Stephen Hetherington on Epistemology: Knowing, More or Less

by Stephen Hetherington, Jeremiah Joven Joaquin (Editor), Mark Anthony Dacela (Editor)

Overview

Philosophy has long embraced epistemology as one of its central elements. What is knowledge? How do we gain it? Can we gain it? Or do we always deceive ourselves when thinking that we have knowledge? Are we too deeply fallible ever to know something? For centuries, these questions have helped to define and motivate epistemological research. This volume engages strikingly with them, offering some unusual answers.

Stephen Hetherington's prominent career within epistemology has been a series of bold, varied and provocative arguments and ideas. Bringing together some elements of his unique body of writing for the first time, this collection features previously published as well as new material displaying and extending some of his highly original approaches to key issues including knowledge, justification, fallibility, scepticism and the Gettier Problem.

Advancing our understanding of the systemic nature of Hetherington's thinking, Stephen Hetherington on Epistemology presents his distinctive perspective on some of philosophy's central questions about knowledge – an inviting blend of forensic detail and 'big picture' proposals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350344952
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/27/2025
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stephen Hetherington is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at University of New South Wales, Australia. His books include Good Knowledge, Bad Knowledge (2001), How To Know (2011), and Knowledge and the Gettier Problem (2016). He is the general editor, for Bloomsbury, of The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History (2018, four volumes). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

Jeremiah Joven Joaquin is Professor of Philosophy at De La Salle University, Philippines.

Mark Anthony Dacela is Associate Professor of Philosophy at De La Salle University, Philippines.

Table of Contents

Editorial Introduction: Interview with Stephen Hetherington
1. Epistemic Internalism's Dilemma
2. Is Epistemically Adequate Epistemology Possible?
3. Elusive Epistemological Justification
4. Gettieristic Scepticism
5. Epistemic Disaster Averted
6. Knowing Failably and Knowing Imperfectly
7. Sceptical Possibilities? No Worries
8. Knowledge That Works: A Tale of Two Conceptual Models
9. Knowledge as Potential for Action
10. Skeptical Challenges and Knowing Actions
11. Some Fallibilist Knowledge: Questioning Knowledge-Attributions and Open Knowledge
12. The Luck/Knowledge Incompatibility Thesis
13. The Redundancy Problem: From Knowledge-Infallibilism to Knowledge-Minimalism
14. And Next?
15. A Life in Philosophy

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Epistemic principles can and must satisfy their own strictures. Knowledge is an all-or-nothing affair. Gettierized individuals fail to know. Skepticism is well-founded. Hetherington demurs, arguing that if epistemology abandons these assumptions, knowledge is achievable, gradable, realized in practice, consonant with epistemic vulnerability. The result is a radical, powerful reconception of epistemology.” —Catherine Z. Elgin, Professor of the Philosophy of Education, Harvard University, USA

“This is a truly wonderful collection of challenging essays. They really bring to the fore the central, Fallibilist core of Hetherington's unique epistemology. An attitude which, in a field whose contemporary climate is still regulated by fashionistas and cliquey citation practices, continues to be a breath of fresh air.” —Anthony Booth, Professor of Ethics and Epistemology, University of Sussex, UK

From the Publisher