Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T14:33:49.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Pragmatic Phenomenalist Account of Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Byeong D. Lee
Affiliation:
University of Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Robert Brandom argues for a “pragmatic phenomenalist account” of knowledge. On this account, we should understand our notion of justification in accordance with a Sellarsian social practice model, and there is nothing more to the phenomenon of knowledge than the proprieties of takings-as-knowing. I agree with these two claims. But Brandom's proposal is so sketchy that it is unclear how it can deal with a number of much-discussed problems in contemporary epistemology. The main purpose of this article is to develop and defend a pragmatic phenomenalist account of knowledge by resolving those problems. I argue, in particular, that this account can accommodate both the lesson of the Gettier problem and the lesson of reliabilism simultaneously.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alston, William 1988An internalist externalism.” Synthese, 74: 265–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurence, BonJour 1985 The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, Robert 1994 Making It Explicit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, Robert 2000 Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chisholm, Roderick 1977 Theory of Knowledge. 2nd ed.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Richard, Feldman 1974Alleged Defect in Gettier Counterexamples.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 52, 1 (05): 6869.Google Scholar
Gettier, Edmund L. 1963Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?Analysis, 23: 121–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carl, Ginet 2005 “Infinitism Is Not the Solution to the Regress Problem.” In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Edited by Matthias, Steup and Ernest, Sosa. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 140–49.Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin 1992 “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology.” In Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Grover, Dorothy, Camp, Joseph L., and Belnap, Nuel D. Jr., 1975A Prosentential Theory of Truth.” Philosophical Studies, 27: 73108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Peter 2005 “Infinitism Is the Solution to the Regress Problem.” In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Edited by Matthias, Steup and Ernest, Sosa. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 131–40.Google Scholar
Lehrer, Keith 1990 Theory of Knowledge. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Lehrer, Keith, and Paxson, Thomas D. Jr., 1969Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief.” Journal of Philosophy, 66: 225–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid 1974 “Induction as Vindication.” In Essays in Philosophy and Its History. Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel Publishing, pp. 367416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid 1997 Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Introduction by Richard Rorty; Study Guide by Robert Brandom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Matthias, Steup 1996 An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar