01 (J. Tolly) As humans, we don’t go through life adopting beliefs “willy-nilly.” We want to believe the truth. We don’t want to be duped. Hence, we set out to form beliefs that have reasons in their favor—we only want beliefs that are justified, that could count as knowledge. Perhaps more than ever, we feel the urgency of this pursuit as we’re increasingly surrounded by misleading and deceptive sources of information. This realization brings the value of epistemology (the study of knowledge) into clear focus. Epistemology does two things. First, it aims to help us understand what these goals of knowledge and reason even amount to. Then, with a clearer understanding of these goals in place, it helps us apply this understanding to real world cases of belief formation, illuminating principled practices we should adopt for managing our own beliefs if reason truly is our goal. This course will acquaint students with some of central issues and debates in epistemology. The class will cover fundamental questions like
Then, we’ll proceed to apply these lessons to pressing questions like:
Classes will involve short mini lectures interspersed with several student discussion exercises. Student discussion/participation in class is an important part of the final grade. There will be several shorter weekly writing assignments throughout the semester, and then a longer term paper that students will start working on halfway through the semester.