PH440 Spc Tpc: Knowing by Trusting
How do you know who your parents are? How do you know whether someone forgives you? How do you know about geography, history, and quantum physics? You know about these things by trusting other people. In this course, we will see how philosophers explain such knowledge, starting with Plato, and ending with several contemporary thinkers. We will see why ancient philosophers said that you cannot have knowledge by trust, and why Christian philosophers such as Augustine and Aquinas said that you can. Finally, we will consider recent attempts to explain such knowledge by a listener’s careful inference, or by default acceptance, or by sensing a speaker’s trustworthiness. (Each class we will discuss what a text says, and whether what it says is true. You will be evaluated by participation in discussions and by two essays.)