Types of Epistemology
- 1. Formal Epistemology Formal epistemology is the study of general questions such as What is knowledge? How do we know if something is true? How can someone justify a belief? ...
- 2. Genetic Epistemology Genetic epistemology is the study of the cognitive development of children. ...
- 3. Social Epistemology Social epistemology deals with the social aspects of knowledge production. ...
- 4. Political Epistemology ...
What are the branches of epistemology?
What are the types of epistemology?
- Agnotology – the study of ignorance or doubt.
- Alethiology – the study of the nature of truth.
- Formal epistemology – subdiscipline of epistemology that uses formal methods from logic, probability theory and computability theory to elucidate traditional epistemic problems.
What questions does epistemology ask?
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, asking questions such as: “what is knowledge?” and “how do we know something?”. For human geographers, an appreciation of epistemology is important in order to critically assess the reliability of knowledge developed in the discipline, but also in understanding how knowledge plays an active role ...
What is traditional epistemology?
Epistemology: The branch of philosophy traditionally defined as the study of knowledge. However, many epistemologists gradually deemphasized or abandoned the study of knowledge per se, focusing instead on other topics that nevertheless pertain to knowledge, even if only in some loose or indirect way.
What is an example of an epistemology?
Epistemology is defined as a branch of philosophy that is defined as the study of knowledge. An example of epistemology is a thesis paper on the source of knowledge. (countable) A particular theory of knowledge. In his epistemology, Plato maintains that our knowledge of universal concepts is a kind of recollection.
What are the 5 Epistemologies?
Core topics of epistemologyPerception.Memory.Introspection.Inference.Testimony.
What are the 3 types of epistemology?
There are three main examples or conditions of epistemology: truth, belief and justification.
What is epistemology and its types?
epistemology, the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge. The term is derived from the Greek epistēmē (“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”), and accordingly the field is sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge.
What are the two main categories of the epistemology?
While there are many specific names for these approaches, epistemology can be broadly divided into two main schools of thought: empiricism and rationalism. Most philosophers who have studied epistemology have been ultimately supportive of one of these schools of thought over the other.
What are the four branches of epistemology?
Epistemology proposes that there are four main bases of knowledge: divine revelation, experience, logic and reason, and intuition.
What are the main theories of epistemology?
Most generally, evidentialism, accessibilism, mentalism, and deontology are usually thought of as 'internalist' theories of epistemic justification, since they say your justification depends on factors internal to your mind or first-person awareness.
What are the key elements of epistemology?
Knowledge and language; knowledge-how; self-knowledge; knowledge of morality; knowledge and injustice; knowledge and probability; knowledge and religion; knowledge and feminism; and so on.
What are the three main questions of epistemology?
Epistemological questions include the following: What distinguishes knowledge from mere belief? What can be known with certainty? How can we know if we have knowledge?
Who is the father of epistemology?
Many people name René Descartes (1596–1650), the French philosopher, as the father of modern philosophy including epistemology.
What are the 3 types of knowledge?
Three Kinds of KnowledgePhysical knowledge: These are facts about the features of something. ... Social knowledge: These are names and conventions, made up by people. ... Logico-mathematical knowledge: This is the creation of relationships.
What are the 4 types of knowledge in philosophy?
Cognitive theorists have researched at length about the progression and refinement of knowledge and experience over time as individuals develop expertise within a given structure (Schuell, 1990). During this progression, four types of knowledge are developed: declarative, procedural, contextual, and somatic.
What are the 2 epistemological problems?
Some historically important issues in epistemology are: (1) whether knowledge of any kind is possible, and if so what kind; (2) whether some human knowledge is innate (i.e., present, in some sense, at birth) or whether instead all significant knowledge is acquired through experience (see empiricism; rationalism); (3) ...
What are the 3 types of knowledge?
Three Kinds of KnowledgePhysical knowledge: These are facts about the features of something. ... Social knowledge: These are names and conventions, made up by people. ... Logico-mathematical knowledge: This is the creation of relationships.
What are the 3 philosophical theories?
THREE MAJOR AREAS OF PHILOSOPHY. Theory of Reality : Ontology & Metaphysics. Theory of Knowledge: Epistemology--from episteme and logos. Theory of Value: Axiology--from the Greek axios (worth, value) and logos.
What are the three main questions of epistemology?
Epistemological questions include the following: What distinguishes knowledge from mere belief? What can be known with certainty? How can we know if we have knowledge?
What are the three concerns epistemology?
Some historically important issues in epistemology are: (1) whether knowledge of any kind is possible, and if so what kind; (2) whether some human knowledge is innate (i.e., present, in some sense, at birth) or whether instead all significant knowledge is acquired through experience (see empiricism; rationalism); (3) ...
What is the history of epistemology?
Epistemology has a long history within Western philosophy, beginning with the ancient Greeks and continuing to the present. Along with metaphysics, logic, and ethics, it is one of the four main branches of philosophy, and nearly every great philosopher has contributed to it.
What is the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge?
Epistemology, the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge. The term is derived from the Greek epistēmē (“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”), and accordingly the field is sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge.
Why should there be a discipline such as epistemology?
Why should there be a discipline such as epistemology? Aristotle (384–322 bce) provided the answer when he said that philosophy begins in a kind of wonder or puzzlement. Nearly all human beings wish to comprehend the world they live in, and many of them construct theories of various kinds to help them make sense of it. Because many aspects of the world defy easy explanation, however, most people are likely to cease their efforts at some point and to content themselves with whatever degree of understanding they have managed to achieve.
Do epistemologists believe in a great deal of knowledge?
Like most people, epistemologists often begin their speculations with the assumption that they have a great deal of knowledge. As they reflect upon what they presumably know, however, they discover that it is much less secure than they realized, and indeed they come to think that many of what had been their firmest beliefs are dubious or even false. Such doubts arise from certain anomalies in people’s experience of the world. Two of those anomalies will be described in detail here in order to illustrate how they call into question common claims to knowledge about the world.
Is vision sufficient to give knowledge of how things are?
One possible answer is to say that vision is not sufficient to give knowledge of how things are. Vision needs to be “corrected” with information derived from the other senses. Suppose then that a person asserts that a good reason for believing that the stick in water is straight is that when the stick is in water, one can feel with one’s hands that it is straight. But what justifies the belief that the sense of touch is more reliable than vision? After all, touch gives rise to misperceptions just as vision does. For example, if a person chills one hand and warms the other and then puts both in a tub of lukewarm water, the water will feel warm to the cold hand and cold to the warm hand. Thus, the difficulty cannot be resolved by appealing to input from the other senses.
Can a straight stick be read from left to right?
A straight stick submerged in water looks bent, though it is not; railroad tracks seem to converge in the distance, but they do not; and a page of English-language print reflected in a mirror cannot be read from left to right, though in all other circumstances it can. Each of those phenomena is misleading in some way.
Object of study of spistemology
As we have said, epistemology focuses on the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge . The latter is understood as the point of intersection between human beliefs and truths acquired in one way or another.
Functions of epistemology
Some of the functions of this discipline in the field of study and research have to do with:
Importance of epistemology
Epistemology is key in understanding how the sciences operate , which in today’s world are perhaps the greatest force of theoretical and applied knowledge available to human beings.
Types of knowledge
According to the radical point of view, there are no types of knowledge.
Examples of epistemology
A very obvious example of the use of epistemology is the differentiation of scientific, official, proven and accepted knowledge from pseudoscientific. In this way, epistemology proposes models of distinction, judgment and analysis of knowledge , which allow us to differentiate a belief, a personal deduction and a scientific truth.
How is coherentism defended?
Coherentism is typically defended by attacking foundationalism as a viable alternative. To argue against privilege foundationalism, coherentists pick an epistemic privilege they think is essential to foundationalism, and then argue that either no beliefs, or too few beliefs, enjoy such a privilege. Against experiential foundationalism, different objections have been advanced. One line of criticism is that perceptual experiences don’t have propositional content. Therefore, the relation between a perceptual belief and the perceptual experience that gives rise to it can only be causal. But it is not clear that this is correct. When you see the hat and it looks blue to you, doesn’t your visual experience—its looking blue to you—have the propositional content that the hat is blue? If it does, then why not allow that your perceptual experience can play a justificatory role? [ 52]
What are the controversies concerning the objects of cognitive success?
Some of the recent controversies concerning the objects of cognitive success concern the metaphysical relations among the cognitive successes of various kinds of objects: Does the cognitive success of a process involve anything over and above the cognitive success of each state in the succession of states that comprise the execution of that process? [ 2] Does the cognitive success of a particular mental state, or of a particular mental act, depend upon its relation to the larger process in which it exists? [ 3] Is the cognitive success of an organization constituted merely by the cognitive successes of its members, or is it something over and above those individual successes? [ 4] Is the cognitive success of a doxastic agent completely explicable in terms of the successes of its doxastic states, or vice versa ? And either way, what sorts of doxastic states are there, and with respect to what kinds of possible success are they assessible? The latter dispute is especially active in recent years, with some epistemologists regarding beliefs as metaphysically reducible to high credences, [ 5] while others regard credences as metaphysically reducible to beliefs about probabilities (see Byrne in Brewer & Byrne 2005), and still others regard beliefs and credences as related but distinct phenomena (see Kaplan 1996, Neta 2008).
How do we acquire knowledge of external objects?
One family of epistemological issues about perception arises when we concern ourselves with the psychological nature of the perceptual processes through which we acquire knowledge of external objects. According to direct realism, we can acquire such knowledge because we can directly perceive such objects. For example, when you see a tomato on the table, what you perceive is the tomato itself. According to indirect realism, we acquire knowledge of external objects by virtue of perceiving something else, namely appearances or sense-data. An indirect realist would say that, when you see and thus know that there is a tomato on the table, what you really see is not the tomato itself but a tomato-like sense-datum or some such entity.
What is cognitive success?
For instance, a cognitive success—like that of making a discovery—may be the success of a person (e.g., Marie Curie), or of a laboratory (Los Alamos), or of a people (the Hopi), or even, perhaps, of a psychological fragment of a person (the unconscious).
Why is a cognitive state considered a success?
The consequentialist says that a particular cognitive state counts as a kind of success because it tends to constitute or tends to promote some crucial benefit. According to some consequentialists, the benefit in question is that of having true beliefs and lacking false beliefs (see BonJour 1985, Audi 1993).
What is skepticism in philosophy?
Skepticism is a challenge to our pre-philosophical conception of ourselves as cognitively successful beings. Such challenges come in many varieties. One way in which these varieties differ concerns the different kinds of cognitive success that they target: skepticism can challenge our claims to know, or our claims to believe justifiably, or our claims to have justification for believing, or our claims to have any good reasons for belief whatsoever. But another way in which these varieties differ is in whether the skepticism in question is fully general—targeting the possibility of enjoying any instance of the relevant cognitive success—or is selective—targeting the possibility of enjoying the relevant cognitive success concerning a particular subject matter (e.g., the past, the minds of others, the world beyond our own consciousness) or concerning beliefs formed by a particular method (e.g., perception, memory, reasoning, etc.). General skepticism and selective skepticism pose very different sorts of challenges, and use very different kinds of arguments. General skepticism is motivated by reasoning from some apparently conflicting features of the kind of cognitive success in question. For instance, a general skeptic might claim that justification requires a regress of justifiers, but then argue that this regress of justifiers cannot be contained in any finite mind—and thus, the skeptic might conclude, no finite being can be justified in believing anything. Alternatively a general skeptic might claim that knowledge requires certainty, and that nobody can be certain of something unless there is nothing of which she could be even more certain—thus, the skeptic might conclude, we can know virtually nothing (see Unger 1975).
How old is epistemology?
Although the term “epistemology” is no more than a couple of centuries old, the field of epistemology is at least as old as any in philosophy. [ 1] . In different parts of its extensive history, different facets of epistemology have attracted attention.
What is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge?
t. e. Epistemology ( / ɪˌpɪstɪˈmɒlədʒi / ( listen); from Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē 'knowledge', and -logy) is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues.
What is the philosophy of science?
As such, the philosophy of science may be viewed variously as an application of the principles of epistemology or as a foundation for epistemological inquiry.
What are some things that bear the property of being true?
Other common suggestions for things that can bear the property of being true include propositions, sentences, thoughts, utterances, and judgments. Plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer. Many of the debates regarding truth are at the crossroads of epistemology and logic.
What is the core concept of epistemology?
One of the core concepts in epistemology is belief . A belief is an attitude that a person holds regarding anything that they take to be true. For instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white".
What is knowledge in epistemology?
Most generally, "knowledge" is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, which might include facts ( propositional knowledge ), skills ( procedural knowledge ), or objects ( acquaintance knowledge ).
What is the main determinant of knowledge?
Rationalism is the epistemological view that reason is the chief source of knowledge and the main determinant of what constitutes knowledge. More broadly, it can also refer to any view which appeals to reason as a source of knowledge or justification. Rationalism is one of the two classical views in epistemology, the other being empiricism. Rationalists claim that the mind, through the use of reason, can directly grasp certain truths in various domains, including logic, mathematics, ethics, and metaphysics. Rationalist views can range from modest views in mathematics and logic (such as that of Gottlob Frege) to ambitious metaphysical systems (such as that of Baruch Spinoza ).
What is the meaning of "justification" in the context of belief?
As the term "justification" is used in epistemology, a belief is justified if one has good reason for holding it. Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone holds a rationally admissible belief, on the assumption that it is a good reason for holding it. Sources of justification might include perceptual experience (the evidence of the senses), reason, and authoritative testimony, among others. Importantly however, a belief being justified does not guarantee that the belief is true, since a person could be justified in forming beliefs based on very convincing evidence that was nonetheless deceiving.
What type of knowledge do researchers use?
Most research studies use all of the above-mentioned four types of knowledge. Researchers use intuitive knowledge when coming up with an initial research area, topic and problem. Authoritative knowledge is gained during the review of the literature. Researchers gain logical knowledge ...
What is epistemology in research?
Epistemology is a common term that is used in the field of research. It is imperative to know what epistemology is before you start on a research project. 1.
When do researchers gain logical knowledge?
Researchers gain logical knowledge when they analyse the primary data findings whereas the conclusion of the research can be considered as the acquisition of empirical research. It is also important to note that epistemology and theoretical perspectives of a research study also depend on the type of research paradigm used by the researcher.
What are the different ways of acquiring knowledge?
These different sources can be basically categorised into the following four groups. Intuitive Knowledge: based on intuitions, beliefs, faith, etc. Feelings and emotions play a greater role than facts in this type of knowledge.
What is authoritarian knowledge?
Authoritarian Knowledge: based on information that has been obtained from books, research studies, experts, etc. The credibility and strength of this knowledge depend on the strength of these sources. Logical Knowledge: new knowledge is created through applying logical reasoning.
What is the field of philosophy concerned with?
In simple words, it is concerned with how we gain knowledge or how we get to know something. It is specifically concerned with the nature, sources and limitations of knowledge. Thus, it can be defined as “a field of philosophy concerned with the possibility, nature, sources and limits of human knowledge” (Jupps, 2006).
What is empirical knowledge?
Empirical Knowledge: based on objective facts that have been established and can be demonstrated.
What is declarative knowledge?
Declarative knowledge or “ knowledge-that: ” In philosophy, declarative knowledge refers to descriptive statements, called propositions, which describe some aspect of reality. Declarative knowledge is also sometimes called “descriptive” or “propositional” knowledge for this very reason. Statements like “roses are red” or “there are frogs in France ” would count as examples of declarative knowledge. In many cases, declarative knowledge is expressed as propositional statements stating that it is the case that something is/has/does X.
Why is epistemology important?
The reason this is the case is because any comprehensible statement regarding facts or ideas about the world requires that the question of what knowledge is be answered, even if only on a very basic level. Essentially, in order to make comments about what is or is not true , or how something works, there are aspects of reality that need to be privileged. Thus, defining knowledge helps us understand how and why we come to the facts and ideas which we favor.
What is knowledge by acquaintance?
Knowledge by acquaintance: This is knowing something via first-person experience or familiarity via direct interaction. The contemporary debate regarding this form of knowledge concerns whether or not it can be considered a valid category of knowledge. This might seem ridiculous, after all, we use our senses to “know” things all the time. But there are conceptual limitations to this category which make it questionable as a distinct type of knowledge. The main issue is that it’s not clear what objects knowledge by acquaintance can apply to and, even if being generous, it seems to have very limited applicability.
What is procedural knowledge?
Procedural knowledge or “ knowledge-how :” This is knowing how to do something, a skill. The question in philosophy is to what degree knowledge-how differs from knowledge-that. The answer to this question might seem obvious, but certain examples can make you think twice about the distinction between these two types of knowledge.
Is the moon made of cheese a declarative statement?
A number of epistemologists posit that it’s not possible to “know” false propositions, so by some accounts, a declarative statement like “the moon is made of cheese ” would not be declarative knowledge. Great chunks of epistemology have focused on the exact nature of declarative knowledge, and in many cases, this type of knowledge is a point of primary concern for epistemologists.
Can acquaintances distinguish between similar appearances?
Another limitation which is often mentioned is that knowledge by acquaintance can’t distinguish between similar appearances. The analogy of a “ speckled hen ” is often the go-to thought experiment for philosophers, but who cares enough about hens to count speckles? Luckily, you can easily apply this concern to other analogies. Imagine that my friend Brian uses knowledge by acquaintance to say “I know there are 4 jelly beans in this jar.” That’s fair as Brian, like most of us, can probably recognize the appearance of 4 individual objects without counting. But say that the number were 40 or 400, what would happen then? There will eventually come a point where Brian can no longer “recognize” how many beans are in the jar by simply looking at it; however, it seems rather arbitrary that knowledge by acquaintance has a supposed cutoff. Some proponents are okay with this cutoff, but to other philosophers, it creates doubt about the consistency of acquaintance knowledge as a necessary category of knowledge.
Concept of Epistemology
- Epistemology studies the capacity for human reasoning. Epistemology is one of the four great traditional branches of philosophy, along with metaphysics, logic and ethics . It is a discipline that studieshuman knowledge and its capacity for reasoning to understand precisely how said knowledge and said capacity operate, that is, how it is possible th...
History of Epistemology
- Critical rationalismis the fruit of the work of Karl Popper. The history of epistemology is long and beginsalong with philosophy, in Ancient Greece (1200 BC - 146 BC) , especially with the worksof the Perménides philosophers (5th century BC). and Plato (4th century BC). At that time, a distinctionwas made between two types of knowledge: doxa or vulgar knowledge, lacking criti…
Schools of Epistemology
- Starting in the 20th century , three different schools of contemporary epistemology were founded, still in forcetoday, and which are: 1. The logical neopositivism. As a result of the studies of Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), it was formed around the Vienna Circle, which turned the positivism inherited from the 19th century into a doctrine that lat…
Object of Study of Spistemology
- As we have said, epistemology focuses on the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge. The latter is understood as the point of intersection between human beliefs and truths acquired in one way or another. Epistemology then determines the types of possible knowledge, the mechanisms by which we can form them, and the logic that allows us to determine whether it is valid knowled…
Epistemology Problems
- Epistemology studies theoretical and experimental aspects of science. Epistemology addresses general problems of knowledge and specific to the field of different sciences or disciplines. They can be summarized as follows, starting from the most general to the most specific: 1. Problems about the relationships between the various fields of scientific knowledge, how the sciences are …
Functions of Epistemology
- Some of the functionsof this discipline in the field of study and research have to do with: 1. The limits of knowledge. You can review and question the accepted methods of formulating knowledge from the real world. 2. The methodologies. Epistemology is concerned with putting into judgment the methods we use to distinguish valid knowledge from a belief or assumption, o…
Differences with Gnoseology
- Many scholars accept epistemology as synonymous with epistemology. Some authors affirm that gnoseology and epistemology are not the same. The fundamental difference between them would have to do with the fact that epistemology is in charge of studying the scope of all kinds of knowledge in general, while epistemology is limited to scientific knowledge. However, this distin…
Importance of Epistemology
- Epistemology iskey in understanding how the sciences operate , which in today’s world are perhaps the greatest forceof theoretical and applied knowledge available to human beings. In this sense, epistemological knowledge is at the heart of contemporary philosophy, allowing us to know the way we think about knowledge itself. This search results in innovation , scientific ques…
Types of Knowledge
- According to the radicalpoint of view, there are no types of knowledge. Depending on the epistemological point of view, it will be possible to distinguish between different types of knowledge, for example: 1. Radical point of view. There are no types of knowledge. 2. Empiricist or logical positivist point of view. There are two types of knowledge, which are analytical (a prior…
Examples of Epistemology
- A very obvious example of the use of epistemology is the differentiation of scientific, official, proven and accepted knowledge from pseudoscientific. In this way, epistemology proposes models of distinction, judgment and analysis of knowledge, which allow us to differentiate a belief, a personal deduction and a scientific truth. The above content published at Collaborative …
The Varieties of Cognitive Success
- There are many different kinds of cognitive success, and they differfrom one another along various dimensions. Exactly what these variouskinds of success are, and how they differ from each other, and howthey are explanatorily related to each other, and how they can beachieved or obstructed, are all matters of controversy. This sectionprovides some ...
What Is Knowledge?
- Knowledge is among the many kinds of cognitive success thatepistemology is interested in understanding. Because it has attractedvastly more attention in recent epistemology than any other varietyof cognitive success, we devote the present section to considering itin some detail. But the English word “knowledge” lumpstogether various states that are distinguished in other la…
What Is Justification?
- Whatever precisely is involved in knowing a fact, it is widelyrecognized that some of our cognitive successes fall short ofknowledge: an agent may, for example, conduct herself in a way that isintellectually unimpeachable, and yet still end up thereby believing afalse proposition. Julia has every reason to believe that her birthdayis July 15: it says so on her birth certificate and all of he…
The Structure of Knowledge and Justification
- Anyone who knows anything necessarily knows many things. Our knowledgeforms a body, and that body has a structure: knowing some thingsrequires knowing other things. But what is this structure?Epistemologists who think that knowledge involves justification tendto regard the structure of our knowledge as deriving from thestructure of our justifications. We will, therefore, …
Sources of Knowledge and Justification
- Beliefs arise in people for a wide variety of causes. Among them, wemust list psychological factors such as desires, emotional needs,prejudice, and biases of various kinds. Obviously, when beliefsoriginate in sources like these, they don’t qualify as knowledgeeven if true. For true beliefs to count as knowledge, it is necessarythat they originate in sources we have good reason to con…
The Limits of Cognitive Success
- 6.1 General Skepticism and Selective Skepticism
Much of modern epistemology aims to address one or another kind ofskepticism. Skepticism is a challenge to our pre-philosophicalconception of ourselves as cognitively successful beings. Suchchallenges come in many varieties. One way in which these varietiesdiffer concerns the diff… - 6.2 Responses to the Closure Argument
Next, we will examine various responses to the BKCA argument. According to the first, we can see that (C2) is false if we distinguish between relevant and irrelevantalternatives. An alternative to a proposition p is anyproposition that is incompatible with p. Your having hands andyour being a B…
Overview
Epistemology , or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in epistemology are generally clustered a…
Acquiring knowledge
There are many proposed sources of knowledge and justified belief which we take to be actual sources of knowledge in our everyday lives. Some of the most commonly discussed include perception, reason, memory, and testimony.
As mentioned above, epistemologists draw a distinction between what can be known a priori (independently of experience) and what can only be known a pos…
Background
The word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek epistēmē, meaning "knowledge", and the suffix -logia, meaning "logical discourse" (derived from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse"). The word's appearance in English was predated by the German term Wissenschaftslehre (literally, theory of science), which was introduced by philosophers Johann Fichte and Bernard Bolzano in th…
Central concepts in epistemology
Nearly all debates in epistemology are in some way related to knowledge. Most generally, "knowledge" is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, which might include facts (propositional knowledge), skills (procedural knowledge), or objects (acquaintance knowledge). Philosophers tend to draw an important distinction between three different senses of "knowi…
Defining knowledge
A central issue in epistemology is the question of what the nature of knowledge is or how to define it. Sometimes the expressions "theory of knowledge" and "analysis of knowledge" are used specifically for this form of inquiry. The term "knowledge" has various meanings in natural language. It can refer to an awareness of facts, as in knowing that Mars is a planet, to a possession of skills, …
The value problem
We generally assume that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. If so, what is the explanation? A formulation of the value problem in epistemology first occurs in Plato's Meno. Socrates points out to Meno that a man who knew the way to Larissa could lead others there correctly. But so, too, could a man who had true beliefs about how to get there, even if he had not gone there or had any knowledge of Larissa. Socrates says that it seems that both knowledge a…
The regress problem
The regress problem (also known as Agrippa's Trilemma) is the problem of providing a complete logical foundation for human knowledge. The traditional way of supporting a rational argument is to appeal to other rational arguments, typically using chains of reason and rules of logic. A classic example that goes back to Aristotle is deducing that Socrates is mortal. We have a logical rule that says All humans are mortal and an assertion that Socrates is human and we deduce that So…
Schools of thought in epistemology
Empiricism is a view in the theory of knowledge which focuses on the role of experience, especially experience based on perceptual observations by the senses, in the generation of knowledge. Certain forms exempt disciplines such as mathematics and logic from these requirements.
There are many variants of empiricism, including British empiricism, logical em…