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HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN NATURE: A NEW INTRODUCTION TO AN ANCIENT DEBATE

 

(Oxford University Press, 1992.)

 

ISBN 0-19-875101-X

ISBN 0-19-875102-8 (pbk.)

 

COVER BLURB

 

Contemporary debates in epistemology devote much attention to the nature of knowledge, nut neglect the question of its sources. The distinctive focus of Human Knowledge and Human Nature is on the latter, especially on the question of innateness. Peter Carruthers’ aim is to transform and reinvigorate contemporary empiricism, while also providing an introduction to a range of issues in the theory of knowledge. He gives a lively presentation and assessment of the claims of classical empiricism, particularly its denial of substantive a priori knowledge and also of innate knowledge. He argues that we would be right to reject the substantive a priori but not innateness, and then presents a novel account of the main motivation behind empiricism, which leaves contemporary empiricists free to accept innate knowledge and concepts. He closes with a discussion of scepticism, arguing that acceptance of innate concepts may lead to a decisive resolution of the problem in favour of realism.

The book will be of equal interest to students of the history of modern philosophy and the theory of knowledge and their teachers. It provides a new way of looking at classical empiricism, and should lead to a renewal of interest in the innateness issue in epistemology.

 

CONTENTS

 

Preface (see below)

1.         Introduction: modes of knowledge

2.         Knowledge out of Reason: platonism

3.         The Empiricist Case against Platonism

4.         The Empiricist Case against Nativism

5.         Is Innate Knowledge even Possible?

6.         The Case for Innate Mental Structure

7.         The Case for Innate Concepts

8.         The Case for Innate Knowledge

9.         Powers of Mind: the core of empiricism

10.       Evolutionary Nativism and A Priori Knowledge

11.       Our Knowledge of the External World

12.       Knowledge by Best Explanation

Conclusion
Further Reading

Index

 

PREFACE

 

This book began life as a series of lectures which were never delivered. In the Spring of 1988 I was invited to take part in the second Sino-British Summer School in Philosophy, due to have been held in Beijing in August 1989. The idea was to produce written texts of the lectures, both to be made available to those attending the Summer School, and for later publication in Chinese translation. I began work that July, and had the lectures completed by the following May. But then the session of the Summer School was unfortunately cancelled, following the suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square by the People's Liberation Army on June 4th 1989.

            My original brief was to write on British Empiricism for an audience of Chinese academics and graduate students whose English might not be perfect, and who, while having some knowledge of empiricism and of Western philosophy generally, would have had little experience of active work within our tradition. Accordingly, I was to teach not only by content but by example. That spirit has survived into the present book. Not only have I tried to provide a clear and succinct introduction to many of the issues in the theory of knowledge particularly relating to empiricism, but I have also attempted to make an original contribution to the subject, thereby illustrating how serious work in philosophy can at the same time be accessible. I also had the idea that my lectures might form a useful model of how one can take past traditions of thought seriously while at the same time retaining a critical distance - trying, from our contemporary perspective, both to rework the insights and avoid the errors of history. That spirit, too, has survived into the present book. I am grateful to Nick Bunnin, as Chairman of the British Committee of the Summer School, for extending me the original invitation. The texts of my lectures were prepared under the title Empiricism, Nativism and A Priori Knowledge.

            I am grateful to the following individuals for their advice, and for criticisms of ealier drafts: David Archard, Angela Blackburn, Nick Bunnin, Bob Hale, Sile Harrington, Susan Levi, Cynthia Macdonald, Alan Millar, David Smith, Nicholas White, Tim Williamson, Xiao Yang, and two anonymous readers for Oxford University Press. I am also grateful to my students at the Universities of Essex and of Michigan, who were obliged to study earlier drafts of the book as a text, and who gave me the benefit of their objections and - equally important - their frequent incomprehension.

            Some of the ideas in this book have been delivered as talks at the University of East Anglia, the University of Michigan, the 1990 Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association, and at Trinity College Dublin. I am grateful to all those who participated in the subsequent discussions for their comments and criticisms.

            Some of the material in chapters 9 and 10 has been previously published under the title 'What is Empiricism?' in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (supplementary volume 64, 1990). I am grateful to the Editor of the Proceedings for permission to make use of it.

            One final note: throughout this book I shall use the colloquial plural pronouns 'they' and 'their' in impersonal contexts, in place of the masculine singular 'he' and 'his' required by strict English grammar. I believe that grammar needs changing in this respect, since it contrives to give the appearance that only men ever do or think anything worth mentioning.