Précis of The Possibility of Knowledge

Abstract

My book is about how-possible questions in epistemology. I focus on three such questions, 'How is knowledge of the external world possible?' 'How is knowledge of other minds possible?' and 'How is a priori knowledge possible?' I explain how questions of this form arise and suggest how they should be answered. The basic idea is that we start by assuming that knowledge of the kind in question is possible but then encounter apparent obstacles to its existence or acquisition. So the issue is: how is knowledge of such-and-such a kind possible given the factors that make it look impossible? Since such questions are obstacle-dependent a satisfying response will need to be an obstacle-removing response, one that shows how the obstacles that led to the question being asked in the first place can be overcome or dissipated. Often the worry is that we lack any obvious means of acquiring knowledge of the kind in question. So, for example, we might ask how knowledge of the external world is possible if it seems to us that we lack any means of knowing about the world around us. I recommend a multi-levels response to this question. The first stage of such a response identifies means of coming to know something about the external world. This is Level 1, the level of means. I focus on perceptual means, on the idea that where P is a proposition about the external world it is sometimes possible to come to know that P by perceiving that P. At Level 2 we try to show that there aren't any insuperable obstacles to our coming to know that P by the suggested means. This is the obstacle-removing level. Lastly, at Level 3, we might ask what makes it possible for us to know that P by perceiving that P. What we are looking for at this level, the level of enabling conditions, are background necessary conditions for perceiving that P or for knowing that P by