FURTHER READING
No philosophy is easy. Elementary introductions to the philosophical topics touched on here are few and far between. One of the best is Quine and Ullian The Web of Belief (1978). A modern easily available classic in the theory of knowledge, and one slanted more to traditional philosophical issues, is A. J. Ayer The Problem of Knowledge (1956). A much more recent discussion, full of analytical wizardry but with a broader perspective, can be found in Robert Nozick Philosophical Explanations (1981). Bernard Williams Descartes: the Project of Pure Enquiry (1978) has some very suggestive discussion of our cognitive predicament, with particular attention to the role of the notion of certainty.
The views adopted in the text often derive from J. L. Mackie. His most accessible work touching on knowledge is Problems from Locke (1976); for truth and other logical notions Truth, Probability, and Paradox (1973); for the issues raised by religion The Miracle of Theism (1982); and for morality, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977). Popper's views can best be sampled from Conjectures and Refutations (1969) or Objective Knowledge (1972); Bryan Magee Popper (1973) is a simple introduction.
Philosophical writing on truth is usually very unappealing. Besides Mackie, a good starting point is an essay in A. J. Ayer The Concept of a Person (1963). A detailed account, close to Mackie's, but which plays down the notion of comparison can be found in C. J. F. Williams What is Truth? (1976). But like most modern discussions this book is forbiddingly technical for a beginner.
I have stressed the notion of explanation. A fairly technical classic here is C. G. Hempel Aspects of Scientific Explanation (1965). Kitcher has a useful article (1981) on explanation as unification. A good discussion of understanding in an educational context is provided in a long essay by R. K. Elliott, 'Education and Human Being' (1975).
I have also tried to note some of the social aspects of cognitive endeavour. Here Kleinig Philosophical Issues in Education (1982) is good; an outstanding contribution has been made by Ernest Gellner, in for instance The Legitimation of Belief (1974). He has also produced a spirited example of philosophical criticism of a branch of supposed knowledge in The Psychoanalytic Movement (1985).
For philosophical discussion of the physical sciences, Newton-Smith The Rationality of Science (1981) provides a guide to the philosophical scene, while Giere Understanding Scientific Reasoning (1984) sets out the logical issues very clearly. Hacking Representing and Intervening (1983) is good on observation and experimentation.
A particularly good discussion of values, sensitive to the issues touched on here, can be found in Bernard Williams Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985).
Educational reflections on truth and knowledge have in general little to recommend them. Much recent debate has centred around Paul Hirst's 'forms of knowledge' basis for a curriculum, conveniently available in Knowledge and the Curriculum (1974). Of Hirst's commentators, Robin Barrow Common Sense and the Curriculum (1976) has the distinction of provoking my further commentary in 'The Two Forms, the Two Attitudes and the Four Kinds of Awareness' (1984).
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Originally published by Allen & Unwin, 1987, this version last revised June 17th, 2000.
URL http://www.uwichill.edu.bb/bnccde/epb/refs.html