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Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

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Since I am neither philosopher nor student of philosophy, I am not qualified to comment on this book for those perspectives. I am at best an interested and educated layman who read it without benefit of teacher or class, and so I shall address the work from that persective, which may be useful to others similarly situated.

Professor Audi here presents theories of knowledge organized by sources and structure, rather that historically by the philosophers who espoused them. No matter that Hume said this or Descartes that: the focus is on major concepts and ideas. Since my interest was in ideas themselves rather than the history of their development, I found this approach congenial.

Although Professor Audi writes with admirable clarity, I cannot pretend that I understood the work in its entirety, a reflection of my own limitations, surely not his. And yet I think I profited from the struggle. I appreciate now as never before the inextricability of philosophy and human mental and sensory process, the ambiguities of knowing and the relationship between knowing and justified belief, the elusiveness of certainty, the seductiveness of experience, and the complex character of scientific and moral (and religious) beliefs.

Within an academic setting, I suspect this would be an excellent basic text. If, like me, you are not a specialist and are interested in the subject of epistemology outside a formal academic setting, I would recommend this book only if you are tenacious, highly motivated, and willing to read and re-read slowly. It is not for the impatient reader looking for instant enlightenment.

In sum, this is a book whose rewards can be great for the determined reader.

Robert Audi's _Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge_, is another fine entry in the Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy series. In this one, a leading epistemologist presents an excellent and accessible overview of the philosophy of knowledge.

The text is helpfully divided into three major subtopics.

In the first, "Sources of knowledge, justification, and truth," Audi devotes a chapter each to perception, memory, consciousness, reason, and testimony.

In the second, "The structure and growth of justification and knowledge," Audi dedicates one chapter to the nature of inference and one to the problem of foundationalism vs. coherentism.

And in the third, "The nature and scope of justification and knowledge," Audi overviews the nature of knowledge (e.g. justified true belief, or the "right kind" of justified true belief?); the specific nature of scientific, moral, and religious knowledge; and skepticism (including various possible responses thereto).

The text is clear and intelligible throughout and makes a thorough introduction to the subject well suited either for classroom use or for the intelligent lay reader flying solo. And the "short annotated bibliography" is a well-chosen source of suggestions for further reading.

Readers unfamiliar with the field may also want to pick up _ A Companion to Epistemology_ (edited by Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa), a fine collection of 250 alphabetical entries by various respected philosophers. And the _Oxford Companion to Philosophy_ (edited by Ted Honderich) is an excellent general reference which no student of philosophy should be without.

(The Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy series seems to be very good in general, by the way; Michael Loux's _Metaphysics_ is also highly recommended.)

I used this book as part of a graduate level epistemology course. The class consensus was that it was too detailed which made it hard to stay focused on the main points of the various arguments. I would not recommend this book, as a whole, to the lay reader, but some chapters are suitble. All in all, it is a good source book for identifying the issues in epistemology.

Robert Audi's book is backwards both in form and thought. With regard to form, I mean that the chapters are in backwards order: the last chapter should have been first, the second-to-last chapter should have been second, etc. The first chapters deal with the alleged sources of knowledge such as perception and memory, considering questions of what knowledge or justification even are only towards the end. Skepticism is treated only briefly in the last chapter. Any general book on epistemology should be begin with skepticism, since this is what prompts epistemic inquiry-it is only because we doubt whether we know something that we begin to ask what knowledge is and how one gets it. The next natural step is to formulate a theory of knowledge and test it against objections. This would entail, last of all, going into the role of the sources of that knowledge such as perception and reason.

He works with `knowledge' and `justification' for two hundred pages before discussing at any length what they are. No serious theory of knowledge proceeds in this way. I simply cannot see why Audi would do this in reverse order. Perhaps he meant to go from common sense to abstract matters in such a way that someone without a philosophical inclination would be inclined to follow. But such people do not read philosophy books.

Lastly, Audi's epistemology is not compelling. He waters down knowledge to the extent that it is no longer philosophically interesting. For him, knowledge is not certain. Nor is it justified true belief. What is it, then? He won't say, beyond sketching a "moderate foundationalism." In short, foundationalism is the theory that knowledge is attained through perception (basically, it is empiricism). This is described in opposition to coherentism, according to which knowledge is whatever coheres with what we already think we know. Idealism gets mentioned only as a theory of perception.