Jens Kohne

Knowledge As a Mental State? a Study on Oxford Realism Jens Kohne

Subject of this book is an epistemological consideration concerning the nature of knowledge. But other than the most essays on the subject of knowledge, here I am going to deal with a largely overlooked account to try to find an answer to the question of knowledge. This is the mental state account of knowledge. Or to put it into the main question: is knowledge a mental state? Now, the question is: Why is the epistemic thinking of Cook Wilson, Prichard and Austin afflicted with such ignorance in contemporary epistemic discussions? The answer is: an unreflected Platonian heritage during 2000 years of epistemic thinking -- a notion which is similar to a point Hetherington has called ''epistemic absolutism''. So my main conclusion here is: the JTB thesis (knowledge is some aspect of justified true belief) is insufficient in order to give an account of the nature of knowledge. A consequence from this is: all the epistemic theories which are dealing with the JTB thesis are based on deficient assumptions. Hence their results -- notably the well-known externalism/internalism debate - are insufficient, too. So, there is a need for a new theory of knowledge based on the MS thesis.