13. Epistemology Externalized

Author: Davidson, Donald

Source: Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, September 2001 , pp. 193-205(13)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

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Abstract:

Attempts to radically revise the still predominant Cartesian underpinnings of epistemological theorizing, by attacking the belief that all knowledge is and all epistemology should be primarily based on first-person knowledge. Davidson holds that a necessary condition of knowledge is third-person knowledge, in the sense that all kinds of knowledge presuppose the concept of objective truth and such a concept is only accessible to communicative creatures that share a common world of objects in space and time. Knowledge, therefore, far from arising through moves from the subjective to the objective, emerges holistically.

Keywords: first-person knowledge; knowledge; Cartesian epistemology; belief; epistemology; truth; communicative creatures; externalism; holism; space and time; third-person knowledge