Epistemology: The Key Thinkers

Description

What have the great philosophers written about the nature of knowledge? Epistemology: The Key Thinkers tells the story of how our thinking about knowledge has developed, introducing you to some of the problems and forces that have dominated the history of philosophy. Beginning with Plato, Aristotle, ancient sceptics, and the medievals, before moving to Descartes, the British empiricists, Kant, American pragmatism, and twentieth-century thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. V. O. Quine, Alvin Goldman, and beyond, each chapter guides you through the ideas, contribution, and legacy of a leading philosopher or movement. This second edition includes: * A new chapter covering medieval epistemology * Extended guides to further reading and future directions for epistemology The final chapter looks to the future, highlighting some of the very latest debates that energise philosophical writing today about knowledge and how we know what we know.

Stephen Hetherington is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

Whether read individually or collectively, these essays will be extremely valuable for those seeking a better understanding of primary source material that is often quite dense and, therefore, can be difficult for uninitiated readers to penetrate ... [A] worthwhile contribution to the literature, especially for nonspecialists. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; graduate students. * CHOICE * Epistemology has returned, in recent years, to the center of philosophy, bringing with it exciting new developments and a renewed interest in the subject's history. There is no clearer or more usable overview of this history than Stephen Hetherington's collection, and this second edition offers new material that brings the work right up to the present moment. -- Robert Pasnau, Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder, USA