Achieving Knowledge

Abstract

Frege, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein-it more recently circled round into renewed proximity to them with the later Wittgenstein' (GPL, p. 277). The final chapter, 'Hermeneutics', surveys the history of hermeneutics from Ernesti to the present. Forster regards this as in large part a history of decline, culminating in Gadamer's Heidegger-derived belief that we should not aspire to recapture the original meaning of a text but should rather assimilate it to our own interests and outlook. The decline is relieved, however, by the 'hermeneutics of suspicion' (Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud) and also by J. L. Austin's and Quentin Skinner's accounts of the role played by illocutionary force in texts and discourse, a 'vindication of Herder's basic intuition that linguistic interpretation needs to be complemented with psychological interpretation' (pp. 314-15). Forster concludes by suggesting two areas for further exploration. The first is the part played in the articulation of a text by its 'metalinguistic component', the authors' own conceptions of meaning, synonymy, etc., which 'vary significantly from period to period, culture to culture, and perhaps even individual to individual' (p. 317). The second is language-use in animals and animals' capacities for classifying perceptions and recognising prey and predators. Forster avoids a looming conflict with Herder by qualifying some of their 'meaning', 'thoughts' and 'concepts' as merely 'proto-meaning', etc., when he recommends the extension of hermeneutics to the interpretation not only of their language but also of their other behaviour. Forster amply fulfils his two aims. He explores a rich and interesting vein in the history of philosophy. Equipped with massive erudition and a sharp eye for logical distinctions, he presents its achievements in a detailed, but systematic and digestible, form. His defence of the doctrines he unearths is invariably tenacious and for the most part compelling. These books are a model both of scrupulous interpretation and of precise and rigorous argument.

A Problem for Pritchard’s Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology

“…Two insights key to Pritchard's (2007;2008;2009;2010; new theory of knowledge-anti-luck virtue epistemology (ALVE)-are that (put simply) (i) knowlege excludes luck; and (ii) knowledge arises from ability. These insights are crucial to motivating his ALVE account-which will be the critical focus of this paper-and so I think it will be useful to begin by making precise what each…”

“…Rather, if we're to to rightly credit Steff with knowing that it would rain, she would have to have formed the belief that it would rain through her own intellectual abilities 6 . We can see how it is then that from the idea that knowledge and veritic epistemic luck are incompatible we are lead quite naturally to the idea that knowledge must arise through some relevant sort of cognitive ability or skill.…”

“…Now as a point of obviousness, the approach to analysing knowledge that is prima facie best suited to accommodating the ability constraint is the virtuetheoretic approach, examples of which include the much-discussed proposals defended by the three towering figures in virtue epistemology: Sosa (2007;2009), Greco (2006;2010) and Zagzebski (1996). Although these leading writers disagree about (among other things) how the connection knowledge requires between the acquisition of truth and the exercise of intellectual virtue should be understood, they are in solid agreement that one fails to know unless one satisfies the ability constraint (AC).…”

“…Before directly assessing the case Pritchard advances for (I2) in his Independence Argument, it will be appropriate to introduce an idea central to Sosa's (2007;2009) and Greco's (2006;2010) recent virtue-based accounts of knowledge and which functions importantly in Pritchard's critique of virtue epistemologypart of which he takes as his key support for (I2). The idea I have in mind here is that of cognitive achievement.…”

Information and the gaining of understanding

“…In addition to Smith, quoted above, others who have discussed the issue include Greco [8], de Ridder [9], who regards understanding as a kind of higher-order knowledge, in a network of knowledge with internal coherence and explanatory potential, Kvanvig [10], who see understanding as requiring the grasping of explanatory and other coherence-making relationships in a large and comprehensive body of information, and Floridi [11], who writes of a web of mutual relations within a body of knowledge that allows one part of it to account for another.…”