Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public

How can we know? How can we attain justified belief? These traditional questions in epistemology have inspired philosophers for centuries. Now, in this exceptional work, Alvin Goldman, distinguished scholar and leader in the fields of epistemology and mind, approaches such inquiries as legitimate methods or "pathways" to knowledge. He examines the notion of private and public knowledge, arguing for the epistemic legitimacy of private and introspective methods of gaining knowledge, yet acknowledging the equal importance of social and public mechanisms in the quest for truth. Throughout, he addresses this opposition but proposes a rigorous framework that continues to resolve such contradictions, making this exciting text one of the most important contributions to the theory of knowledge in recent years.

Alvin I. Goldman is Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University. The author of Knowledge in a Social World, Philosophical Applications of Cognitive Science, Epistemology and Cognition, and several other books, he has pioneered many influential ideas that have shaped the contours of contemporary epistemology.