(1)THE CONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE

Main reading: E. Sober, "Theory of Knowledge (What is Knowledge)" [H]

THREE KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE

• Knowledge by acquaintance
• Knowledge how (knowledge as a skill or ability)
• Knowledge that (propositional knowledge)
• linguistic signs of each kind of knowledge (knowledge "that", knowledge "how", knowing someone)

TRADITIONAL ANALYSIS OF PROPOSITIONAL KNOWLEDGE (KNOWLEDGE AS JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF)

• Justification vs. truth
• Three conditions which are necessary (i.e. which must be satisfied) for someone to know something; and allegedly sufficient for the traditional analysis.
• Possible objections to this analysis (including Gettier-like objections).

KNOWLEDGE OF EXTERNAL WORLD

• Contingent vs. necessary facts
• The notion of perceptual belief, examples of perceptual and non-perceptual beliefs.
• Sources of evidence
• The epistemic primacy of sense perception

EXTERNAL WORLD SKEPTICISM

• Traditional Skepticism about External World (what does a skeptic grant, what does he deny) 
• Which necessary condition for knowing is never satisfied according to the skeptic?
• Radical Skeptical hypothesis - Matrix as an example (How does a skeptic argue for the skeptical claim?) 

POSSIBLE REPLIES TO A SKEPTIC

• Two kinds of certainty
• Knowledge with practical certainty vs. knowledge with absolute certainty
• Knowledge as defeasibly justified true belief. Does this concept of knowledge help to refute skeptic? (Knowledge with practical certainty and with absolute certainty.)

(2)THE CONCEPT OF A PERSON

• Ambiguity of the word person
• Different concepts of person (persons and human beings/humanoid; Components of empirical (commonsense) personhood; legal personhood, moral personhood)
• The Criteria for Attributing Basic Moral Rights:
• Is data a person (in what sense?)

(3)THE LIMITS OF MORALITY

• The ethics of respect for all life (what counts as life?) 
• The concept of moral standing
• Morally direct and indirect environmental strategies
• Criticisms of indirect strategies (see Regan on Locke/Kant/contractarians)
• Singer's consequentialist argument for changing our attitude to animals
• Problems for Singer (what does his argument really show?) 
  • replacebility problems
  • family farming as an alternative to factory farming
• Regan deontological case for changing our attitude to animals (problems)

READINGS, ETC.:

• Hanley, Ch. 1
• E. Sober, "Theory of Knowledge (What is Knowledge)"
• Singer , "All Animals Are Equal" or "Equality for Animals" (it's essentially the same argument, but it spells out better some practical applications)
• Peter Singer, Do Animals Feel Pain?
• Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
• A quiz that may give you some idea what kind of questions you can expect.
• Another quiz (this one was given as a take-home exercise)
• Notes: One sheet, handwritten.

  Philosoph and Science Fiction