What Can We Know?: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge

Rating:
Summary: Not very-well organized to a novice
Review: In my one-year course of epistemology this book was used as a textbook. It is, occasionally, difficult to appreciate the point of the author's argument. In addition, the organization of the material seems somewhat confusing (for a student who does not major in philosophy). For example, it made me quite exhausted in trying to recognize what are the arguments and objections of the quartet solutions (to the Gettier problem).

Rating:
Summary: Not Impressive
Review: One manner of deciding if a Philosophy book is quality or not, I've found, is to scan the "Further Reading" sections, and the bibliography. I think that in Pojman's book, those areas are very poor. Basically, Pojman advocates his works in every "Further Reading" section, and leaves out works that I feel are integral in the study.

One appalling section was in Chapter Six, wherein Pojman is explaining Foundationalism. He presents it in a poor fashion and in the ensuing "A Critique of Foundationalism" he dismisses the theory simply saying "it is a disappointing failure."

I don't think that Pojman has necessarily proved Foundationalism to be a disappointing failure. First of all, he presented it in a poor manner, and through a few propositions determined it is unsatisfactory. The whole section leaves a lot to be desired, I think, and I don't think that students would be satisfied with his treament.

Once nice aspect of the book, however, is that Pojman doesn't stick to the big, traditional names. There's a good incorporation of contemporary and post-modern philosophers and their works.

Rating:
Summary: A simple and effective introduction
Review: Pojman presents here not a full analysis of epistemology, but rather a general overview. As such, he describes the different schools of thought in terms of their basic defining characteristics. Then he goes on to describe some of the criticisms that have been or could be raised against each approach. Both of these things, Pojman does well.

Again, this is not an indepth treatise on the field but a concise and well articulated introduction. For someone new to the field, I would definitely recommend it as a solid starting point. After this book, one should jump into the various collections of "readings in epistemology" of which there are so many.