p.1 What is epistemology? The short answer is: the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with
human knowledge, which is why it is also called "the theory of knowledge". But this tells us next to nothing.
p.2 many philosophers have held that there is a fundamental distinction between knowledge that is a
posteriori or "empirical" and knowledge that is a priori or non-empirical. Empirical knowledge is held to depend
(in one way or another) on experience or observation, whereas a priori knowledge is supposed to be independent of
experience, pure mathematics providing the clearest example.
p.2 Supposing we want [knowledge], what do we want it for?
p.4 If knowledge didn't matter, we shouldn't waste time wondering how to define it, obtain it,
or draw lines around it.
p.5 the problem of value is moot. To be thinkers at all, we have to be in the knowledge business.
[JLJ - to play a game at all, we have to be in the knowledge business.]
p.33 consider the view adopted by Goldman... the view that perceptual knowledge depends on reliable
discriminative capacities. As Goldman points out, whether my discriminative capacities are reliable depends in part
on the alternatives that the world presents me with. Relatively coarse-grained abilities can be extremely reliable
in an environment that doesn't demand refined discrimination.
p.69 It seems undeniable that we discover what is going on in our surroundings by way of our senses.
p.70 Even in our wildest dreams, the imagination only produces unfamiliar combinations of familiar things.
p.167 As Wittgenstein says, "we use judgments as principles of judgment."
p.201 We need to know how the world works generally. In taking any action at all, we rely on the
world's following predictable routines.
p.204 our propensity to form inductive expectations is "hard-wired": it operates independently of
conscious decision making... Inductive inference is beyond rational justification.
