Knowledge and Evidence

by Paul K. Moser

Overview

Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521423632
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/26/1991
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Philosophy
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Paul K. Moser is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of The Elusive God (Cambridge University Press, 2008), editor of Jesus and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and co-editor of Divine Hiddenness (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and of The Rationality of Theism (Routledge, 2003). He is also editor of the journal American Philosophical Quarterly. He is currently writing a book titled The Evidence for God for a non-scholarly audience (to be published by Cambridge University Press).

Table of Contents

Acknowedgments; Introduction; 1. Conditions for propositional knowledge; 2. Minimal epistemic reasons; 3. Justifying epistemic reasons; 4. Foundationalism and some alternatives; 5. Procedural epistemic rationality; 6. Propositional knowledge; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Paul Moser's book is a powerful antidote to the naive but morally and intellectually damaging 'relativism' that pervades much contemporary social and literary theory, but it is much more than that. Unfashionably but persuasively, Moser defends a foundationalist epistemology and a version of the correspondence theory of truth." The Times Higher Education Supplement

"Moser has produced a foundationalist account of justification and knowledge that in some respects is superior to anything else in the literature." William Alston, Syracuse University

"This is an excellent book....No philosophical theory is without its weaknesses, and an overall assessment must compare such weaknesses to those of competing theories. In this respect Moser's foundationalism fares very well, whether the comparison is to foundationalist or to nonfoundationalist alternatives." Timm Triplett, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

From the Publisher