Research Catalog

Title

Sources of knowledge : on the concept of a rational capacity for knowledge / Andrea Kern ; translated by Daniel Smyth.

Author

Kern, Andrea

Publication

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Smyth, Daniel

Description

vii, 295 pages; 25 cm

Summary

How can human beings, who are liable to error, possess knowledge? The skeptic finds this question impossible to answer. If we can err, then it seems the grounds on which we believe do not rule out that we are wrong. Most contemporary epistemologists agree with the skeptic that we can never believe on grounds that exclude error. Sources of Knowledge moves beyond this predicament by demonstrating that some major problems of contemporary philosophy have their roots in the lack of a metaphysical category that is fundamental to our self-understanding: the category of a rational capacity for knowledge. The author argues that we can disarm skeptical doubt by conceiving knowledge as an act of a rational capacity. This enables us to appreciate human fallibility without falling into skepticism, for it allows us to understand how we can form beliefs about the world on grounds that exclude error. Knowledge is a fundamental capacity of the human mind. Human beings, as such, are knowers. In this way, the book seeks to understand knowledge from within our self-understanding as knowers. It develops a metaphysics of the human mind as existing through knowledge of itself, which knowledge--as the human being is finite--takes the form of a capacity. Regaining the concept of a rational capacity for knowledge, Kern makes a powerful and original contribution to philosophy that reinvigorates the tradition of Aristotle and Kant--thinkers whose relevance for contemporary epistemology has yet to be fully appreciated.--

Uniform Title

Quellen des Wissens. English

Alternative Title

Quellen des Wissens.

Subject

• Knowledge, Theory of
• Reason
• Error
• 08.32 epistemology

Note

• "An earlier version of this work was originally published as Quellen des Wissens: Zum Begriff vernünftiger Erkenntnisfähigkeit, © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2006"--Title page verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: "But we can always err!" -- Part 1. Knowledge and reason -- I. Finite knowledge -- Who are "we"?: a Kantian answer -- Knowledge from the standpoint of reason -- The dogma: justification without truth -- The puzzle: truth-guaranteeing grounds -- II. Finite justification -- Agrippa's trilemma -- Two answers to Agrippa's trilemma -- The category of a truth-guaranteeing ground -- Are we familiar with grounds belonging to this category? -- The role of perceptual grounds -- Part 2. The primacy of knowledge -- III. Doubting knowledge -- Objectivity and the possibility of error -- The paradox of knowledge -- Is philosophy necessarily skeptical? -- IV. The dilemma of epistemology -- The general redemption strategy: less is more! -- The internalist variant -- The externalist variant -- The paradox returns -- V. What are grounds? -- The rigorous reading: Hume and Kant -- Grounds and facts -- A transcendental argument -- Causality or normativity: a false dichotomy -- The primacy of knowledge -- Part 3. The nature of knowledge -- VI. Rational capacities -- The category of a rational capacity -- Rational capacities as constitutive unities -- Habits and regulative rules -- The normativity of rational capacities -- Aristotle's conception of a dynamis meta logou -- Rational capacities as self-conscious, normative explanations -- VII. Rational capacities for knowledge -- Knowledge as rational capacity -- Knowledge of the explanation of knowledge -- Knowledge as self-conscious actualization of a norm -- Knowledge and non-accidentality -- VIII. Rational capacities and circumstances -- The asymmetry of knowledge and error -- Favorable and unfavorable circumstances -- Fallible capacities and knowledge -- Doxastic responsibility and knowledge -- Part 4. The teleology of knowledge -- IX. The teleology of capacities -- Virtue epistemology and "epistemic capacities": a critique -- Capacities as a species of teleological causality: a Kantian approach -- Kant's refutation of the idea of an "implanted subjective disposition" -- Knowledge as a self-constituting capacity -- X. Knowledge and practice -- Capacity and practice -- Practice as self-constitution -- The objectivity of knowledge -- Skepticism and philosophy.

Call Number

JFE 17-2291

ISBN

• 9780674416116
• 0674416112

LCCN

• 2016015033
• 40026720915

OCLC

946907241

Author

Kern, Andrea, author.

Title

Sources of knowledge : on the concept of a rational capacity for knowledge / Andrea Kern ; translated by Daniel Smyth.

Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Smyth, Daniel, translator.

Translation Of:

Translation of: Kern, Andrea. Quellen des Wissens. 1. Aufl. Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, 2006 3518293869 (DLC) 2006506232 (OCoLC)71255258

Other Standard Identifier

40026720915

Research Call Number

JFE 17-2291