Jason Kawall. "Grounding Knowledge, Place and Epistemic Virtue." Ethics, Place and Environment. 8 (October 2005) 361-71.
Kawall identifies three areas he will cover in his review:
I. "I first argue that Preston's work strongly suggests that epistemologists would do well to re-examine and pay greater attention to 'knowledge' how (...)." (361)
II. "Second, I briefly consider several of Preston's proposals through the lens of contemporary virtue epistemology and suggest how Preston's work might inform and shape theorizing in this area." (361)
III. "Finally, I turn to a set of potential questions for Preston, focusing in particular on his proposal that we ought to preserve a wide range of places in order to allow for an epistemically valuable cognitive diversity." (361)
In addition to providing an admirably clear roadmap for his review, these provide us with three areas for reading and discussion.
Knowledge How and Knowledge That
1. What are the highlights of Kawall's review of Preston's first chapter on 361-62? Particularly, what does Kawall say that Preston finds useful in Kant and Quine? Where does Preston take off from Quine?
2. How does Kawall contrast treating propositional knowledge as "valuable for its own sake" and what Preston is about? (363)
3. What is the difference between 'knowledge how' and 'knowledge that'? Why does Kawall think Preston makes a contribution in focusing (in part) on knowledge how? (363-64)
Informing Contemporary Analytic Epistemology - Virtue Based Especially
1. What is the meaning of Sosa's analytic diagram on intellectual virtue on page 364?
2. What does Preston's use of Gibson and Rowlands add to understanding Sosa's account? (364-365)
3. In particular, how can modifying the agent's circumstances improve "the belief formation of epistemic agents" (365)? What are some of the examples Kawall gives? 365-366
4. How does Preston's work support "calls for place-based learning"? (366) First, what is place-based learning? Why would an environmentalist want to encourage it? What are some examples Kawall offers?
5. Kawall says that Preston notes that changing from one environment to another rarely has a dramatic cognitive effect, but that it can. Preston's example is moving from a semi-urban environment to Alaskan wilderness. (Kawall doesn't mention this, but Preston notes the difficulty he had in judging distances when he made the shift.) Kawall, however, offers some examples of how local conditions may have an impact. Are these examples convincing? (366-67)
Questions for Preston - Preserving Diverse Environments
1. Preston praises diversity of epistemic perspectives, noting that the diversity of physical environments increases the number of perspectives available as "toolboxes". Kawall asks about the roles of homogeneity and heterogeneity. Why might homogeneity be important in several ways according to Kawall? Why might heterogeneity be important? (367-69) For example, in terms of testimony, efficiency, and problems with cognitive tourism, epistemic imperialism, pressures to open up wild places, etc.
2. Given the diversity of human artifactual environments, why the importance of diverse natural environments? Kawall returns to the homogeneity/heterogeneity discussion and the roles of artifactual and natural environments on 369-370. He asks which forms are valuable and why. What are his examples?
Conclusion
In Kawall's concluding paragraph on p. 370 what key contributions does he see Preston's book making?
Our Discussion
For our discussion, I would like not only to cover the key points Kawall makes, but also to hear from you on several fronts.
1. Does Kawall's account clarify for you the chapters we read in Preston? How? What makes more or less sense now?
2. Does O'Rourke's account of Quine's response to skepticism resonate with Kawall's account of what Preston is up to? In what ways?
3. Given Sosa's account, do you think Preston's contribution breaks new and useful ground?
4. What do you make of Kawall's discussion of heterogeneity and homogeneity in the light of Preston's call for preserving diverse natural environments as a means to ensuring diversity of epistemic perspectives?
Lorraine Code, "Here and There: Reading Christopher Preston's Grounding Knowledge." Ethics, Place and Environment. 8 (October 2005) 349-60.
1. What key contributions does Code identify Preston as making on 349-50? What sorts of severed connections does Preston rejoin?
2. What sort of naturalism does Code find in Preston? Where does she see similarities and differences between Preston's naturalism and her own 'ecological naturalism' on 350-53? Subquestions:
What are the characteristics of ecological naturalism? What are habitat, ethos, and ideal cohabitation so far as you can tell from her limited comments?
Why does she criticize the lack of reference to power in Preston's text (351)? Do you agree that Preston doesn't address power?
What contributions does Code say ecological naturalism makes? For example, its relation to 'strong objectivity' of standpoint epistemologies? 352 Her agreement with Kristin Shrader-Frechette about the science of ecology and how particular case studies are important? 353-53 How "sensitively gathered natural histories can generate ethical guidelines for enacting situation-specific environmental policies and even for the kind of 'ethical advocacy' that contributes to addressing 'environmental problems that threaten all living things' (353)"? What is a naturalized moral epistemology and what role does it play? (353) What is epistemic responsibility?
3. According to Code where do she and Preston agree on the relation between epistemology and ethics? Why does she see attention to situation as important for environmental ethics in particular and ethics more generally? 353-54 Code says both she and Preston pay attention to the ethical underpinnings of epistemology, but he fails to attend to the epistemological underpinnings of ethics. Is she right?
4. On page 354 Code begins addressing other areas of difference that she considers very important. She criticizes Preston for worrying that physical factors might disappear behind the cultural whereas she worries about the reverse. She also criticises the places Preston speaks about and his sample of places because these "are more explicitly available to a white, reasonably affluent man with the freedom, both political and domestic, and the resources to enable him to move easily about the world." (355) And, she thinks he doesn't focus on a sense of place as communal, but rather as individual. (355) She also says he assumes "a deliberative climate of good will." (355) She elaborates these criticisms on the following pages. To what extent do you think these criticisms are warranted? Why does she find Preston's contrast between Nazi science and public interest science problematic? (355-56) Why does she see his use of the term bias as problematic? She also has trouble with presumptions of "sameness"? How do these concerns relate to and contrast with those of Kawall about heterogeneity and homogeneity?
5. On 357-59 Code raises the question of whether Preston's positions are less subversive than they might appear. What does she mean by subversive? How does she think ecological approaches are indeed subversive? How is feminist epistemology subversive in some of the same ways? How can feminist work benefit from Preston's work in her view? How does she think Preston's work could benefit from feminist work on issues of power and privilege? Why doesn't she think he should worry so much about determinism? How can her notion of causality in her ecological naturalism aid Preston in her view? How can the requirement of negotiating situations be useful? How is this sort of deliberative practice different from Preston's notion, if it is?
Our Discussion
Again, after making sure we understand Code's specific points, I would also like to hear from you on some general issues her review raises.
1. What, overall, are the contributions Code thinks Preston makes? First, from the perspective of the environmental ethicists we have read, are these important contributions? If so, why? Second, from the perspective of traditional epistemology, are these truly contributions? What do they offer to epistemology in general?
2. To what extent are Code's criticisms that Preston fails to take into account fully power and privilege as well as the communal dimensions of knowledge well-taken?
3. How do both Kawall and Code address issues of homogeneity and heterogeneity? Why are these important for Preston's program?
4. Does living in Moscow, Idaho shape your reading of either Preston and/or Code? If so, how?