PHIL2211: Epistemology

• PHIL1021 Knowledge and Reality and PHIL1091 Philosophical Traditions

• None

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• To critically examine theories in epistemology, about the nature of knowledge, understanding, rationality, and related phenomena.

• The specific topics may vary from year to year, but the types of topics covered could include sources of knowledge; testimony and disagreement; conspiracy theories, social media, fake news, and echo chambers; knowledge and paradoxes; practical epistemology: know how, moral and legal epistemology; feminist epistemology; formal epistemology; decision theory.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate both knowledge and critical understanding of:
• keys ideas of epistemologists and epistemological theories;
• some key approaches to epistemology.

Subject-specific Skills:

• grasp, analyse, evaluate and deploy subject-specific concepts and arguments;
• locate, understand, assess and utilise pertinent philosophical sources (and, where appropriate, sources from other relevant disciplines, e.g. the social sciences, law, or psychology);
• utilise specialist vocabulary and concepts.

Key Skills:

• express themselves clearly and succinctly in writing;
• comprehend complex ideas, propositions and theories;
• engage in reasoned argument both in writing, peer to peer discussion, and presentations;
• seek out and identify appropriate sources of evidence and information;
• tackle problems in a clear-sighted and logical fashion.

• Seminars deliver basic module-specific information, provide a framework for further study, and provide opportunities for students to test their own understanding of the material studied, and defend and debate different opinions.
• Guided reading provides a structure within which students exercise and extend their abilities to make use of available learning resources.
• The formative take home exam provides the opportunity for students to test their knowledge and understanding of the module content, and their ability to present and defend relevant arguments, uninhibited by the need for summative assessment.
• The take home summative examination tests students' overall knowledge and understanding of the module content at the end of the module, and their ability to bring it to bear on new problems.
• The take home exam questions will take a variety of forms, depending on the topics covered in any specific year. Here are some examples of the types of activities that students may be required to complete in the exam: write essays, provide shorter answers describing positions discussed in class, complete exercises testing technical skills required for formal epistemology.

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