Epistemology: New Essays, edited by Quentin Smith.

Abstract

Contemporary epistemology has been fertile ground for innovation in recent years. For example, many knowledge theorists feel the tension of taking sceptical scenarios seriously, while both clearing space for ordinary empirical knowledge and upholding the closure principle that the sceptic exploits in her reasoning. This has spawned a host of theories, for example, contextualism, subject-sensitive invariantism, and contrastivism, challenging the traditional notion that knowledge statuses, or, in some cases, the truth conditions of knowledge attributions, are independent of context or practical interests. Another recent trend stems from the concern to reconcile a theory of the nature of knowledge with an explanation of the value of knowledge, which has generated a variety of virtue-theoretic accounts of both. This volume, edited by Quentin Smith, includes twelve new, uniformly good essays from prominent figures in epistemology. Most contribute original insights, but the book is not comprised primarily of essays on the topics just mentioned (though Ernest Sosa’s virtue epistemology makes an appearance); rather, it contains new essays that develop, revise, or revisit seminal ideas or theories associated with the book’s contributors.