“Knowledge and Its Place in Nature” by Hilary Kornblith

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Author’s Statement
Author’s Reasons
Evaluation
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

People live in a world where they somehow or others perceive it. A person can be guided by everyday consciousness, changing his/her opinion depending on the regular authorities, or can have a personal opinion and position. The people possessing special internal integrity, the ability to resist hardships, and vital disorders, can be quite often named philosophers. Philosophy is a world outlook, i.e. a set of views at the world as a whole, and on their relationship in a particular. In the same row with philosophy, there are other forms of outlook: mythological, religious, naturalistic, ordinary, etc. The philosophy differs from other forms of outlook that concerns, first of all, the scientific sphere of public consciousness, and inside it, unlike naturalistic forms, has the specific categorial device, supported in its development not on one selected scientific discipline, but all sciences, and on all uniform cumulative experience of mankind development.

In that sense, knowledge is the verified result of cognition of reality, and its true reflection in people’s thoughts. Knowledge is the possession of experience and comprehension which are correct both in the subjective and the objective relation, and on which basis it is possible to construct judgments and conclusions, seeming reliable enough to be considered as knowledge.

There are various views of knowledge and the ways it could be possessed. This paper analyzes the knowledge based on the book “Knowledge and its Place in Nature” by Hilary Kornblith, and the arguments presented by the author that knowledge should be approached naturalistically, as it is a feature of the natural world.

Author’s Statement

The author although, maintaining his ideas around knowledge in general, approaches the aspect of philosophy along with epistemology as one of its core areas. Kornblith’s main argument is that epistemology should be naturalized in regards to natural sciences. The author starts by explaining the way naturalism can be related to the traditional perception of philosophy, where the method of “appeals to intuition” is compared to the naturalist’s method.

Author’s Reasons

The method of appeal to intuition as the author states it, is his belief that there are “substantial limitations to this method, and that some of these bodies of literature have diverted attention from more important issues.” (5), although he admits that it plays a major role in philosophical practices and can be used to reach considerable insights in various fields. The knowledge as a central subject of the book, and a part of the title has been devoted as the main goal and at the same time the main ground for establishing the author’s points and comparisons. The central idea is that knowledge is a natural kind that can constitute a legitimate scientific category.

The basis of such claim is the role that knowledge plays in scientific theories, “The category of knowledge is, on my view, an important category because it has a certain theoretical unity to it, that is, it plays a causal and explanatory role within our current best theories.”(159)

Evaluation

Most of the points presented by the author are interesting and innovative in a certain way, however, it could be sensed that the author’s point was missed between a definite indication of a certain argument and the justifications of his theory concerning the critiques of naturalist’s theory.

The idea itself that knowledge is a natural kind is instantly accepted, at the same time the author does not come up with a definition of the knowledge rather than defining what is a natural kind. (61) The idea of naturalizing epistemology is interesting as most standard approaches seem to be outdated and at the same time imply the usage of “imaginary” examples that have to be corrected. In that sense, the methods used by the author to introduce his ideas, are more of a critique of the traditional epistemologists, where truth to be told the book succeeds in doing so, but the critique itself is not supported by a detailed explanation of the concept of knowledge.

Additionally, the concept of knowledge as behavior that allows successful adaptation to the environment, used with the case of the animals, was relied on the initially supposed explanation, where the author does not provide much evidence that makes this claim of prescribing this knowledge to animals legitimate.

Conclusion

In general, the ideas presented in the book could be beneficial because of their approach that leads to thinking in a different direction. Fresh air in the smog of the ideas of epistemology and knowledge could be found helpful. This help might change the traditional perception of philosophy that was put in the book within the framework of all the events that support the understanding of our surroundings.

It could be predicted that the approach used by the author can be developed further and contributed to the solution of issues of science and vice versa. On a final note, it should be mentioned that the vagueness that is mostly used in philosophical works can be contributed to their abandonment, and at the same time the reason why such work as “Knowledge and Its Place in Nature” was badly needed.

Works Cited

Kornblith, Hilary. Knowledge and Its Place in Nature. Oxford University Press, USA, 2005.

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“Knowledge and Its Place in Nature” by Hilary Kornblith

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