Knowledge in Humans and Other Animals

Abstract

What is the proper subject matter of epistemology? On one traditional view, it is, inter alia, our concept of knowledge, and the work of epistemology begins with an analysis of that concept. This view of epistemology's subject matter has much to recommend it, and it is very widely held, not only by many traditional epistemologists, but by some naturalists as well.l In this paper, however, I explore an alternative view. I suggest that the subject matter of epistemology is not our concept of knowledge, but knowledge itself. I suggest that knowledge should be viewed as a natural phenomenon and that it should be investigated in just the way in which we investigate other natural phenomena. Indeed, I suggest that we should view knowledge as a natural kind.2 Now I recognize that many will see this last suggestion as utterly absurd. Some, of course, are unsympathetic with the very idea of natural kinds. But even among those who are perfectly comfortable with the idea that there are real kinds in nature, many find the idea that knowledge should be one of those kinds to be particularly implausible. Are we to believe that knowledge, like water, has some sort of microstructure which makes it what it is? And if we reject the idea that there is a microstructure to knowledge as we should, of course then what is there in the world to determine the boundaries of the kind? It is the apparent absurdity of such questions which makes even those who are hostile to social constructivist accounts of almost anything sympathetic with the idea that knowledge itself might be a social construct. Knowledge certainly does not seem to be at all like any of the paradigmatic examples of natural kinds.3 Nevertheless, I will argue that the view that knowledge is a natural kind has