Second Thoughts and the Epistemological Enterprise

Collected essays showing how social psychology illuminates epistemological problems, focusing on issues of self-knowledge and the nature of human reason.

Hilary Kornblith (Author)

9781108724128, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 March 2021

274 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.406 kg

'… invaluable for those interested in contemporary epistemology … Highly Recommended.' F. A. Grabowski, Choice

What happens when we have second thoughts about the epistemic standing of our beliefs, when we stop to check on beliefs which we have already formed or hypotheses which we have under consideration? In the essays collected in this volume, Hilary Kornblith considers this and other questions about self-knowledge and the nature of human reason. The essays draw extensively on work in social psychology to illuminate traditional epistemological issues: in contrast with traditional Cartesian approaches to these issues, Kornblith engages with empirically motivated skeptical problems, and shows how they may be constructively addressed in practical and theoretical terms. As well as bringing together ten previously published essays, the volume contains two entirely new pieces that engage with ideas of self and rational nature. Kornblith's approach lays the foundations for further development in epistemology that will benefit from advances in our understanding of human psychology.

Introduction
1. Introspection and misdirection
2. What is it like to be me?
3. Distrusting reason
4. The impurity of reason
5. What reflective endorsement cannot do
6. Belief in the face of controversy
7. Naturalism vs. the first-person perspective
8. Is there room for armchair theorizing in epistemology?
9. The role of reasons in epistemology
10. Doxastic justification is fundamental
11. Our sense of self
12. Our rational nature
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]