is hard. Thinking about some problems is so hard it can make your head ache just thinking about thinking about them...whenever we find thinking hard, it is because the stony path to truth is competing with seductive, easier paths that turn out to be dead ends. Most of the effort in thinking is a matter of resisting these temptations. We keep getting waylaid and have to steel ourselves for the task at hand.” - Dan Dennett
"You can’t do much carpentry with your bare hands and you can’t do much thinking with your bare brain." - BO DAHLBOM
July 3, 2013
I've always had great experiences with the Beginner's Guide books. Epistemology is a complex topic; however, the author gives a clear overview and provides loads of launching points for further research.
November 30, 2012
I did enjoy his teaching style.
Did Not Finish
July 31, 2016Noped out of here really fast. A good summary, but really lacking in engagement.
December 2, 2016
This book describes epistemology (the theory of knowledge) and discusses the different beliefs. Lots of examples are provided and explained terms clearly.
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