Essays in Ancient Epistemology

Focusing primarily on Plato, Aristotle, and the Pyrrhonian skeptics, Fine discusses the following questions, among others: does Socrates, in the Apology, claim to know that he knows nothing? How do Plato and Aristotle conceive of doxa and epistêmê? Are doxa and epistêmê belief and knowledge as we conceive of them nowadays? Do Plato and Aristotle allow us to have doxa of everything about which we can have epistêmê? How does Plato conceive of perception in the Phaedo and in Theaetetus 184-6? How should we understand his theory of recollection in the Phaedo? Do the Pyrrhonian skeptics disavow all beliefs? Do they have a conception of purely subjective experience? Do they take anything to be subjective? Are they external world skeptics? How do their views of subjectivity and skepticism compare with Descartes'? Taken as a whole, the essays explain why ancient epistemology is instructive and illuminating for us today.

Gail Fine, Cornell University and Merton College, Oxford

Gail Fine received her BA from the University of Michigan in 1971, and her PhD from Harvard University in 1975. She also holds an MA from Oxford University (2009). She taught at Cornell University from 1975-2017; and was a Senior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford from 2007-2019. She is now Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Cornell University, and Senior Research Fellow Emerita at Merton College. Since 2007, she has been a Visiting Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Oxford University.

1. Introduction
Part I: Plato and [Plato]
2. Does Socrates Claim to Know that He Knows Nothing?
3. Knowledge and True Belief in the Meno
4. The 'Two Worlds' Theory in the Phaedo
5. Epist?m? and Doxa, Knowledge and Belief, in the Phaedo
6. Recollection and Innatism in the Phaedo
7. Plato on the Grades of Perception: Theaetetus 184-186 and the Phaedo
8. Meno's Paradox and the Sisyphus
Part II: Aristotle
9. Aristotle on Knowledge
10. Aristotle's Two Worlds: Knowledge and Belief in Posterior Analytics 1.33
Part III: Sextus
11. Sceptical Dogmata: PH I 13
12. Descartes and Ancient Scepticism: Reheated Cabbage?
13. Subjectivity: Ancient and Modern
14. Sextus and External World Scepticism