Mountains and freeways, oceans and apartment buildings, trees
and automobiles: such things lend shape to mental activity, says
Christopher J. Preston. Yet Western epistemology, since its
origins, has neglected these material factors. Even postmodern
perspectives on how we think and know continue to emphasize social
and cultural factors over the physical environment.
Grounding Knowledge claims that one of the unforeseen
consequences of this anthropocentrism has been to ignore the
epistemic argument for maintaining diverse natural environments.
Grounding Knowledge supplies that argument. Preston first
traces the separation of place and mind in Western epistemology.
Drawing connections between skepticism and ungrounded knowledge, he
then explores how a common insight in the epistemologies of both
Kant and Quine sets the scene for more situated accounts of
knowledge. After showing how science studies and cognitive science
have both recently moved in this direction, Preston draws further
evidence for his thesis from fields as far apart as evolutionary
biology, anthropology, and religious studies. He asks what these
ideas in contemporary epistemology and environmental philosophy
mean for environmental policy, concluding that the grounding of
knowledge strongly suggests epistemic reasons for the protection of
a full range of physical environments in their natural
Grounding Knowledge comes at a time of increasing
dialogue between the sciences and the humanities about our
rootedness in all of our different "worlds." Preston hopes to
persuade his readers that "it is not only in our biological but
also in our cognitive interests to protect these roots."