What is knowledge? What, if anything, can we know? In Knowing and Seeing, Michael Ayers recovers the insight in the traditional distinction between knowledge and belief, according to which 'knowledge' stems from direct and perspicuous cognitive contact with ('seeing') its object, whereas 'belief' relies on 'extraneous' justification. He conducts a careful phenomenological analysis of what it is to perceive one's environment as one's environment, the result of which is not only direct realism, but recognition that in being perceptually aware of anything we are at the same time perceptually aware of how we are aware of it. Perceptual knowing comes with knowing how you know. Some other forms of knowledge are similarly direct and perspicuous, but not all; a distinction is accordingly drawn between primary and secondary knowledge, and Ayers argues that no secondary knowledge is possible without some primary knowledge. Perceptual knowledge supplies the paradigm to which other cases of knowledge are diversely analogous - hence the notorious difficulty of defining knowledge. These conclusions, supported by a detailed examination of the relations between different grammatical constructions in which 'know', 'believe' and 'see' occur, fuel extended critiques of two lines of thought influential in contemporary epistemology: John McDowell's conceptualist and intellectualist account of perceptual knowledge, and Fred Dretske's 'externalist' employment of sceptical argument. Ayers unpicks the arguments for these other views, explains the failure of recent attempts at a comprehensive definition of knowledge, explores the tight relation between knowledge and certainty, and gives an account of how 'defeasibility' should and should not be understood in epistemology.

Knowing and Seeing: Groundwork for a new empiricism

Politics & Social Sciences

Ayers, Michael

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

Locke: Epistemology (Arguments of the Philosophers)

Routledge

Locke: Ontology (Arguments of the Philosophers)

John Locke's complex masterpiece, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", was a sustained attack on the dogmatism of his day and one of the last great works of philosophical realism before the onset of idealism in European philosophy. Michael Ayers undertakes a dual task: to reconstruct its meaning as a decisive contribution to 17th-century debates; and to recognize in Locke's arguments, entwined as they are with what is irremediably past, fundamental insights now lost or obscured. The result is both a comprehensive, historically based reinterpretation of the "Essay" and a systematic critique, from a realist point of view, of currently fashionable approaches to epistemology and ontology. This book should be of interest to advanced students and teachers of philosophy and scholars of Locke.

Locke: Ontology (The Arguments of the Philosophers)

John Locke is the greatest English philosopher. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, one of the most influential books in the history of thought, is his greatest work. In this study the historical meaning and philosophical significance of Locke's Essay are investigated more comprehensively than ever before. Locke was originally published in two volumes, Epistemology and Ontology. This paperback edition has within its covers the full text of both volumes.

Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (Arguments of the Philosophers)

History

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Locke-Arg Philosophers (Arguments of the Philosophers)

Reference

Arg Philosophers Set B X5 (Arguments of the Philosophers)

LACEY

Wilson, Margaret Dauler

Sorell

Delhaunty, R. J.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &amp; Francis, an informa company.

Locke-Arg Philosophers (The Arguments of the Philosophers)

The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Garber, Daniel (eds.)

Cambridge University Press

The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-century Philosophy: Volume 2

Garber, Daniel

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