Epistemology and Philosophical Method

Mainstream epistemology has aimed to provide reductive analyses of knowledge in terms of conditions on belief. Kinds of knowledge, for instance, perceptual knowledge and knowledge from testimony, are supposed to be explicated by drawing on the general analysis. This chapter outlines an alternative approach to epistemological method that aims to provide substantive accounts of knowledge of particular kinds and to illuminate knowledge in general in terms of those accounts. A case is made for the claim that those enquiring into the truth of some matter should aim at knowledge, and indeed reflective knowledge. It is argued that although epistemology is concerned with the nature of knowledge it should be sensitive to how the concept of knowledge figures in our thinking. Fruitful conceptual enquiry need not aim to provide analyses of concepts.