The second edition of Jack Crumley's An Introduction to Epistemology strikes a balance between the many issues that engage contemporary epistemologists and the contributions of the major historical figures. He shows not only how philosophers such as Descartes, Hume, Locke, Berkeley, and Kant foreground the contemporary debates, but also why they deserve consideration on their own terms. This is an extensively revised and updated edition of An Introduction to Epistemology. More concise and user-friendly, the book provides an introduction to the central topics in epistemology. While it presents comprehensive accounts of contemporary issues, it also gives serious attention to historical views, such as in the chapters on perception and a priori knowledge. New to this edition is a chapter on feminist epistemology and the inclusion of evidentialism and contextualism. The book is appropriate for undergraduate students taking their first course in epistemology, as well as graduate students, and interested persons. Included are chapters on skepticism, the analysis of knowledge, reliabilism, foundationalism, coherentism, externalism and internalism, naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, a priori knowledge, and perception. Each chapter includes an accessible description of the motivation for various views and explanations of the important arguments and counter-arguments. Students are this led from simpler, more accessible introductions to the more detailed and complex. Covered in some detail are Alvin Goldman's version of reliabilism, Robert Audi on modest foundationalism, Keith Lehrer on coherentism, William Alston's view of justification, Ernest Sosa's virtue epistemology, W.V.O. Quine's naturalized epistemology, and Berkeley and Locke on perception, and Leibniz, Kant, and A. J. Ayer on a priori knowledge. The chapter on feminist epistemology looks at several views, including Helen Longino, Sandra Harding, Genevieve Lloyd, Louise Antony, Vrinda Dalmiya, and Linda Alcoff. New work is included on cutting edge topics in epistemology, such as contextualism and perceptual realism. This is the only epistemology text of this sort that contains an entire chapter devoted to feminist epistemology. – Contents : Preface to the First Edition; Preface to the Second Edition; Introduction; The Aims of Epistemology; Some Important Concepts; Tradition and Revision; Key Concepts. – Chapter 1. Skepticism; – 2. An Introduction to the Analysis of Knowledge; – 3. Reliabilism; – 4. Structure and Sources of Justification: Foundationalism; – 5. Structure and Sources of Justification: Coherence Theory; – 6. Externalism and Internalism; – 7. Naturalized Epistemology; – 8. Feminist Epistemology; – 9. A Priori Knowledge; – 10. Perception. – At the end of each chapter: Key Concepts; Review Questions; For Further Study. M.-M. V.

In this essay, I assess Keith Lehrer's case against Foundationalism, which consists of variations on three objections: The Independent Information or Belief Objection, The Risk of Error Objection, and the Hidden Argument Objection. I conclude that each objection fails for reasons that can be endorsed – indeed, I would say for reasons that should be endorsed – by antifoundationalists and foundationalists alike.

Applied mathematics often operates by way of shakily rationalized expedients that can neither be understood in a deductive-nomological nor in an anti-realist setting.Rather do these complexities, so a recent paper of Mark Wilson argues, indicate some element in our mathematical descriptions that is alien to the physical world. In this vein the “mathematical opportunist ” openly seeks or engineers appropriate conditions for mathematics to get hold on a given problem.Honest “mathematical optimists”, instead, try to liberalize mathematical ontology so as to include all physical solutions. Following John von Neumann, the present paper argues that the axiomatization of a scientific theory can be performed in a rather opportunistic fashion, such that optimism and opportunism appear as two modes of a single strategy whose relative weight is determined by the status of the field to be investigated. Wilson's promising approach may thus be reformulated so as to avoid precarious talk about a physical world that is void of mathematical structure. This also makes the appraisal of the axiomatic method in applied matthematics less dependent upon foundationalist issues.