Much recent philosophy treats knowledge as reducible to other, supposedly more basic phenomena, like belief, truth, and justification. Since the beginning of the 21st century, however, a philosophical research program known as “knowledge-first” has treated knowledge as basic in explaining a variety of other phenomena, such as assertion, belief, justification, and reference. In this course, we will begin by discussing motivations for the knowledge-first program. We then critically survey applications of the program in epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. The course concludes by comparing the knowledge-first program with its historical predecessor, usually labeled “Oxford Realism”, which dates back to the late 19th and early 20th century.
- Lehrende:r: Simon Wimmer