Philosophy: The Problem of Knowledge

Where exactly does knowledge come from, how can we be sure we have it, and who decides what counts as knowledge? The aim of this course is to explore some of the key problems encountered by such philosophers, through a close reading of primary and secondary literature related to epistemology, the study of knowledge. We will read excerpts from key figures in the modern history of this study, including Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Dewey, Wittgenstein, Kuhn, DuBois, Fanon, and Foucault, along with more contemporary figures, like Richard Rorty, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Along the way, we will ask how our quest for knowledge has changed, how that quest relates to our quest for truth, and what it means to make a knowledge claim.