Readings on Epistemology

We begin our study of epistemology, the theory of knowledge. How do we know things? What kinds of things can we know? Do we know everything in the same way? Is there a difference between knowing what something is and knowing how to do something? Or between knowing what a physical object is and knowing what the answer to a math question is? What does "knowing" mean? Before you start reading, ask yourself these very questions.

1. The ancient understanding of knowledge.

Henri and H.A. Frankfort, “Myth and Reality.” What do the Frankforts mean by the “mytho-poeic” mind? What are the three different methods by which people gain knowledge according to the Frankforts? Which method characterizes ancient man?

According to Mircea Eliade, how did ancient man “know” the sacred? How did he know he was in the presence of the sacred? How did he know the “profane”?

2. Epicurean epistemology.

a. Please read the following passages from Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (Hackett Martin F Smith prose translation):

·         IV.26-614, 722-908 (Book IV, lines 26-614, 722-908); 

·         II.788-1040 (Book II, lines 788-1040);

·          A few study questions to get through the readings.

Reading it in this order will make more sense. Ask yourself what Lucretius's answers to the questions in my first paragraph above are. I included his explanations of vision and hearing but not taste and smell. You might want to check out one or more of those explanations, but they all follow logically from what he says in the first part of Book IV on vision and touch.

b. Hobbes, Leviathan, chapters 1 to 5. The Leviathan also available via the Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (Project Gutenberg) or Open Library link. Use the Study Questions for Hobbes's Leviathan on chapters 1 to 5 of the Leviathan, also available on the main web page under “Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan.” These study questions will serve as the basis for the class discussion.

c. Alternative or additional readings: Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 8, “Of the Virtues Commonly Called Intellectual and Their Contrary Defects.” Compare this to Aristotle’s account of the intellectual virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, parts 2 to 8.

3. Classical epistemology.

a. Plato's Republic, Book VI (506b) to Book VII (517c): the account of the divided line and the allegory of the cave. Use the "Study Questions on Plato's Republic” here or on the main webpage to help you work through the two accounts. On the main webpage, the last few questions under Book Six and the first multipart question under Book Seven relate to the assigned reading. If you purchased the Bloom translation of the Republic, use it instead of the linked excerpt. The Paul Shorey translation is also a good one to use. Divided Line Graphic The Paul Shorey translation is here (along with the original Greek text).

b. Please read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, chapters 1 to 3, and Book VI, chapters 2 to 8: The Intellectual Virtues. This reading gets at the core of the Classical understanding (shared by your instructor, moi) of political science. Use these Study Questions to work your way through the chapters. Try to compare each of Aristotle's five intellectual virtues with the different steps in Plato's divided line example. Compare Aristotle’s account of the intellectual virtues to Hobbes’s account, Leviathan, ch. 1-5 and 8.

c. Alternative or additional readings: Aristotle's account of "the four causes" in Book Two of the Physics, (Parts 3, 7, & 8). Part 8 is particularly important. Be able to give me short definitions of each of the four causes—each of the four "principles"—that Aristotle describes. Bring your Lucretius text with you for in-class comparisons.

4. Classical Christian epistemology.

We turn next to St. Augustine as representative of the Classical Judeo-Christian-Muslim (Abrahamic) tradition. Augustine's epistemology must account for the knowledge of God, (the Yahweh of the Scriptures) and His divine qualities. Is rational thought sufficient? Is faith necessary? Does faith replace reason? Is faith a source of knowledge or only of belief?

a. Please read this set of excerpts from St. Augustine’s early dialogue On Free Choice of the Will, from the City of God, and from his Confessions  and focus on what he has to say about faith, belief, reason, and understanding. (Use the first three sets of these study questions for Augustine; use the last set for the Jonas reading on gnosis in #5.a below.) The Latin statement credo ut intelligam (I believe in order to understand) underlies much of Augustine’s argument. On knowing God, Augustine also said, “If you understood him, it would not be God.” (Sermo 52, 6, 16) Note also, the word “faith” is not used a lot in these excerpts, though it is clear that Augustine is sometimes referring to religious faith. Read the material closely to try to understand what Augustine is precisely talking about.

This material, though not long, is difficult to get through, so leave yourself enough time to do so. It took me several readings to get a good understanding of it; perhaps it will be the same for you. Augustine's Confessions is a spiritual autobiography of his conversion to Christianity from Classical philosophy and Manichaean (Gnostic) religion. It is intensely personal, and many people have found it helpful in their own thinking about philosophy and religion. Ask yourself whether Augustine totally abandons philosophy, and with it, "reason," as a source of truth about the world and about God. What reasons does he give for his changes of mind? Do you think that St. Augustine is saying that you must have faith in God in order to learn how to build a house? Fry an egg? Solve a mathematical puzzle? Can atheists know anything? In On the Free Choice of the Will Augustine inquires into the source of evil and alludes several times to the proper relationship of reason to faith.

b. Alternative or additional readings: This excerpt from St. Augustine’s City of God, Book XXII, chapter 24 In Book XXII, chapter 24, he discusses the range and limitation of the human intellect without God's grace and with God's grace.

c. In Book II of On Christian Doctrine, Augustine is discussing how to study Scripture, but his entire discussion is relevant to epistemology. He delves into the nature of signs and words.

d. Please read this excerpt on Faith, Belief, and Knowledge from an Oregon State University website. Read this only after wrestling with the excerpts from St. Augustine. You might want to compare Hobbes's views on faith, belief, and knowledge in chapter 7 of Leviathan.

5. Esoteric epistemologies.

a. Please read the excerpt from Hans Jonas’s book The Gnostic Religion on "gnosis" (Greek, translated as knowledge, seeking to know, inquiry, investigation), the term from which Gnosticism takes its name. According to Jonas, what did the Gnostics believe was the most important thing to “know”? How did the Gnostics learn about this important object of knowledge? Use the last batch of these study questions for some help.

b. Alternative or additional readings: Please read (1) the Hermetic tract Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men and (2) paragraphs 1-12, 18-21, and 30-33 from the Oration on the Dignity of Man by the Renaissance writer Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

These two readings will introduce you to the relatively unknown but immensely influential Hermetic tradition, named after the legendary figure Hermes Trismagistus, who allegedly lived in ancient times. As the introductory note to the Poemandres indicates, the Hermetic—or Hermeticist or Hermetistic or "esoteric"—tradition was particulary influential in the great European Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Through the influence of the German philosopher Hegel, its influence extended into the twentieth century and the present.

Epistemologically, Hermeticism, like Gnosticism and the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) acquires its most important principles and insights from revelation, but the implications that Hermeticism drew from what was revealed are different from those of both Gnosticism and the Abrahamic religions. This is fun stuff and is the basis for a lot of the popular fiction, movies, and TV shoes today.

(3) A note on Feminist epistemology

(4) Please read the excerpts from Michael Polanyi's Tacit Dimension for next time.

(5) Please read Ernst Cassirer's account of man's symbolic nature for next time.