The End of Epistemology: Dewey and His Current Allies on the Spectator Theory of Knowledge

In this text, Kulp provides a thorough examination of John Dewey’s influential arguments against traditional theories of knowledge; in particular against a traditional spectator theory of knowledge, the thesis that knowing is fundamentally a passive beholding relation between the knower and the object known. Kulp presents Dewey’s arguments with unusual clarity, but, ultimately, finds them deficient. He also lays the basis for a defence of a spectator theory of having knowledge, a basis that incorporates important considerations about introspective knowledge. American philosophers have recently revived their interest in Dewey’s work. Such philosophers as well as students and scholars involved with the study of American thought and schools of philosophy should find Kulp’s book useful.