Things We Know: Fifteen Essays on Problems of Knowledge

About the Book

"[Reading Ebersole] requires—and often succeeds in producing—a radical reorientation of one´s thinking . . . "— from a book review

Things We Know is a collection of fifteen essays that focus on perennial philosophical problems about knowledge. The essays let you participate in Frank Ebersole´s unique struggles to come to terms with such questions as: Can we know the world? . . . the past? . . . the future? . . . of God´s existence? . . . whether our actions are free? . . . the foundations of logic and language?

This is not just another philosophy book about problems of knowledge. In Things We Know, Ebersole, by carefully using examples, exposes the problems to be the products of philosophical pictures. The examples also make the pictures less compelling. Thus, by reading this philosophy book readers can join the author in working to free themselves from some perplexing philosophical concerns.

This edition differs from the First Edition (University of Oregon Books, 1967) in three ways.

• An essay is added. — "Everyman´s Ontological Argument" has been inserted as Essay 14, following two other essays about the ontological argument. "Everyman´s Ontological Argument" was published in the Fall 1978 issue of Philosophical Investigations. (The original Chapter 14, "Where the Action Is," is now Chapter 15.)

• An essay is replaced. — The original Essay 3, "How Philosophers See Stars," has been replaced by a modified version that was printed in Philosophy Today (no. 2, 1969). The replacement includes some further improvements.

• The text is improved. — Throughout the book, the author has made corrections, stylistic improvements, and changed the wording as needed to make clearer his line of thought.

Each of the fifteen essays takes up a philosophical problem. In most of the essays, Ebersole first clarifies the problem and reviews common attempts to resolve the problem. Then he focuses on the central ideas and terms used to state the problem and creates examples of people using the terms under consideration. The examples are unique because of their focus on the context and point of what we say. If his investigations fail to find a use of the terms that supports the philosophical problem, he is led to conclude that the problem does not really derive from a philosophical insight but rather arises from a philosophical picture or model.

The essays in Things We Know address some of the perennial philosophical problems of knowledge. The essays are unified by being similar in method and philosophic aim. Ebersole exposes a picture behind each problem. In the essays he works through some of the ways that pictures control our thinking and tries to make the pictures less compelling.

Chapter 1: "Seeing Red in Red Things"

• Philosophical problem: Must words for simple visual properties (e.g., "red") refer to things because the things share some property (e.g., redness)? Can we see this property?

• Topics investigated: Family resemblances, properties of colors, when we regard things as the same, when we regard colors as the same, when we regard things as having common properties, language-world philosophical pictures.

• Philosophers discussed: A. J. Ayer, J. Herder, J. S. Mill.

Chapter 2: "Seeing Things"

• Philosophical problem: Do hallucinations and afterimage

About the Author

Frank B. Ebersole has a philosophy Ph.D. (1947) from the University of Chicago. Initially he was interested in biologically oriented metaphysics, later with analytic and ordinary language philosophy—eventually he evolved into a philosopher whose ideas and methods are unique. Ebersole has held various teaching posts but spent most of his career at the University of Oregon. He has given papers at philosophy meetings and has published widely in philosophy journals. However, much of his writing is not intended for journal publication and is available only in his books: Things We Know, Meaning and Saying, and Language and Perception.