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Knowledge, Naturalism, and Cognitive Ethology: Kornblith’s Knowledge and its Place in Nature

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Abstract

This paper explores Kornblith’s proposal in Knowledge and its Place in Nature that knowledge is a natural kind that can be elucidated and understood in scientific terms. Central to Kornblith’s development of this proposal is the claim that there is a single category of unreflective knowledge that is studied by cognitive ethologists and is the proper province of epistemology. This claim is challenged on the grounds that even unreflective knowledge in language-using humans reflects forms of logical reasoning that are in principle unavailable to nonlinguistic animals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy–Neuroscience–Psychology Program, Washington University, St Louis, MO, 63105, USA

    José Luis Bermúdez

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  1. José Luis Bermúdez
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Correspondence to José Luis Bermúdez.

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Bermúdez, J.L. Knowledge, Naturalism, and Cognitive Ethology: Kornblith’s Knowledge and its Place in Nature . Philos Stud 127, 299–316 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-4960-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-4960-z

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