Reddit reviews Epistemology

Well, in short, even though scientism is a tempting position because of our cultural exaltation of science as some sort of special and super-objective category of knowledge, there are all sorts of ways of discovering facts that don't rely on physical evidence. Consider mathematical proofs, they do not require any physical evidence but rather logical deduction.

Here's a good book on basic theory of knowledge.

Feldman's Epistemology is one of the standard intro textbooks.

Duncan Pritchard has a book called What is this Thing Called Knowledge?. I've not read it, but that series is decent, from what I can tell, and Pritchard is one of the foremost epistemologists right now.

Read an intro to epistemology textbook. This will give you the basics of various theories of knowledge. I really liked this one.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

There are lots of introductions to epistemology, as a quick search on Amazon indicates:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=epistemology&sprefix=epist%2Cstripbooks

I haven't read most of them, but based on the authors and publishers, I expect these to be solid surveys:

http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophy/dp/041587923X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416622594&sr=1-1&keywords=epistemology

http://www.amazon.com/Epistemology-Richard-Feldman/dp/0133416453/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1NPT7RZ11R84R4WD6B1T

The book you have linked is anthology of texts by various writers whereas Audi's book is a textbook by a single author. So I would imagine it would be easier to follow Audi's book for people that are new to epistemology. I also remember reading some chapters from Richard Feldman's Epistemology in an undergraduate course and they have been quite well written.

>Why exactly shouldn't I doubt my own reasoning? Can you elaborate on "You have no way to get out of it"? Why will I stop learning and not make any great ideas?

If you endorse extreme skepticism, doubt that you know anything at all and doubt all methods of obtaining knowledge, then it's literally impossible for you to learn anything.

>Yes I am currently undergoing an epistemology crisis and would love my view to be changed and any other readings you can present to me would be great.

Okay, here's some reading assignments:

The Problem of the Criterion by Roderick Chisholm - A good introduction to the difference between particularism (what I'm advocating for), methodism, and skepticism.

Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? by Edmund Gettier - Enormously influential short paper for modern epistemology, analyzing whether "justified true belief" works as a definition of knowledge. While this definition works for most things we know, and has been commonly used historically, Gettier makes a fairly solid case that this definition needs work.

Proof of an External World by G.E. Moore - Moore's famous "here is one hand, and here's another" proof. This includes a long discussion of Kantian epistemology as well, if you're interested in that. I personally don't agree with Kant, but it would be remiss not to include and know him.

Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes - Descartes starts off with a similar "extreme" skepticism. I personally don't think he succeeds in getting out of it, but it's worth noting that Descartes thought he did. This is certainly something worth reading.

If you're willing to shill out some money, I'd also recommend Epistemology by Richard Feldman, which goes over a lot of these topics, and if you want to see something a little more advanced, you might also look at Alvin Plantinga's Warrant: The Current Debate, the first book of his trilogy on epistemology.

And of course, the one I've been recommending to you so far, Thomas Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind.

>How and why is it too exclusive?

You're trying to set up a standard of knowledge that needs to not be based on anything else, but you're also going to doubt everything that's incorrigible. You're standard for knowledge excludes things we know. The problem isn't that we don't know those things, but that your standard is wrong.