Inquiry, knowledge, and understanding

"What is knowledge? What is understanding? Why should we care about them? And how much, if anything, can we know and understand? These are among the most fundamental questions in the theory of knowledge. This book develops a new way of answering all of them in a systematic manner. The key idea is to approach these questions by thinking about inquiry. It argues that knowledge and understanding are the central aims of inquiry and that this insight serves to shed light on the nature, value, and extent of our knowledge and understanding"--Publisher's description.

This edition also issued in print: 2021.

Cover -- Inquiry, Knowledge, and Understanding -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Preface -- Contents -- Introduction: Inquiry and Epistemology -- 1: The Aim of Inquiry -- 1. The Aim of Inquiry into Specific Questions -- 1.1 The Aim of Inquiry Requires Knowledge -- 1.2 The Aim of Inquiry Requires Nothing More than Knowledge -- 2. Objections and Replies -- 2.1 Against the Arguments for Knowledge Aim -- 2.2 The Aim of Inquiry Can't Require Truth -- 2.3 The Aim of Inquiry Can't Be Knowledge -- 2.4 The Aim of Inquiry Can't Require Justification -- 3. Conclusion -- 2: Knowledge -- 1. A Network Analysis -- 1.1 Reductive and Network Analyses -- 1.2 Activities with Constitutive Aims and Norms -- 1.3 ACANs, Dismantling, and Network Analysis -- 1.4 Inquiry, Knowledge, and Belief -- 1.5 Evidence for the Network Analysis -- 2. Objections and Replies -- 2.1 That's Not Inquiry -- 2.2 Belief Doesn't Close Inquiry -- 2.3 Knowledge Is Not the Constitutive Aim of Inquiry -- 2.4 Activities Don't Have Aims -- 2.5 Dismantling in Ramsey-Lewis Style? -- 3. The Competition -- 3.1 Preliminaries -- 3.2 Causal Explanations of Action -- 3.3 Theoretical Virtues -- 4. Conclusion -- 3: Conditions on Knowledge -- 1. …