Sources of Knowledge: On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge
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.

Andrea Kern 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, Sources of Knowledge 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.

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Sources of Knowledge: On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge
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.

Andrea Kern 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, Sources of Knowledge 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.

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Sources of Knowledge: On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge

Sources of Knowledge: On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge

Sources of Knowledge: On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge

Sources of Knowledge: On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge

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Overview

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.

Andrea Kern 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, Sources of Knowledge 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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674416116
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 01/02/2017
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)
Language: German

About the Author

Andrea Kern is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Universität Leipzig.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "But We Can Always Err!" 1

Part 1 Knowledge and Reason 11

I Finite Knowledge 15

1 Who Are "We"? A Kantian Answer 15

2 Knowledge from the Standpoint of Reason 22

3 The Dogma: Justification without Truth 31

4 The Puzzle: Truth-Guaranteeing Grounds 36

II Finite Justification 39

1 Agrippa's Trilemma 39

2 Two Answers to Agrippa's Trilemma 42

3 The Category of a Truth-Guaranteeing Ground 46

4 Are We Familiar with Grounds Belonging to This Category? 50

5 The Role of Perceptual Grounds 53

Part 2 The Primacy of Knowledge 59

III Doubting Knowledge 63

1 Objectivity and the Possibility of Error 63

2 The Paradox of Knowledge 70

3 Is Philosophy Necessarily Skeptical? 71

IV The Dilemma of Epistemology 76

1 The General Redemptive Strategy: Less Is More! 76

2 The Internalist Variant 80

3 The Externalist Variant 84

4 The Paradox Returns 89

V What Are Grounds? 96

1 The Rigorous Reading: Hume and Kant 96

2 Grounds and Facts 104

3 A Transcendental Argument 107

4 Causality or Normativity: A False Dichotomy 115

5 The Primacy of Knowledge 119

Part 3 The Nature of Knowledge 127

VI Rational Capacities 133

1 The Category of a Rational Capacity 133

2 Rational Capacities as Constitutive Unities 141

3 Habits and Regulative Rules 152

4 The Normativity of Rational Capacities 157

5 Aristotle's Conception of a dynamis meta logou 161

6 Rational Capacities as Self-Conscious, Normative Explanations 176

VII Rational Capacities for Knowledge 182

1 Knowledge as Rational Capacity 182

2 Knowledge of the Explanation of Knowledge 187

3 Knowledge as Self-Conscious Act 192

4 Knowledge and Non-Accidentality 194

VIII Rational Capacities and Circumstances 198

1 The Asymmetry of Knowledge and Error 198

2 Favorable and Unfavorable Circumstances 202

3 Fallible Capacities and Knowledge 211

4 Doxastic Responsibility and Knowledge 217

Part 4 The Teleology of Knowledge 225

IX The Teleology of Rational Capacities 229

1 Virtue Epistemology and "Epistemic Capacities": A Critique 229

2 Rational Capacities as a Species of Teleological Causality: A Kazitian Approach 238

3 Kant's Refutation of the Idea of an "Implanted Subjective Disposition" 246

4 Knowledge as a Self-Constituting Capacity 254

X Knowledge and Practice 257

1 Rational Capacities and Practice 257

2 How Does One Acquire a Rational Capacity for Knowledge? 264

3 Knowledge and Objectivity 268

4 Skepticism and Philosophy 273

Bibliography 281

Index 293

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