Knowing What Things Are: An Inquiry-Based Approach

✍ Scribed by André J. Abath

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 143
• Series: Synthese Library, 466
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

​This book provides an account of what is to know what things are, focusing on kinds, both natural (such as water) and social (such as marriage). It brings tools from an area that has received much attention in recent years, the epistemology of inquiry. The knowledge of what things are is to be understood as resulting from successful inquiries directed at questions of the form ‘What is x?’, where x stands for a given kind of thing. The book also addresses knowledge-wh in general (which includes knowledge-who and knowledge-where), as well as the phenomenon of ignorance regarding what things are and our obligations in respect to knowing what things are. It also brings to light new avenues of research for those interested in the relation between the knowledge of what things are and concept possession and amelioration.

‘Knowing What Things Are’ should be of interest to researchers in Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Social Philosophy and Linguistics.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 What Things?
1.2 An Erotetic Framework
1.3 Goals of Inquiry
1.4 Overview of Chapters
References
Part I: Toward the Erotetic View
Chapter 2: The Knowledge of What Things Are: Possible Views
2.1 The Knowledge of What Things Are as Simple Propositional Knowledge
2.2 The Knowledge of What Things Are as Practical Knowledge
2.3 The Knowledge of What Things Are as Knowledge By Acquaintance
2.4 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 3: Questions and Answers: Understanding Knowledge-Wh
3.1 Knowledge-Wh: The Standard Account
3.2 Knowledge-Wh and Inquiry-Based Epistemology
3.3 Knowledge-Wh and Context-Sensitivity
3.4 Is Knowledge-Wh Context-Sensitive?
3.5 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 4: The Erotetic View
4.1 Introducing the View
4.2 Skepticism and Holism
4.3 Water and H2O: The Question of Necessary Identities
4.4 The Threat of Excessive Intellectualism
4.5 A Brief Clash of Views
4.6 Concluding Remarks
References
Part II: Developing the Erotetic View
Chapter 5: The Gradability of the Knowledge of What Things Are
5.1 The Phenomenon of Gradability
5.2 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 6: Social Kinds, the Erotetic View and Erotetic Amelioration
6.1 The Knowledge of What Social Kinds Are
6.2 Amelioration: Conceptual and Erotetic
6.3 The Topic Preservation Challenge
6.4 The Knowledge of What Strongly Social Kinds Are and Erotetic Amelioration
6.5 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 7: The Knowledge of What Things Are: Ignorance and Obligations
7.1 Understanding Ignorance of What Things Are
7.2 Culpable Ignorance of What Things Are
7.3 Social Roles and Obligations to Know What Things Are
7.4 Associativism and Knowing What Things Are
7.5 Distributive Epistemic Injustice and the Knowledge of What Things Are
7.6 Concluding Remarks
References
Appendices
Appendix A
Having Concepts and Knowing What Things Are
A Psychological View of Concepts
A Philosophical View of Concepts
Appendix B
Incomplete Understanding of Concepts and the Gradability of the Knowledge of What Things Are
Appendix C
The Knowledge of What Particular Things Are
References