Knowledge and justification
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The dialectic method, thesis and antithesis
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"I know that I exist." Is this certain? Empiricism has been subjected to thorough critique ever since Plato, who was vehemently opposed to it, and the debate between empiricism and its alternative, rationalism, lies at the heart of Western philosophy. It is central to the dialectic method by means of which Western philosophy "progresses". Western philosophers do not agree about fundamentals. There is no single common set of beliefs or dogmas that all Western philosophers accept as truths. Western philosophers agree to disagree, even about fundamentals. They also agree to enter into debate with each other, and to propose arguments and counter-arguments. One argument is proposed as a thesis, and objections to this argument are made, and an antithesis is offered in its place. Although this might appear to indicate that Western philosophy does not develop, that is not really the case. The sincerity of all philosophers to discover the truth, no matter how painful that may be to them personally, requires them to acknowledge the force of certain counter-arguments to their dearly cherished beliefs. In acknowledging these counter-arguments they are forced to refine their own arguments, and improve on them; alternatively, they must give up their thesis and acknowledge "defeat". So Western philosophy proceeds through the exchange of argument and counter-argument; through the battle between thesis and antithesis. This is why dialogue is one of the main forms of Western philosophical literature; debate lies at the heart of the method. The method is known as the dialectic method, and its invention is attributed to Plato.
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Contents of
Knowledge and justification
1 The distinction between knowledge and belief
2 Unsound, invalid, possible world and fallacy
3 Counterexample, exposing a fallacy
4 Belief and doubt
5 Believing that and knowing that
6 Knowledge and certainty - the tripartite definition of knowledge
7 True, justified belief
8 Plato: The Theaetetus
9 Plato: Forms
10 The possibility of scepticism and categories of belief
11 Global scepticism
12 The Argument from Authority
13 Valid argument, inference and justification
14 Chain of deductive inferences, self-evident truths
15 Sense experience, empiricism
16 The dialectic method, thesis and antithesis
17 Rationalism and empiricism; the Discourse on the Method
18 The Cogito, Reason and Rational Insight
19 Bertrand Russell, Acquaintance
20 Universals, Forms
21 Scepticism, Existentialism and Faith
22 The evil genius argument
23 Existentialism
24 Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling - the Absurd
25 Foundation for Knowledge
26 Theory of Knowledge, Epistemology and Metaphysics
27 Rationalism, Mathematics and Logic, Innateness
28 Innate Ideas
29 The a priori
30 Truth by convention, Hume and the Method of Doubt
31 Hume and the distinction between belief and knowledge
32 Hume and the definition of belief
33 Truth as a logical operator on sentences
34 The correspondence theory of truth
35 Wittgenstein: On Certainty
36 Wittgenstein and the coherence theory of truth
37 William James and Pragmatism
38 W.V.O. Quine, pragmatism and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism
39 Postivism and pragmatism
40 Pragmatism and utilitarianism
41 Pragmatism and religiion
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