The philosophy Of Knowledge : A History. Volume III, Knowledge In Modern Philosophy PDF
Preview The philosophy Of Knowledge : A History. Volume III, Knowledge In Modern Philosophy
Knowledge in Modern Philosophy The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History General Editor, Stephen Hetherington ‘The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History is a tremendous achievement. Its four volumes cover the entire scope of Western epistemology, from the ancient world through the medieval and modern periods to the contemporary scene, with essays on the most influential figures in each of these periods. The result is a splendid overview on how fundamental questions about knowledge have been thought about over the millennia. These volumes will be the standard resource for all those interested in the history epistemology for decades to come.’ Richard Foley, Professor of Philosophy, New York University, USA ‘This series of four volumes gives a reader the opportunity to take a fascinating voyage through the history of epistemology with an emphasis on the evolution of various theories of knowledge. The authors who contribute to the volumes are experts in their fields and the chapters in each volume are uniformly excellent.’ Richard Fumerton, F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy, University of Iowa, USA ‘This ambitious fourfold work aims to provide an overview of Western epistemology, from the Greeks through contributions on the contemporary scene . . . An invaluable resource on epistemological topics and on the development of Western thought about them.’ Ernest Sosa, Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University, USA The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History presents the history of one of Western philosophy’s greatest challenges: understanding the nature of knowledge. Divided chronologically, these four volumes follow conceptions of knowledge that have been proposed, defended, replaced, and proposed anew by ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary philosophers. Each volume is centred around two key questions. What conceptions of knowledge have been offered? Which ones have shaped epistemology in particular and philosophy in general? Together, these volumes trace the historical development of knowledge for the first time. Volume I Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy, edited by Nicholas D. Smith Volume II Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy, edited by Henrik Lagerlund Volume III Knowledge in Modern Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger Volume IV Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy, edited by Stephen Hetherington and Markos Valaris The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History Volume III Knowledge in Modern Philosophy Edited by Stephen Gaukroger BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © Stephen Gaukroger, 2019 Stephen Gaukroger has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. Cover image © The Yellow Books, 1887 (oil on canvas), Gogh, Vincent van (1853– 90)/ Private Collection/ Bridgeman Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third- party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gaukroger, Stephen, editor. Title: Knowledge in modern philosophy / edited by Stephen Gaukroger. Description: Great Britain : Bloomsbury Publishing, Plc, 2018. | Series: The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History ; Volume 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018001779 (print) | LCCN 2018026217 (ebook) | ISBN 9781474258449 (ePub) | ISBN 9781474258470 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781474258456 (hb) Subjects: LCSH: Knowledge, Theory of–History. | Philosophy, Modern–History. Classification: LCC BD161 (ebook) | LCC BD161 .K5934 2018 (print) | DDC 121–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001779 ISBN: HB: 978- 1- 4742- 5845- 6 Pack: 978- 1- 4742- 5887- 6 ePDF: 978- 1- 4742- 5889- 0 eBook: 978- 1- 4742- 5888-3 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. Contents List of Contributors vi General Editor’s Preface vii Introduction Stephen Gaukroger 1 1 Bacon Matthew Sharpe 7 2 Gassendi and Hobbes Stewart Duncan and Antonia LoLordo 27 3 Descartes Anik Waldow 45 4 Spinoza Aaron Garrett 63 5 Malebranche Andrew Pyle 79 6 Leibniz Justin E. H. Smith 97 7 Locke Peter R. Anstey 111 8 Hume Margaret Schabas 129 9 Kant John Zammito 147 10 German Idealism Dean Moyar 165 11 Whewell, Mill, and the Birth of the Philosophy of Science Stephen Gaukroger 185 Index 203 Contributors Peter R. Anstey (University of Sydney, Australia) Stewart Duncan (University of Florida, USA) Aaron Garrett (Boston University, USA) Stephen Gaukroger (University of Sydney, Australia) Antonia LoLordo (University of Virginia, USA) Dean Moyar (Johns Hopkins University, USA) Andrew Pyle (University of Bristol, UK) Margaret Schabas (University of British Columbia, Canada) Matthew Sharpe (Deakin University, Australia) Justin E. H. Smith (University of Paris 7 – Denis Diderot, France) Anik Waldow (University of Sydney, Australia) John Zammito (Rice University, USA) General Editor’s Preface Stephen Hetherington The Philosophy of Knowledge: Introduction to a History Welcome to philosophy – to part of it, at any rate. A powerful and pivotal part of it, though: epistemology. Welcome to this survey – a tour, across four volumes – of a significant segment of epistemology’s history. Western philosophy began in ancient Greece, before travelling far afield, still prospering. And whatever it is now is at least partly a consequence of whatever it has been. Within these four volumes, we meet much of whatever epistemology has been and is. Why is this form of historical engagement philosophically important? Why is it important now to have some understanding of what epistemology has been? One reason is the possibility of current epistemology’s being more similar to some or all of its former selves than it might at first seem to be, in productive and destructive ways. We should not merely be reinventing the epistemological wheel; nor should we repeat past epistemological mistakes – design flaws in earlier epistemological conveyances. To know epistemology’s history is to know better what contemporary epistemology could be and perhaps should be – and what it need not be and perhaps ought not to be. Epistemology is usually said to be the philosophy of knowledge and of kindred phenomena. But what makes it the philosophy of such matters? Well, epistemology has long been a collective endeavour – a gathering of individual efforts, by a plethora of epistemologists over oh-s o- many years – to understand the nature of knowledge and those kindred phenomena. (Some of those efforts even ask whether there is a phenomenon of knowledge in the first place.) How does that collective endeavour take shape? A first – a partial – answer is that epistemology is ineliminably theoretical. It is one theory, another theory, yet more theories, and so on. And so it is theories linking with, and departing from, other theories. It is theories living, developing, dying, reproducing, influencing, succeeding, failing. It is new themes replacing old ones. It is old themes replacing new ones. newgenprepdf viii General Editor’s Preface And these four volumes will introduce you to such theories – competing conceptions of knowledge and those kindred phenomena, conceptions from across the ages. Volume I introduces us to theories from parts of the ancient world, the fount of all Western epistemology. Volumes II and III trace theories of knowledge as these arose over the following two millennia, late into the nineteenth century. Volume IV then tells a tale of the past century or so – while gesturing also at how epistemology might continue into at least the near future, taking us there from here. Not all of epistemology’s past or present theorists and theories appear in these pages; but many do. The result is a grand story of sweeping intellectual vistas with striking conceptual foundations and ramifications. It is living philosophy. It is here, with you right now. Introduction Stephen Gaukroger The study of the history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-c entury philosophy has been shaped by a standard historiographical template that is essentially Kantian- inspired. According to this template, philosophy underwent a long fallow period between classical antiquity and the early modern era, and was effectively reborn in the early seventeenth century. The rebirth changed the nature of philosophy, transforming it from metaphysics – an account of what kinds of things there are in the world and how they are related – into epistemology – an enquiry into the sources of our knowledge. With this transformation, the basic fault line that shaped philosophy was no longer that between the competing metaphysical systems of Plato and Aristotle, but rather between two competing and mutually exclusive epistemologies: rationalism, which based all knowledge on truths of reason, and empiricism, which based all knowledge on sensation. On this reading, the process started with Descartes, the founder of rationalism, was challenged with the empiricism of Locke and then Hume, and finally came to be resolved in Kant; or Hegel, depending on the version of the story. Finally, there is another hiatus between Hegel and classical German idealism, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and Frege’s revolution in philosophy at the end of the century, where epistemology becomes reformulated in terms of issues in the theory of meaning, and where, in a development of Kantian concerns about the standing of mathematical truths, problems in the philosophy of mathematics assume a central role. In its reconstruction of philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this picture, with its central rationalism/e mpiricism focus, tells us less about early modern philosophy than it does about how Kant projected his own interests onto his predecessors, for the resolution of the dichotomy between rationalism and empiricism, as he construed them, is constitutive of his project. But it also tells us much about twentieth- century Anglophone philosophy, which has taken the rationalism/ empiricism model as its own genealogy.
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