Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology

Reviewed by Martin Roth, Associate Professor, Drake University on 12/31/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The text is fairly comprehensive, although some topics that have gotten a lot of attention recently, e.g., contextualism, are not discussed much. The glossary provided at the end is useful, but an index is conspicuously missing.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Each chapter is knowledgeably written.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Some of the material in this book is of "perennial" interest, and the content that is of more recent vintage is nonetheless well established ground in contemporary epistemology and thus will not be made obsolete any time soon. The text is organized in a way that should make for relatively easy/straightforward updates.

Clarity rating: 5

Those new to epistemology will benefit from the clear, accessible explanations of what are often recondite ideas or theories.

Consistency rating: 5

I saw no problems with consistency, and I found the learning outcomes and reflection questions provided in each chapter to be an especially nice way of creating format consistency.

Modularity rating: 5

This is one of the strongest features of the text. Chapters are fairly stand alone, and although the book is on epistemology, many of the chapters can be fruitfully used in other philosophy courses (e.g, philosophy of science) and non-philosophy courses (I think Chapter 6, "Epistemology, Probability, and Science," should be required reading for all science students!).

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

I did not find the division of the book into two parts (Traditional Epistemology and Expanded Epistemology) particularly helpful or well-motivated. As someone who teaches courses that touch on the history of Western epistemology, I think coherentism and externalism can be plausibly included in the section on Expanded Epistemology (since for centuries epistemology was dominated by foundationalism and internalism). However, coherentism and externalism are treated in chapters that fall in the section on Traditional Epistemology. Nonetheless, I don't think this is a substantive shortcoming.

Interface rating: 5

I found it to be a very user-friendly text.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

There were no glaring problems with grammar.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I found the text to be culturally inclusive, especially the chapters on Social Epistemology (Chapter 7) and Feminist Epistemologies (Chapter 8).

Comments

This is a very strong introductory textbook on the topic of epistemology, and I think students and instructors alike will appreciate many of the textbook's features. Especially noteworthy are the learning outcomes and reflection questions provided in each chapter.