Nozick on Knowledge*

Abstract

This chapter analyzes Robert Nozick's theory on knowledge. Nozick advocates what has been called an “externalist,” or “reliabilist,” analysis of knowledge. In his text Nozick states his indebtedness to those philosophers, such as Alvin Goldman, who give causal accounts of knowledge. His own contribution is to abandon causation in favor of a counterfactual analysis, which, he believes, will allow a uniform treatment of mathematical and ethical knowledge along with the straightforward empirical cases that seem to be more readily amenable to a causal analysis. However, as Nozick acknowledges in a footnote, actually he has rediscovered an approach that was in the published literature at least a decade before his book appeared.

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