Knowing What Things Are: An Inquiry-Based Approach

ISBN-13: 9783031073649 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022

André J. Abath

Opis

​This book provides an account of what is to know what things are, focusing on kinds, both natural (such as water) and social (such as marriage). It brings tools from an area that has received much attention in recent years, the epistemology of inquiry. The knowledge of what things are is to be understood as resulting from successful inquiries directed at questions of the form ‘What is x?’, where x stands for a given kind of thing. The book also addresses knowledge-wh in general (which includes knowledge-who and knowledge-where), as well as the phenomenon of ignorance regarding what things are and our obligations in respect to knowing what things are. It also brings to light new avenues of research for those interested in the relation between the knowledge of what things are and concept possession and amelioration.‘Knowing What Things Are’ should be of interest to researchers in Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Social Philosophy and Linguistics.

Spis treści

Introduction

Part I. Toward the Erotetic View

2. The Knowledge of What Things Are: Possible Views

2.1 The Knowledge of What Things are as Simple Propositional Knowledge

2.2 The Knowledge of What Things Are as Practical Knowledge

2.3 The Knowledge of What Things are as Knowledge by Acquaintance

3. Questions and Answers: Understanding Knowledge-Wh

3.1 Knowledge-Wh: The Standard Account

3.2. Knowledge-Wh and Inquiry-Based Epistemology

3.3 Knowledge-Wh and Context-Sensitivity

3.4 Is Knowledge-Wh Context-Sensitive?

Concluding Remarks

4. The Erotetic View

4.1 Introducing the View

4.2 Skepticism and Holism

4.3 Water and H2O: The Question of Necessary Identities

4.4 The Threat of Excessive Intellectualism

4.5 A Brief Clash of Views

Concluding Remarks

Part II. Developing the Erotetic View

5. The Gradability of the Knowledge of What Things Are

5.1 The Phenomenon of Gradability

Concluding Remarks

6. Social Kinds, the Erotetic View and Erotetic Amelioration

6.1 The Knowledge of What Social Kinds Are

6.2 Amelioration: Conceptual and Erotetic

6.3 The Topic Preservation Challenge

6.4 The Knowledge of What Strongly Social Kinds Are and Erotetic Amelioration

Concluding Remarks

7. The Knowledge of What Things Are: Ignorance and Obligations

7.1 Understanding Ignorance of What Things Are

7.2 Culpable Ignorance of What Things Are

7.3 Social Roles and Obligations to Know What Things Are

7.4 Associativism and Knowing What Things Are

7.5 Distributive Epistemic Injustice and the Knowledge of What Things Are

Concluding Remarks

Appendix A. Having Concepts and Knowing What Things Are

1. A Psychological View of Concepts

2. A Philosophical View of Concepts

Appendix B. Incomplete Understanding of Concepts and the Gradability of the Knowledge of What Things Are

Appendix C. The Knowledge of What Particular Things Are

O autorze

André J. Abath (PhD Sheffield) is Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), in Brazil. His teaching and research engage the fields of philosophy of mind, language and epistemology.