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Epistemology

May 09, 2023

"Theory of knowledge" redirects here. For other uses, see Theory of knowledge (disambiguation). "Epistemic" redirects here. For the alternative name for cognitive science, see Epistemics. For the album, see Epistemology (album).
Not to be confused with Epidemiology.

Epistemology (/ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒlədʒi/ (listen); from Ancient Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistḗmē) 'knowledge', and -logy), 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.[1]

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 around four core areas:[2][3][4]

  1. The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification
  2. Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony
  3. The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs
  4. Philosophical skepticism, which questions the possibility of knowledge, and related problems, such as whether skepticism poses a threat to our ordinary knowledge claims and whether it is possible to refute skeptical arguments

In these debates and others, epistemology aims to answer questions such as "What do people know?", "What does it mean to say that people know something?", "What makes justified beliefs justified?", and "How do people know that they know?".[1][2][5][6] Specialties in epistemology ask questions such as "How can people create formal models about issues related to knowledge?" (in formal epistemology), "What are the historical conditions of changes in different kinds of knowledge?" (in historical epistemology), "What are the methods, aims, and subject matter of epistemological inquiry?" (in metaepistemology), and "How do people know together?" (in social epistemology).

Background

Etymology

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").[7] The word's appearance in English was predated by the German term Wissenschaftslehre (lit. 'theory of science'), which was introduced by philosophers Johann Fichte and Bernard Bolzano in the late 18th century. The word "epistemology" first appeared in 1847, in a review in New York's Eclectic Magazine. It was first used as a translation of the word Wissenschaftslehre as it appears in a philosophical novel by German author Jean Paul:

The title of one of the principal works of Fichte is 'Wissenschaftslehre,' which, after the analogy of technology ... we render epistemology.[8]

The word "epistemology" was properly introduced into Anglophone philosophical literature by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854, who used it in his Institutes of Metaphysics:

This section of the science is properly termed the Epistemology—the doctrine or theory of knowing, just as ontology is the science of being... It answers the general question, 'What is knowing and the known?'—or more shortly, 'What is knowledge?'[9]

The French term épistémologie is often used with a different and narrower meaning than the English term "epistemology", being used by many French philosophers to refer solely to philosophy of science in contrast to general theory of knowledge (théorie de la connaissance). For instance, Émile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality (1908) with the remark that the word "is becoming current" as equivalent to "the philosophy of the sciences".[10] Jean Piaget's "Epistemology and its varieties" (1967), written in French, said that "we may define epistemology (to a first approximation) as the study of the constitution of valid knowledge, the term 'constitution' covering both the conditions of attainment and the constitutive conditions themselves", while he noted that historically the epistemological problem was often stated as: "How are the sciences possible?"[11]

History of epistemology

Epistemology, as a distinct field of inquiry, predates the introduction of the term into the lexicon of philosophy. John Locke, for instance, described his efforts in Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) as an inquiry "into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent".[12]

 
René Descartes, who is often credited as the father of modern philosophy, was often preoccupied with epistemological questions in his work.

Almost every major historical philosopher has considered questions about what people know and how they know it.[1] Among the Ancient Greek philosophers, Plato distinguished between inquiry regarding what people know and inquiry regarding what exists, particularly in the Republic, the Theaetetus, and the Meno.[1] In Meno, the definition of knowledge as justified true knowledge appears for the first time.[13]: 37  In other words, belief is required to have an explanation in order to be correct, beyond just happening to be right.[13]: 38  A number of important epistemological concerns also appeared in the works of Aristotle.[1]

During the subsequent Hellenistic period, philosophical schools began to appear which had a greater focus on epistemological questions, often in the form of philosophical skepticism.[1] For instance, the Pyrrhonian skepticism of Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus held that eudaimonia (flourishing, happiness, or "the good life") could be attained through the application of epoché (suspension of judgment) regarding all non-evident matters. Pyrrhonism was particularly concerned with undermining the epistemological dogmas of Stoicism and Epicureanism.[1] The other major school of Hellenistic skepticism was Academic skepticism, most notably defended by Carneades and Arcesilaus, which predominated in the Platonic Academy for almost two centuries.[1]

In ancient India the Ajñana school of ancient Indian philosophy promoted skepticism. Ajñana was a Śramaṇa movement and a major rival of early Buddhism, Jainism and the Ājīvika school. They held that it was impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or to ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it was useless and disadvantageous for final salvation. They were specialized in refutation without propagating any positive doctrine of their own.

After the ancient philosophical era but before the modern philosophical era, a number of Medieval philosophers also engaged with epistemological questions at length. Most notable among the Medievals for their contributions to epistemology were Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.[1]

During the Islamic Golden Age, one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, logicians and mystics in Islamic epistemology was Al-Ghazali. During his life, he wrote over 70 books on science, Islamic reasoning and Sufism.[14] Al-Ghazali distributed his book The Incoherence of Philosophers, set apart as a defining moment in Islamic epistemology. He shaped a conviction that all occasions and connections are not the result of material conjunctions but are the present and prompt will of God.[15]

Epistemology largely came to the fore in philosophy during the early modern period, which historians of philosophy traditionally divide up into a dispute between empiricists (including Francis Bacon, John Locke, David Hume, and George Berkeley) and rationalists (including René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz).[1] The debate between them has often been framed using the question of whether knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience (empiricism), or whether a significant portion of our knowledge is derived entirely from our faculty of reason (rationalism). According to some scholars, this dispute was resolved in the late 18th century by Immanuel Kant,[citation needed] whose transcendental idealism famously made room for the view that "though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all [knowledge] arises out of experience".[16]

Contemporary historiography

There are a number of different methods that contemporary scholars use when trying to understand the relationship between past epistemology and contemporary epistemology. One of the most contentious questions is this: "Should we assume that the problems of epistemology are perennial, and that trying to reconstruct and evaluate Plato's or Hume's or Kant's arguments is meaningful for current debates, too?"[17] Similarly, there is also a question of whether contemporary philosophers should aim to rationally reconstruct and evaluate historical views in epistemology, or to merely describe them.[17] Barry Stroud claims that doing epistemology competently requires the historical study of past attempts to find philosophical understanding of the nature and scope of human knowledge.[18] He argues that since inquiry may progress over time, we may not realize how different the questions that contemporary epistemologists ask are from questions asked at various different points in the history of philosophy.[18]

Central concepts in epistemology

Knowledge

 
Bertrand Russell famously brought attention to the distinction between propositional knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance.
Main article: Knowledge

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 "knowing" something: "knowing that" (knowing the truth of propositions), "knowing how" (understanding how to perform certain actions), and "knowing by acquaintance" (directly perceiving an object, being familiar with it, or otherwise coming into contact with it).[19] Epistemology is primarily concerned with the first of these forms of knowledge, propositional knowledge. All three senses of "knowing" can be seen in our ordinary use of the word. In mathematics, you can know that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person (e.g., knowing other persons,[20] or knowing oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g., addition). While these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are explicitly made in other languages, including French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, German and Dutch (although some languages closely related to English have been said to retain these verbs, such as Scots).[note 1] The theoretical interpretation and significance of these linguistic issues remains controversial.

In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell brought a great deal of attention to the distinction between "knowledge by description" and "knowledge by acquaintance". Gilbert Ryle is similarly credited with bringing more attention to the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. In Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi argues for the epistemological relevance of knowledge how and knowledge that; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded. This position is essentially Ryle's, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between "knowledge that" and "knowledge how" leads to infinite regress.

A priori and a posteriori knowledge

Main article: A priori and a posteriori

One of the most important distinctions in epistemology is between what can be known a priori (independently of experience) and what can be known a posteriori (through experience). The terms originate from the Analytic methods of Aristotle's Organon, and may be roughly defined as follows:[22]

  • A priori knowledge is knowledge that is known independently of experience (that is, it is non-empirical, or arrived at before experience, usually by reason). It will henceforth be acquired through anything that is independent from experience.
  • A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is known by experience (that is, it is empirical, or arrived at through experience).

Views that emphasize the importance of a priori knowledge are generally classified as rationalist. Views that emphasize the importance of a posteriori knowledge are generally classified as empiricist.[citation needed]

Belief

Main article: Belief

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.[23] For instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white". Beliefs can be occurrent (e.g. a person actively thinking "snow is white"), or they can be dispositional (e.g. a person who if asked about the color of snow would assert "snow is white"). While there is not universal agreement about the nature of belief, most contemporary philosophers hold the view that a disposition to express belief B qualifies as holding the belief B.[23] There are various different ways that contemporary philosophers have tried to describe beliefs, including as representations of ways that the world could be (Jerry Fodor), as dispositions to act as if certain things are true (Roderick Chisholm), as interpretive schemes for making sense of someone's actions (Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson), or as mental states that fill a particular function (Hilary Putnam).[23] Some have also attempted to offer significant revisions to our notion of belief, including eliminativists about belief who argue that there is no phenomenon in the natural world which corresponds to our folk psychological concept of belief (Paul Churchland) and formal epistemologists who aim to replace our bivalent notion of belief ("either I have a belief or I don't have a belief") with the more permissive, probabilistic notion of credence ("there is an entire spectrum of degrees of belief, not a simple dichotomy between belief and non-belief").[23][24]

While belief plays a significant role in epistemological debates surrounding knowledge and justification, it also has many other philosophical debates in its own right. Notable debates include: "What is the rational way to revise one's beliefs when presented with various sorts of evidence?"; "Is the content of our beliefs entirely determined by our mental states, or do the relevant facts have any bearing on our beliefs (e.g. if I believe that I'm holding a glass of water, is the non-mental fact that water is H2O part of the content of that belief)?"; "How fine-grained or coarse-grained are our beliefs?"; and "Must it be possible for a belief to be expressible in language, or are there non-linguistic beliefs?"[23]

Truth

Main article: Truth

Truth is the property or state of being in accordance with facts or reality.[25] On most views, truth is the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. This is called the correspondence theory of truth. Among philosophers who think that it is possible to analyze the conditions necessary for knowledge, virtually all of them accept that truth is such a condition. There is much less agreement about the extent to which a knower must know why something is true in order to know. On such views, something being known implies that it is true. However, this should not be confused for the more contentious view that one must know that one knows in order to know (the KK principle).[2]

Epistemologists disagree about whether belief is the only truth-bearer. 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.[26][clarification needed]

Many of the debates regarding truth are at the crossroads of epistemology and logic.[25] Some contemporary debates regarding truth include: How do we define truth? Is it even possible to give an informative definition of truth? What things are truth-bearers and are therefore capable of being true or false? Are truth and falsity bivalent, or are there other truth values? What are the criteria of truth that allow us to identify it and to distinguish it from falsity? What role does truth play in constituting knowledge? And is truth absolute, or is it merely relative to one's perspective?[25]

Justification

Main article: Justification (epistemology)

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.

Internalism and externalism

Main article: Internalism and externalism

A central debate about the nature of justification is a debate between epistemological externalists on the one hand and epistemological internalists on the other. While epistemic externalism first arose in attempts to overcome the Gettier problem, it has flourished in the time since as an alternative way of conceiving of epistemic justification. The initial development of epistemic externalism is often attributed to Alvin Goldman, although numerous other philosophers have worked on the topic in the time since.[27]

Externalists hold that factors deemed "external", meaning outside of the psychological states of those who gain knowledge, can be conditions of justification. For example, an externalist response to the Gettier problem is to say that for a justified true belief to count as knowledge, there must be a link or dependency between the belief and the state of the external world. Usually, this is understood to be a causal link. Such causation, to the extent that it is "outside" the mind, would count as an external, knowledge-yielding condition. Internalists, on the other hand, assert that all knowledge-yielding conditions are within the psychological states of those who gain knowledge.

Though unfamiliar with the internalist/externalist debate himself, many point to René Descartes as an early example of the internalist path to justification. He wrote that because the only method by which we perceive the external world is through our senses, and that, because the senses are not infallible, we should not consider our concept of knowledge infallible. The only way to find anything that could be described as "indubitably true", he advocates, would be to see things "clearly and distinctly".[28] He argued that if there is an omnipotent, good being who made the world, then it's reasonable to believe that people are made with the ability to know. However, this does not mean that man's ability to know is perfect. God gave man the ability to know but not with omniscience. Descartes said that man must use his capacities for knowledge correctly and carefully through methodological doubt.[29]

The dictum "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) is also commonly associated with Descartes's theory. In his own methodological doubt—doubting everything he previously knew so he could start from a blank slate—the first thing that he could not logically bring himself to doubt was his own existence: "I do not exist" would be a contradiction in terms. The act of saying that one does not exist assumes that someone must be making the statement in the first place. Descartes could doubt his senses, his body, and the world around him—but he could not deny his own existence, because he was able to doubt and must exist to manifest that doubt. Even if some "evil genius" were deceiving him, he would have to exist to be deceived. This one sure point provided him with what he called his Archimedean point, in order to further develop his foundation for knowledge. Simply put, Descartes's epistemological justification depended on his indubitable belief in his own existence and his clear and distinct knowledge of God.[30]

Defining knowledge

Main article: Definitions of 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.[31][32][33] 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, as in knowing how to swim, or to an experiential acquaintance, as in knowing Daniel Craig personally.[34][35][36] Factual knowledge, also referred to as propositional knowledge or descriptive knowledge, plays a special role in epistemology. On the linguistic level, it is distinguished from the other forms of knowledge since it can be expressed through a that-clause, i.e. using a formulation like "They know that..." followed by the known proposition.[37][35][38]

Some features of factual knowledge are widely accepted: it is a form of cognitive success that establishes epistemic contact with reality.[5][36] However, there are still various disagreements about its exact nature even though it has been studied intensely. Different factors are responsible for these disagreements. Some theorists try to furnish a practically useful definition by describing its most noteworthy and easily identifiable features.[36] Others engage in an analysis of knowledge, which aims to provide a theoretically precise definition that identifies the set of essential features characteristic for all instances of knowledge and only for them.[36][33][39] Differences in the methodology may also cause disagreements. In this regard, some epistemologists use abstract and general intuitions in order to arrive at their definitions. A different approach is to start from concrete individual cases of knowledge to determine what all of them have in common.[40][41][42] Yet another method is to focus on linguistic evidence by studying how the term "knowledge" is commonly used.[38][32] Different standards of knowledge are further sources of disagreement. A few theorists set these standards very high by demanding that absolute certainty or infallibility is necessary. On such a view, knowledge is a very rare thing. Theorists more in tune with ordinary language usually demand lower standards and see knowledge as something commonly found in everyday life.[43][35][44]

As justified true belief

The historically most influential definition, discussed since ancient Greek philosophy, characterizes knowledge in relation to three essential features: as (1) a belief that is (2) true and (3) justified.[33][36][45] There is still wide acceptance that the first two features are correct, i.e. that knowledge is a mental state that affirms a true proposition.[35][38][36] However, there is a lot of dispute about the third feature: justification.[37][36][33] This feature is usually included to distinguish knowledge from true beliefs that rest on superstition, lucky guesses, or faulty reasoning. This expresses the idea that knowledge is not the same as being right about something.[37][35][32] Traditionally, justification is understood as the possession of evidence: a belief is justified if the believer has good evidence supporting it. Such evidence could be a perceptual experience, a memory, or a second belief.[33][35][32]

Gettier problem and alternative definitions

 
An Euler diagram representing a version of the traditional definition of knowledge that is adapted to the Gettier problem. This problem gives us reason to think that not all justified true beliefs constitute knowledge.

The justified-true-belief account of knowledge came under severe criticism in the second half of the 20th century, when Edmund Gettier proposed various counterexamples.[46] In a famous so-called Gettier-case, a person is driving on a country road. There are many barn façades along this road and only one real barn. But it is not possible to tell the difference between them from the road. The person then stops by a fortuitous coincidence in front of the only real barn and forms the belief that it is a barn. The idea behind this thought experiment is that this is not knowledge even though the belief is both justified and true. The reason is that it is just a lucky accident since the person cannot tell the difference: they would have formed exactly the same justified belief if they had stopped at another site, in which case the belief would have been false.[47][48][49]

Various additional examples were proposed along similar lines. Most of them involve a justified true belief that apparently fails to amount to knowledge because the belief's justification is in some sense not relevant to its truth.[37][35][36] These counterexamples have provoked very diverse responses. Some theorists think that one only needs to modify one's conception of justification to avoid them. But the more common approach is to search for an additional criterion.[33][50] On this view, all cases of knowledge involve a justified true belief but some justified true beliefs do not amount to knowledge since they lack this additional feature. There are diverse suggestions for this fourth criterion. Some epistemologists require that no false belief is involved in the justification or that no defeater of the belief is present.[49][32] A different approach is to require that the belief tracks truth, i.e. that the person would not have the belief if it was false.[35][36] Some even require that the justification has to be infallible, i.e. that it necessitates the belief's truth.[35][51]

A quite different approach is to affirm that the justified-true-belief account of knowledge is deeply flawed and to seek a complete reconceptualization of knowledge. These reconceptualizations often do not require justification at all.[33] One such approach is to require that the true belief was produced by a reliable process. Naturalized epistemologists often hold that the believed fact has to cause the belief.[52][53][37] Virtue theorists are also interested in how the belief is produced. For them, the belief must be a manifestation of a cognitive virtue.[54][55][5]

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 and true opinion can guide action. Meno then wonders why knowledge is valued more than true belief and why knowledge and true belief are different. Socrates responds that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief because it is tethered or justified. Justification, or working out the reason for a true belief, locks down true belief.[56]

The problem is to identify what (if anything) makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief, or that makes knowledge more valuable than a mere minimal conjunction of its components, such as justification, safety, sensitivity, statistical likelihood, and anti-Gettier conditions, on a particular analysis of knowledge that conceives of knowledge as divided into components (to which knowledge-first epistemological theories, which posit knowledge as fundamental, are notable exceptions).[57] The value problem re-emerged in the philosophical literature on epistemology in the twenty-first century following the rise of virtue epistemology in the 1980s, partly because of the obvious link to the concept of value in ethics.[58]

Virtue epistemology

Main article: Virtue epistemology

In contemporary philosophy, epistemologists including Ernest Sosa, John Greco, Jonathan Kvanvig,[59] Linda Zagzebski, and Duncan Pritchard have defended virtue epistemology as a solution to the value problem. They argue that epistemology should also evaluate the "properties" of people as epistemic agents (i.e. intellectual virtues), rather than merely the properties of propositions and propositional mental attitudes.

The value problem has been presented as an argument against epistemic reliabilism by Linda Zagzebski, Wayne Riggs, and Richard Swinburne, among others. Zagzebski analogizes the value of knowledge to the value of espresso produced by an espresso maker: "The liquid in this cup is not improved by the fact that it comes from a reliable espresso maker. If the espresso tastes good, it makes no difference if it comes from an unreliable machine."[60] For Zagzebski, the value of knowledge deflates to the value of mere true belief. She assumes that reliability in itself has no value or disvalue, but Goldman and Olsson disagree. They point out that Zagzebski's conclusion rests on the assumption of veritism: all that matters is the acquisition of true belief.[61] To the contrary, they argue that a reliable process for acquiring a true belief adds value to the mere true belief by making it more likely that future beliefs of a similar kind will be true. By analogy, having a reliable espresso maker that produced a good cup of espresso would be more valuable than having an unreliable one that luckily produced a good cup because the reliable one would more likely produce good future cups compared to the unreliable one.

The value problem is important to assessing the adequacy of theories of knowledge that conceive of knowledge as consisting of true belief and other components. According to Kvanvig, an adequate account of knowledge should resist counterexamples and allow an explanation of the value of knowledge over mere true belief. Should a theory of knowledge fail to do so, it would prove inadequate.[62]

One of the more influential responses to the problem is that knowledge is not particularly valuable and is not what ought to be the main focus of epistemology. Instead, epistemologists ought to focus on other mental states, such as understanding.[63] Advocates of virtue epistemology have argued that the value of knowledge comes from an internal relationship between the knower and the mental state of believing.[57]

Acquiring knowledge

Sources of knowledge

Main article: Knowledge § Sources of 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.[3][5]

Important distinctions

A priori–a posteriori distinction

Main article: A priori and a posteriori

As mentioned above, epistemologists draw a distinction between what can be known a priori (independently of experience) and what can only be known a posteriori (through experience). Much of what we call a priori knowledge is thought to be attained through reason alone, as featured prominently in rationalism. This might also include a non-rational faculty of intuition, as defended by proponents of innatism. In contrast, a posteriori knowledge is derived entirely through experience or as a result of experience, as emphasized in empiricism. This also includes cases where knowledge can be traced back to an earlier experience, as in memory or testimony.[22]

A way to look at the difference between the two is through an example. Bruce Russell gives two propositions in which the reader decides which one he believes more.[clarification needed] Option A: All crows are birds. Option B: All crows are black. If you believe option A, then you are a priori justified in believing it because you don't have to see a crow to know it's a bird. If you believe in option B, then you are posteriori justified to believe it because you have seen many crows therefore knowing they are black. He goes on to say that it doesn't matter if the statement is true or not, only that if you believe in one or the other that matters.[22]

The idea of a priori knowledge is that it is based on intuition or rational insights. Laurence BonJour says in his article "The Structure of Empirical Knowledge",[64] that a "rational insight is an immediate, non-inferential grasp, apprehension or 'seeing' that some proposition is necessarily true." (3) Going back to the crow example, by Laurence BonJour's definition the reason you would believe in option A is because you have an immediate knowledge that a crow is a bird, without ever experiencing one.

Evolutionary psychology takes a novel approach to the problem. It says that there is an innate predisposition for certain types of learning. "Only small parts of the brain resemble a tabula rasa; this is true even for human beings. The remainder is more like an exposed negative waiting to be dipped into a developer fluid".[65]

Analytic–synthetic distinction

 
The analytic–synthetic distinction was first proposed by Immanuel Kant.
Main article: Analytic–synthetic distinction

Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, drew a distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" propositions. He contended that some propositions are such that we can know they are true just by understanding their meaning. For example, consider, "My father's brother is my uncle." We can know it is true solely by virtue of our understanding in what its terms mean. Philosophers call such propositions "analytic". Synthetic propositions, on the other hand, have distinct subjects and predicates. An example would be, "My father's brother has black hair." Kant stated that all mathematical and scientific statements are synthetic a priori propositions because they are necessarily true but our knowledge about the attributes of the mathematical or physical subjects we can only get by logical inference.

While this distinction is first and foremost about meaning and is therefore most relevant to the philosophy of language, the distinction has significant epistemological consequences, seen most prominently in the works of the logical positivists.[66] In particular, if the set of propositions which can only be known a posteriori is coextensive with the set of propositions which are synthetically true, and if the set of propositions which can be known a priori is coextensive with the set of propositions which are analytically true (or in other words, which are true by definition), then there can only be two kinds of successful inquiry: Logico-mathematical inquiry, which investigates what is true by definition, and empirical inquiry, which investigates what is true in the world. Most notably, this would exclude the possibility that branches of philosophy like metaphysics could ever provide informative accounts of what actually exists.[22][66]

The American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in his paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", famously challenged the analytic-synthetic distinction, arguing that the boundary between the two is too blurry to provide a clear division between propositions that are true by definition and propositions that are not. While some contemporary philosophers take themselves to have offered more sustainable accounts of the distinction that are not vulnerable to Quine's objections, there is no consensus about whether or not these succeed.[67]

Science as knowledge acquisition

Main article: Philosophy of science

Science is often considered to be a refined, formalized, systematic, institutionalized form of the pursuit and acquisition of empirical knowledge. As such, the philosophy of science may be viewed as an application of the principles of epistemology and as a foundation for epistemological inquiry.[11]

The regress problem

Main article: Regress argument

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 Socrates is mortal. In this example how do we know that Socrates is human? Presumably we apply other rules such as: All born from human females are human. Which then leaves open the question how do we know that all born from humans are human? This is the regress problem: how can we eventually terminate a logical argument with some statements that do not require further justification but can still be considered rational and justified? As John Pollock stated:

... to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified belief. This means that one of two things can be the case. Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of (potential) justification [the nebula theory]. On this theory there is no rock bottom of justification. Justification just meanders in and out through our network of beliefs, stopping nowhere.[68]

The apparent impossibility of completing an infinite chain of reasoning is thought by some to support skepticism. It is also the impetus for Descartes's famous dictum: I think, therefore I am. Descartes was looking for some logical statement that could be true without appeal to other statements.

Responses to the regress problem

Many epistemologists studying justification have attempted to argue for various types of chains of reasoning that can escape the regress problem.

Foundationalism

Foundationalists respond to the regress problem by asserting that certain "foundations" or "basic beliefs" support other beliefs but do not themselves require justification from other beliefs. These beliefs might be justified because they are self-evident, infallible, or derive from reliable cognitive mechanisms. Perception, memory, and a priori intuition are often considered possible examples of basic beliefs.

The chief criticism of foundationalism is that if a belief is not supported by other beliefs, accepting it may be arbitrary or unjustified.[69]

Coherentism

Another response to the regress problem is coherentism, which is the rejection of the assumption that the regress proceeds according to a pattern of linear justification. To avoid the charge of circularity, coherentists hold that an individual belief is justified circularly by the way it fits together (coheres) with the rest of the belief system of which it is a part. This theory has the advantage of avoiding the infinite regress without claiming special, possibly arbitrary status for some particular class of beliefs. Yet, since a system can be coherent while also being wrong, coherentists face the difficulty of ensuring that the whole system corresponds to reality. Additionally, most logicians agree that any argument that is circular is, at best, only trivially valid. That is, to be illuminating, arguments must operate with information from multiple premises, not simply conclude by reiterating a premise.

Nigel Warburton writes in Thinking from A to Z that "[c]ircular arguments are not invalid; in other words, from a logical point of view there is nothing intrinsically wrong with them. However, they are, when viciously circular, spectacularly uninformative."[70]

Infinitism

An alternative resolution to the regress problem is known as "infinitism". Infinitists take the infinite series to be merely potential, in the sense that an individual may have indefinitely many reasons available to them, without having consciously thought through all of these reasons when the need arises. This position is motivated in part by the desire to avoid what is seen as the arbitrariness and circularity of its chief competitors, foundationalism and coherentism. The most prominent defense of infinitism has been given by Peter Klein.[71]

Foundherentism

An intermediate position, known as "foundherentism", is advanced by Susan Haack. Foundherentism is meant to unify foundationalism and coherentism. Haack explains the view by using a crossword puzzle as an analogy. Whereas, for example, infinitists regard the regress of reasons as taking the form of a single line that continues indefinitely, Haack has argued that chains of properly justified beliefs look more like a crossword puzzle, with various different lines mutually supporting each other.[72] Thus, Haack's view leaves room for both chains of beliefs that are "vertical" (terminating in foundational beliefs) and chains that are "horizontal" (deriving their justification from coherence with beliefs that are also members of foundationalist chains of belief).

Schools of thought in epistemology

Empiricism

 
David Hume, one of the most staunch defenders of empiricism
Main article: Empiricism

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.[73] Certain forms exempt disciplines such as mathematics and logic from these requirements.[74]

There are many variants of empiricism, including British empiricism, logical empiricism, phenomenalism, and some versions of common sense philosophy. Most forms of empiricism give epistemologically privileged status to sensory impressions or sense data, although this plays out very differently in different cases. Some of the most famous historical empiricists include John Locke, David Hume, George Berkeley, Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, Rudolf Carnap, and Bertrand Russell.

Rationalism

Main article: Rationalism

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).

Some of the most famous rationalists include Plato, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz.

Skepticism

Main article: Philosophical skepticism

Skepticism is a position that questions the possibility of human knowledge, either in particular domains or on a general level.[75] Skepticism does not refer to any one specific school of philosophy, but is rather a thread that runs through many epistemological debates. Ancient Greek skepticism began during the Hellenistic period in philosophy, which featured both Pyrrhonism (notably defended by Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, and Aenesidemus) and Academic skepticism (notably defended by Arcesilaus and Carneades). Among ancient Indian philosophers, skepticism was notably defended by the Ajñana school and in the Buddhist Madhyamika tradition. In modern philosophy, René Descartes' famous inquiry into mind and body began as an exercise in skepticism, in which he started by trying to doubt all purported cases of knowledge in order to search for something that was known with absolute certainty.[76]

Epistemic skepticism questions whether knowledge is possible at all. Generally speaking, skeptics argue that knowledge requires certainty, and that most or all of our beliefs are fallible (meaning that our grounds for holding them always, or almost always, fall short of certainty), which would together entail that knowledge is always or almost always impossible for us.[77] Characterizing knowledge as strong or weak is dependent on a person's viewpoint and their characterization of knowledge.[77] Much of modern epistemology is derived from attempts to better understand and address philosophical skepticism.[75]

Pyrrhonism

Main article: Pyrrhonism

One of the oldest forms of epistemic skepticism can be found in Agrippa's trilemma (named after the Pyrrhonist philosopher Agrippa the Skeptic) which demonstrates that certainty can not be achieved with regard to beliefs.[78] Pyrrhonism dates back to Pyrrho of Elis from the 4th century BCE, although most of what we know about Pyrrhonism today is from the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus.[78] Pyrrhonists claim that for any argument for a non-evident proposition, an equally convincing argument for a contradictory proposition can be produced. Pyrrhonists do not dogmatically deny the possibility of knowledge, but instead point out that beliefs about non-evident matters cannot be substantiated.

Cartesian skepticism

The Cartesian evil demon problem, first raised by René Descartes,[note 2] supposes that our sensory impressions may be controlled by some external power rather than the result of ordinary veridical perception.[79] In such a scenario, nothing we sense would actually exist, but would instead be mere illusion. As a result, we would never be able to know anything about the world, since we would be systematically deceived about everything. The conclusion often drawn from evil demon skepticism is that even if we are not completely deceived, all of the information provided by our senses is still compatible with skeptical scenarios in which we are completely deceived, and that we must therefore either be able to exclude the possibility of deception or else must deny the possibility of infallible knowledge (that is, knowledge which is completely certain) beyond our immediate sensory impressions.[80] While the view that no beliefs are beyond doubt other than our immediate sensory impressions is often ascribed to Descartes, he in fact thought that we can exclude the possibility that we are systematically deceived, although his reasons for thinking this are based on a highly contentious ontological argument for the existence of a benevolent God who would not allow such deception to occur.[79]

Responses to philosophical skepticism

Epistemological skepticism can be classified as either "mitigated" or "unmitigated" skepticism. Mitigated skepticism rejects "strong" or "strict" knowledge claims but does approve weaker ones, which can be considered "virtual knowledge", but only with regard to justified beliefs. Unmitigated skepticism rejects claims of both virtual and strong knowledge.[77] Characterizing knowledge as strong, weak, virtual or genuine can be determined differently depending on a person's viewpoint as well as their characterization of knowledge.[77] Some of the most notable attempts to respond to unmitigated skepticism include direct realism, disjunctivism, common sense philosophy, pragmatism, fideism, and fictionalism.[81]

Pragmatism

Main article: Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a fallibilist epistemology that emphasizes the role of action in knowing.[82] Different interpretations of pragmatism variously emphasize: truth as the final outcome of ideal scientific inquiry and experimentation, truth as closely related to usefulness, experience as transacting with (instead of representing) nature, and human practices as the foundation of language.[82] Pragmatism's origins are often attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey.[82] In 1878, Peirce formulated the maxim: "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."[83]

William James suggested that through a pragmatist epistemology, theories "become instruments, not answers to enigmas in which we can rest".[84]: 28  In James's pragmatic method, which he adapted from Peirce, metaphysical disputes can be settled by tracing the practical consequences of the different sides of the argument. If this process does not resolve the dispute, then "the dispute is idle".[84]: 25 

Contemporary versions of pragmatism have been developed by thinkers such as Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. Rorty proposed that values were historically contingent and dependent upon their utility within a given historical period.[85] Contemporary philosophers working in pragmatism are called neopragmatists, and also include Nicholas Rescher, Robert Brandom, Susan Haack, and Cornel West.

Naturalized epistemology

Main article: Naturalized epistemology

In certain respects an intellectual descendant of pragmatism, naturalized epistemology considers the evolutionary role of knowledge for agents living and evolving in the world.[86] It de-emphasizes the questions around justification and truth, and instead asks, empirically, how reliable beliefs are formed and the role that evolution played in the development of such processes. It suggests a more empirical approach to the subject as a whole, leaving behind philosophical definitions and consistency arguments, and instead using psychological methods to study and understand how "knowledge" is actually formed and is used in the natural world. As such, it does not attempt to answer the analytic questions of traditional epistemology, but rather replace them with new empirical ones.[87]

Naturalized epistemology was first proposed in "Epistemology Naturalized", a seminal paper by W.V.O. Quine.[86] A less radical view has been defended by Hilary Kornblith in Knowledge and its Place in Nature, in which he seeks to turn epistemology towards empirical investigation without completely abandoning traditional epistemic concepts.[88]

Epistemic relativism

Main article: Relativism

Epistemic relativism is the view that what is true, rational, or justified for one person need not be true, rational, or justified for another person. Epistemic relativists therefore assert that while there are relative facts about truth, rationality, justification, and so on, there is no perspective-independent fact of the matter.[89] Note that this is distinct from epistemic contextualism, which holds that the meaning of epistemic terms vary across contexts (e.g. "I know" might mean something different in everyday contexts and skeptical contexts). In contrast, epistemic relativism holds that the relevant facts vary, not just linguistic meaning. Relativism about truth may also be a form of ontological relativism, insofar as relativists about truth hold that facts about what exists vary based on perspective.[89]

Epistemic constructivism

Main articles: Constructivist epistemology and Social constructivism

Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all "knowledge is a compilation of human-made constructions",[90] "not the neutral discovery of an objective truth".[91] Whereas objectivism is concerned with the "object of our knowledge", constructivism emphasizes "how we construct knowledge".[92] Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge and truth, which emphasize intersubjectivity rather than objectivity, and viability rather than truth. The constructivist point of view is in many ways comparable to certain forms of pragmatism.[93]

Epistemic idealism

Main article: Idealism

Idealism is a broad term referring to both an ontological view about the world being in some sense mind-dependent and a corresponding epistemological view that everything people know can be reduced to mental phenomena. First and foremost, "idealism" is a metaphysical doctrine. As an epistemological doctrine, idealism shares a great deal with both empiricism and rationalism. Some of the most famous empiricists have been classified as idealists (particularly Berkeley), and yet the subjectivism inherent to idealism also resembles that of Descartes in many respects. Many idealists believe that knowledge is primarily (at least in some areas) acquired by a priori processes, or that it is innate—for example, in the form of concepts not derived from experience.[94] The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human mind (as in Kant's theory of transcendental idealism), or they may be said to exist independently of the mind (as in Plato's theory of Forms).

Some of the most famous forms of idealism include transcendental idealism (developed by Immanuel Kant), subjective idealism (developed by George Berkeley), and absolute idealism (developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Schelling).

Bayesian epistemology

Bayesian epistemology is a formal approach to various topics in epistemology that has its roots in Thomas Bayes' work in the field of probability theory. One advantage of its formal method in contrast to traditional epistemology is that its concepts and theorems can be defined with a high degree of precision. It is based on the idea that beliefs can be interpreted as subjective probabilities. As such, they are subject to the laws of probability theory, which act as the norms of rationality. These norms can be divided into static constraints, governing the rationality of beliefs at any moment, and dynamic constraints, governing how rational agents should change their beliefs upon receiving new evidence. The most characteristic Bayesian expression of these principles is found in the form of Dutch books, which illustrate irrationality in agents through a series of bets that lead to a loss for the agent no matter which of the probabilistic events occurs. Bayesians have applied these fundamental principles to various epistemological topics but Bayesianism does not cover all topics of traditional epistemology.[95][96][97][98]

Feminist epistemology

Main article: Feminist epistemology

Feminist epistemology is a subfield of epistemology which applies feminist theory to epistemological questions. It began to emerge as a distinct subfield in the 20th century. Prominent feminist epistemologists include Miranda Fricker (who developed the concept of epistemic injustice), Donna Haraway (who first proposed the concept of situated knowledge), Sandra Harding, and Elizabeth Anderson.[99] Harding proposes that feminist epistemology can be broken into three distinct categories: Feminist empiricism, standpoint epistemology, and postmodern epistemology.

Feminist epistemology has also played a significant role in the development of many debates in social epistemology.[100]

Decolonial epistemology

Main article: Decolonization of knowledge

Epistemicide[101] is a term used in decolonisation studies that describes the killing of knowledge systems under systemic oppression such as colonisation and slavery. The term was coined by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who presented the significance of such physical violence creating the centering of Western knowledge in the current world.[102] This term challenges the thought of what is seen as knowledge in academia today.

Indian pramana

Main article: Pramana

Indian schools of philosophy, such as the Hindu Nyaya and Carvaka schools, and the Jain and Buddhist philosophical schools, developed an epistemological tradition independently of the Western philosophical tradition called "pramana". Pramana can be translated as "instrument of knowledge" and refers to various means or sources of knowledge that Indian philosophers held to be reliable. Each school of Indian philosophy had their own theories about which pramanas were valid means to knowledge and which were unreliable (and why).[103] A Vedic text, Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (c. 9th–6th centuries BCE), lists "four means of attaining correct knowledge": smṛti ("tradition" or "scripture"), pratyakṣa ("perception"), aitihya ("communication by one who is expert", or "tradition"), and anumāna ("reasoning" or "inference").[104][105]

In the Indian traditions, the most widely discussed pramanas are: Pratyakṣa (perception), Anumāṇa (inference), Upamāṇa (comparison and analogy), Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances), Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof) and Śabda (word, testimony of past or present reliable experts). While the Nyaya school (beginning with the Nyāya Sūtras of Gotama, between 6th-century BCE and 2nd-century CE[106][107]) were a proponent of realism and supported four pramanas (perception, inference, comparison/analogy and testimony), the Buddhist epistemologists (Dignaga and Dharmakirti) generally accepted only perception and inference. The Carvaka school of materialists only accepted the pramana of perception, and hence were among the first empiricists in the Indian traditions.[108] Another school, the Ajñana, included notable proponents of philosophical skepticism.

The theory of knowledge of the Buddha in the early Buddhist texts has been interpreted as a form of pragmatism as well as a form of correspondence theory.[109] Likewise, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti has been interpreted both as holding a form of pragmatism or correspondence theory for his view that what is true is what has effective power (arthakriya).[110][111] The Buddhist Madhyamika school's theory of emptiness (shunyata) meanwhile has been interpreted as a form of philosophical skepticism.[112]

The main contribution to epistemology by the Jains has been their theory of "many sided-ness" or "multi-perspectivism" (Anekantavada), which says that since the world is multifaceted, any single viewpoint is limited (naya – a partial standpoint).[113] This has been interpreted as a kind of pluralism or perspectivism.[114][115] According to Jain epistemology, none of the pramanas gives absolute or perfect knowledge since they are each limited points of view.

Domains of inquiry in epistemology

Formal epistemology

Main articles: Formal epistemology and Computational epistemology

Formal epistemology uses formal tools and methods from decision theory, logic, probability theory and computability theory to model and reason about issues of epistemological interest.[116] Work in this area spans several academic fields, including philosophy, computer science, economics, and statistics. The focus of formal epistemology has tended to differ somewhat from that of traditional epistemology, with topics like uncertainty, induction, and belief revision garnering more attention than the analysis of knowledge, skepticism, and issues with justification.

Historical epistemology

Main article: Historical epistemology

Historical epistemology is the study of the historical conditions of, and changes in, different kinds of knowledge.[117][118] There are many versions of or approaches to historical epistemology, which is different from history of epistemology.[119] Twentieth-century French historical epistemologists like Abel Rey, Gaston Bachelard, Jean Cavaillès, and Georges Canguilhem focused specifically on changes in scientific discourse.[120][121]

Metaepistemology

Main article: Metaepistemology

Metaepistemology is the metaphilosophical study of the methods, aims, and subject matter of epistemology.[122] In general, metaepistemology aims to better understand our first-order epistemological inquiry. Some goals of metaepistemology are identifying inaccurate assumptions made in epistemological debates and determining whether the questions asked in mainline epistemology are the right epistemological questions to be asking.

Social epistemology

Main article: Social epistemology

Social epistemology deals with questions about knowledge in contexts where our knowledge attributions cannot be explained by simply examining individuals in isolation from one another, meaning that the scope of our knowledge attributions must be widened to include broader social contexts.[123] It also explores the ways in which interpersonal beliefs can be justified in social contexts.[123] The most common topics discussed in contemporary social epistemology are testimony, which deals with the conditions under which a belief "x is true" which resulted from being told "x is true" constitutes knowledge; peer disagreement, which deals with when and how I should revise my beliefs in light of other people holding beliefs that contradict mine; and group epistemology, which deals with what it means to attribute knowledge to groups rather than individuals, and when group knowledge attributions are appropriate.

See also

For a topical guide, see Outline of epistemology.
  • Epistemological pluralism – term used in philosophy, economics, and virtually any field of study to refer to different ways of knowing things, different epistemological methodologies for attaining a fuller description of a particular field
  • Evolutionary epistemology – Ambiguous term applied to several concepts
  • Knowledge falsification – Deliberate misrepresentation of knowledge
  • Knowledge-first epistemology – 2000 philosophical essay by Timothy Williamson
  • Moral epistemology – Branch of ethics seeking to understand ethical properties
  • Noölogy – systematic study and organization of everything dealing with knowing and knowledge
  • Personal epistemology – Cognition about knowledge and knowing
  • Reformed epistemology – School of philosophical thought
  • Self-evidence – Epistemologically probative proposition
  • Sociology of knowledge – Field of study
  • Theory of Knowledge (IB Course) – Compulsory International Baccalaureate subject

References

Notes

  1. ^ In Scots, the distinction is between wit and ken. In French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, German, and Dutch 'to know (a person)' is translated using connaître, conhecer, conocer, a cunoaște and kennen (both German and Dutch) respectively, whereas 'to know (how to do something)' is translated using savoir, saber (both Portuguese and Spanish), a şti, wissen, and weten. Modern Greek has the verbs γνωρίζω (gnorízo) and ξέρω (kséro). Italian has the verbs conoscere and sapere and the nouns for 'knowledge' are conoscenza and sapienza. German has the verbs wissen and kennen; the former implies knowing a fact, the latter knowing in the sense of being acquainted with and having a working knowledge of; there is also a noun derived from kennen, namely Erkennen, which has been said to imply knowledge in the form of recognition or acknowledgment.[21] The verb itself implies a process: you have to go from one state to another, from a state of "not-erkennen" to a state of true erkennen. This verb seems the most appropriate in terms of describing the "episteme" in one of the modern European languages, hence the German name "Erkenntnistheorie".
  2. ^ Skeptical scenarios in a similar vein date back to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, although Plato's Allegory was quite different in both presentation and interpretation. In contemporary philosophical literature, something akin to evil demon skepticism is presented in brain in a vat scenarios. See also the New Evil Demon Problem (IEP).

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External links

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles

Encyclopædia Britannica

  • Epistemology by Avrum Stroll and A.P. Martinich

Other links

  • The London Philosophy Study Guide 23 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject: Epistemology & Methodology 1 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  • Epistemology at PhilPapers
  • Knowledge-How at Philpapers
  • Epistemology at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
  • What Is Epistemology? – a brief introduction to the topic by Keith DeRose.
  • and by Paul Newall at the Galilean Library.
  • Teaching Theory of Knowledge (1986) – Marjorie Clay (ed.), an electronic publication from The Council for Philosophical Studies.
  • by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.

May 09, 2023
epistemology, theory, knowledge, redirects, here, other, uses, theory, knowledge, disambiguation, epistemic, redirects, here, alternative, name, cognitive, science, epistemics, album, album, confused, with, epidemiology, this, article, needs, additional, citat. Theory of knowledge redirects here For other uses see Theory of knowledge disambiguation Epistemic redirects here For the alternative name for cognitive science see Epistemics For the album see Epistemology album Not to be confused with Epidemiology This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Epistemology news newspapers books scholar JSTOR July 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Epistemology ɪ ˌ p ɪ s t e ˈ m ɒ l e dʒ i listen from Ancient Greek ἐpisthmh epistḗme knowledge and logy 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 1 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 around four core areas 2 3 4 The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge such as truth and justification Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief such as perception reason memory and testimony The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs Philosophical skepticism which questions the possibility of knowledge and related problems such as whether skepticism poses a threat to our ordinary knowledge claims and whether it is possible to refute skeptical argumentsIn these debates and others epistemology aims to answer questions such as What do people know What does it mean to say that people know something What makes justified beliefs justified and How do people know that they know 1 2 5 6 Specialties in epistemology ask questions such as How can people create formal models about issues related to knowledge in formal epistemology What are the historical conditions of changes in different kinds of knowledge in historical epistemology What are the methods aims and subject matter of epistemological inquiry in metaepistemology and How do people know together in social epistemology Contents 1 Background 1 1 Etymology 1 2 History of epistemology 1 2 1 Contemporary historiography 2 Central concepts in epistemology 2 1 Knowledge 2 1 1 A priori and a posteriori knowledge 2 2 Belief 2 3 Truth 2 4 Justification 2 4 1 Internalism and externalism 3 Defining knowledge 3 1 As justified true belief 3 2 Gettier problem and alternative definitions 4 The value problem 4 1 Virtue epistemology 5 Acquiring knowledge 5 1 Sources of knowledge 5 2 Important distinctions 5 2 1 A priori a posteriori distinction 5 2 2 Analytic synthetic distinction 5 3 Science as knowledge acquisition 6 The regress problem 6 1 Responses to the regress problem 6 1 1 Foundationalism 6 1 2 Coherentism 6 1 3 Infinitism 6 1 4 Foundherentism 7 Schools of thought in epistemology 7 1 Empiricism 7 2 Rationalism 7 3 Skepticism 7 3 1 Pyrrhonism 7 3 2 Cartesian skepticism 7 3 3 Responses to philosophical skepticism 7 4 Pragmatism 7 5 Naturalized epistemology 7 6 Epistemic relativism 7 7 Epistemic constructivism 7 8 Epistemic idealism 7 9 Bayesian epistemology 7 10 Feminist epistemology 7 11 Decolonial epistemology 7 12 Indian pramana 8 Domains of inquiry in epistemology 8 1 Formal epistemology 8 2 Historical epistemology 8 3 Metaepistemology 8 4 Social epistemology 9 See also 10 References 10 1 Notes 10 2 Citations 10 3 Sources 11 External linksBackground EditEtymology Edit The word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek episteme meaning knowledge and the suffix logia meaning logical discourse derived from the Greek word logos meaning discourse 7 The word s appearance in English was predated by the German term Wissenschaftslehre lit theory of science which was introduced by philosophers Johann Fichte and Bernard Bolzano in the late 18th century The word epistemology first appeared in 1847 in a review in New York s Eclectic Magazine It was first used as a translation of the word Wissenschaftslehre as it appears in a philosophical novel by German author Jean Paul The title of one of the principal works of Fichte is Wissenschaftslehre which after the analogy of technology we render epistemology 8 The word epistemology was properly introduced into Anglophone philosophical literature by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854 who used it in his Institutes of Metaphysics This section of the science is properly termed the Epistemology the doctrine or theory of knowing just as ontology is the science of being It answers the general question What is knowing and the known or more shortly What is knowledge 9 The French term epistemologie is often used with a different and narrower meaning than the English term epistemology being used by many French philosophers to refer solely to philosophy of science in contrast to general theory of knowledge theorie de la connaissance For instance Emile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality 1908 with the remark that the word is becoming current as equivalent to the philosophy of the sciences 10 Jean Piaget s Epistemology and its varieties 1967 written in French said that we may define epistemology to a first approximation as the study of the constitution of valid knowledge the term constitution covering both the conditions of attainment and the constitutive conditions themselves while he noted that historically the epistemological problem was often stated as How are the sciences possible 11 History of epistemology Edit Epistemology as a distinct field of inquiry predates the introduction of the term into the lexicon of philosophy John Locke for instance described his efforts in Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1689 as an inquiry into the original certainty and extent of human knowledge together with the grounds and degrees of belief opinion and assent 12 Rene Descartes who is often credited as the father of modern philosophy was often preoccupied with epistemological questions in his work Almost every major historical philosopher has considered questions about what people know and how they know it 1 Among the Ancient Greek philosophers Plato distinguished between inquiry regarding what people know and inquiry regarding what exists particularly in the Republic the Theaetetus and the Meno 1 In Meno the definition of knowledge as justified true knowledge appears for the first time 13 37 In other words belief is required to have an explanation in order to be correct beyond just happening to be right 13 38 A number of important epistemological concerns also appeared in the works of Aristotle 1 During the subsequent Hellenistic period philosophical schools began to appear which had a greater focus on epistemological questions often in the form of philosophical skepticism 1 For instance the Pyrrhonian skepticism of Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus held that eudaimonia flourishing happiness or the good life could be attained through the application of epoche suspension of judgment regarding all non evident matters Pyrrhonism was particularly concerned with undermining the epistemological dogmas of Stoicism and Epicureanism 1 The other major school of Hellenistic skepticism was Academic skepticism most notably defended by Carneades and Arcesilaus which predominated in the Platonic Academy for almost two centuries 1 In ancient India the Ajnana school of ancient Indian philosophy promoted skepticism Ajnana was a Sramaṇa movement and a major rival of early Buddhism Jainism and the Ajivika school They held that it was impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or to ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions and even if knowledge was possible it was useless and disadvantageous for final salvation They were specialized in refutation without propagating any positive doctrine of their own After the ancient philosophical era but before the modern philosophical era a number of Medieval philosophers also engaged with epistemological questions at length Most notable among the Medievals for their contributions to epistemology were Thomas Aquinas John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham 1 During the Islamic Golden Age one of the most prominent and influential philosophers theologians jurists logicians and mystics in Islamic epistemology was Al Ghazali During his life he wrote over 70 books on science Islamic reasoning and Sufism 14 Al Ghazali distributed his book The Incoherence of Philosophers set apart as a defining moment in Islamic epistemology He shaped a conviction that all occasions and connections are not the result of material conjunctions but are the present and prompt will of God 15 Epistemology largely came to the fore in philosophy during the early modern period which historians of philosophy traditionally divide up into a dispute between empiricists including Francis Bacon John Locke David Hume and George Berkeley and rationalists including Rene Descartes Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz 1 The debate between them has often been framed using the question of whether knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience empiricism or whether a significant portion of our knowledge is derived entirely from our faculty of reason rationalism According to some scholars this dispute was resolved in the late 18th century by Immanuel Kant citation needed whose transcendental idealism famously made room for the view that though all our knowledge begins with experience it by no means follows that all knowledge arises out of experience 16 Contemporary historiography Edit The neutrality of this section is disputed Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met August 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message There are a number of different methods that contemporary scholars use when trying to understand the relationship between past epistemology and contemporary epistemology One of the most contentious questions is this Should we assume that the problems of epistemology are perennial and that trying to reconstruct and evaluate Plato s or Hume s or Kant s arguments is meaningful for current debates too 17 Similarly there is also a question of whether contemporary philosophers should aim to rationally reconstruct and evaluate historical views in epistemology or to merely describe them 17 Barry Stroud claims that doing epistemology competently requires the historical study of past attempts to find philosophical understanding of the nature and scope of human knowledge 18 He argues that since inquiry may progress over time we may not realize how different the questions that contemporary epistemologists ask are from questions asked at various different points in the history of philosophy 18 Central concepts in epistemology EditKnowledge Edit Bertrand Russell famously brought attention to the distinction between propositional knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance Main article Knowledge 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 knowing something knowing that knowing the truth of propositions knowing how understanding how to perform certain actions and knowing by acquaintance directly perceiving an object being familiar with it or otherwise coming into contact with it 19 Epistemology is primarily concerned with the first of these forms of knowledge propositional knowledge All three senses of knowing can be seen in our ordinary use of the word In mathematics you can know that 2 2 4 but there is also knowing how to add two numbers and knowing a person e g knowing other persons 20 or knowing oneself place e g one s hometown thing e g cars or activity e g addition While these distinctions are not explicit in English they are explicitly made in other languages including French Portuguese Spanish Romanian German and Dutch although some languages closely related to English have been said to retain these verbs such as Scots note 1 The theoretical interpretation and significance of these linguistic issues remains controversial In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell brought a great deal of attention to the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance Gilbert Ryle is similarly credited with bringing more attention to the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind In Personal Knowledge Michael Polanyi argues for the epistemological relevance of knowledge how and knowledge that using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded This position is essentially Ryle s who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how leads to infinite regress A priori and a posteriori knowledge Edit Main article A priori and a posteriori One of the most important distinctions in epistemology is between what can be known a priori independently of experience and what can be known a posteriori through experience The terms originate from the Analytic methods of Aristotle s Organon and may be roughly defined as follows 22 A priori knowledge is knowledge that is known independently of experience that is it is non empirical or arrived at before experience usually by reason It will henceforth be acquired through anything that is independent from experience A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is known by experience that is it is empirical or arrived at through experience Views that emphasize the importance of a priori knowledge are generally classified as rationalist Views that emphasize the importance of a posteriori knowledge are generally classified as empiricist citation needed Belief Edit Main article Belief 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 23 For instance to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition snow is white Beliefs can be occurrent e g a person actively thinking snow is white or they can be dispositional e g a person who if asked about the color of snow would assert snow is white While there is not universal agreement about the nature of belief most contemporary philosophers hold the view that a disposition to express belief B qualifies as holding the belief B 23 There are various different ways that contemporary philosophers have tried to describe beliefs including as representations of ways that the world could be Jerry Fodor as dispositions to act as if certain things are true Roderick Chisholm as interpretive schemes for making sense of someone s actions Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson or as mental states that fill a particular function Hilary Putnam 23 Some have also attempted to offer significant revisions to our notion of belief including eliminativists about belief who argue that there is no phenomenon in the natural world which corresponds to our folk psychological concept of belief Paul Churchland and formal epistemologists who aim to replace our bivalent notion of belief either I have a belief or I don t have a belief with the more permissive probabilistic notion of credence there is an entire spectrum of degrees of belief not a simple dichotomy between belief and non belief 23 24 While belief plays a significant role in epistemological debates surrounding knowledge and justification it also has many other philosophical debates in its own right Notable debates include What is the rational way to revise one s beliefs when presented with various sorts of evidence Is the content of our beliefs entirely determined by our mental states or do the relevant facts have any bearing on our beliefs e g if I believe that I m holding a glass of water is the non mental fact that water is H2O part of the content of that belief How fine grained or coarse grained are our beliefs and Must it be possible for a belief to be expressible in language or are there non linguistic beliefs 23 Truth Edit Main article Truth Truth is the property or state of being in accordance with facts or reality 25 On most views truth is the correspondence of language or thought to a mind independent world This is called the correspondence theory of truth Among philosophers who think that it is possible to analyze the conditions necessary for knowledge virtually all of them accept that truth is such a condition There is much less agreement about the extent to which a knower must know why something is true in order to know On such views something being known implies that it is true However this should not be confused for the more contentious view that one must know that one knows in order to know the KK principle 2 Epistemologists disagree about whether belief is the only truth bearer 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 26 clarification needed Many of the debates regarding truth are at the crossroads of epistemology and logic 25 Some contemporary debates regarding truth include How do we define truth Is it even possible to give an informative definition of truth What things are truth bearers and are therefore capable of being true or false Are truth and falsity bivalent or are there other truth values What are the criteria of truth that allow us to identify it and to distinguish it from falsity What role does truth play in constituting knowledge And is truth absolute or is it merely relative to one s perspective 25 Justification Edit Main article Justification epistemology 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 Internalism and externalism Edit Main article Internalism and externalism A central debate about the nature of justification is a debate between epistemological externalists on the one hand and epistemological internalists on the other While epistemic externalism first arose in attempts to overcome the Gettier problem it has flourished in the time since as an alternative way of conceiving of epistemic justification The initial development of epistemic externalism is often attributed to Alvin Goldman although numerous other philosophers have worked on the topic in the time since 27 Externalists hold that factors deemed external meaning outside of the psychological states of those who gain knowledge can be conditions of justification For example an externalist response to the Gettier problem is to say that for a justified true belief to count as knowledge there must be a link or dependency between the belief and the state of the external world Usually this is understood to be a causal link Such causation to the extent that it is outside the mind would count as an external knowledge yielding condition Internalists on the other hand assert that all knowledge yielding conditions are within the psychological states of those who gain knowledge Though unfamiliar with the internalist externalist debate himself many point to Rene Descartes as an early example of the internalist path to justification He wrote that because the only method by which we perceive the external world is through our senses and that because the senses are not infallible we should not consider our concept of knowledge infallible The only way to find anything that could be described as indubitably true he advocates would be to see things clearly and distinctly 28 He argued that if there is an omnipotent good being who made the world then it s reasonable to believe that people are made with the ability to know However this does not mean that man s ability to know is perfect God gave man the ability to know but not with omniscience Descartes said that man must use his capacities for knowledge correctly and carefully through methodological doubt 29 The dictum Cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am is also commonly associated with Descartes s theory In his own methodological doubt doubting everything he previously knew so he could start from a blank slate the first thing that he could not logically bring himself to doubt was his own existence I do not exist would be a contradiction in terms The act of saying that one does not exist assumes that someone must be making the statement in the first place Descartes could doubt his senses his body and the world around him but he could not deny his own existence because he was able to doubt and must exist to manifest that doubt Even if some evil genius were deceiving him he would have to exist to be deceived This one sure point provided him with what he called his Archimedean point in order to further develop his foundation for knowledge Simply put Descartes s epistemological justification depended on his indubitable belief in his own existence and his clear and distinct knowledge of God 30 Defining knowledge EditMain article Definitions of 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 31 32 33 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 as in knowing how to swim or to an experiential acquaintance as in knowing Daniel Craig personally 34 35 36 Factual knowledge also referred to as propositional knowledge or descriptive knowledge plays a special role in epistemology On the linguistic level it is distinguished from the other forms of knowledge since it can be expressed through a that clause i e using a formulation like They know that followed by the known proposition 37 35 38 Some features of factual knowledge are widely accepted it is a form of cognitive success that establishes epistemic contact with reality 5 36 However there are still various disagreements about its exact nature even though it has been studied intensely Different factors are responsible for these disagreements Some theorists try to furnish a practically useful definition by describing its most noteworthy and easily identifiable features 36 Others engage in an analysis of knowledge which aims to provide a theoretically precise definition that identifies the set of essential features characteristic for all instances of knowledge and only for them 36 33 39 Differences in the methodology may also cause disagreements In this regard some epistemologists use abstract and general intuitions in order to arrive at their definitions A different approach is to start from concrete individual cases of knowledge to determine what all of them have in common 40 41 42 Yet another method is to focus on linguistic evidence by studying how the term knowledge is commonly used 38 32 Different standards of knowledge are further sources of disagreement A few theorists set these standards very high by demanding that absolute certainty or infallibility is necessary On such a view knowledge is a very rare thing Theorists more in tune with ordinary language usually demand lower standards and see knowledge as something commonly found in everyday life 43 35 44 As justified true belief Edit The historically most influential definition discussed since ancient Greek philosophy characterizes knowledge in relation to three essential features as 1 a belief that is 2 true and 3 justified 33 36 45 There is still wide acceptance that the first two features are correct i e that knowledge is a mental state that affirms a true proposition 35 38 36 However there is a lot of dispute about the third feature justification 37 36 33 This feature is usually included to distinguish knowledge from true beliefs that rest on superstition lucky guesses or faulty reasoning This expresses the idea that knowledge is not the same as being right about something 37 35 32 Traditionally justification is understood as the possession of evidence a belief is justified if the believer has good evidence supporting it Such evidence could be a perceptual experience a memory or a second belief 33 35 32 Gettier problem and alternative definitions Edit An Euler diagram representing a version of the traditional definition of knowledge that is adapted to the Gettier problem This problem gives us reason to think that not all justified true beliefs constitute knowledge The justified true belief account of knowledge came under severe criticism in the second half of the 20th century when Edmund Gettier proposed various counterexamples 46 In a famous so called Gettier case a person is driving on a country road There are many barn facades along this road and only one real barn But it is not possible to tell the difference between them from the road The person then stops by a fortuitous coincidence in front of the only real barn and forms the belief that it is a barn The idea behind this thought experiment is that this is not knowledge even though the belief is both justified and true The reason is that it is just a lucky accident since the person cannot tell the difference they would have formed exactly the same justified belief if they had stopped at another site in which case the belief would have been false 47 48 49 Various additional examples were proposed along similar lines Most of them involve a justified true belief that apparently fails to amount to knowledge because the belief s justification is in some sense not relevant to its truth 37 35 36 These counterexamples have provoked very diverse responses Some theorists think that one only needs to modify one s conception of justification to avoid them But the more common approach is to search for an additional criterion 33 50 On this view all cases of knowledge involve a justified true belief but some justified true beliefs do not amount to knowledge since they lack this additional feature There are diverse suggestions for this fourth criterion Some epistemologists require that no false belief is involved in the justification or that no defeater of the belief is present 49 32 A different approach is to require that the belief tracks truth i e that the person would not have the belief if it was false 35 36 Some even require that the justification has to be infallible i e that it necessitates the belief s truth 35 51 A quite different approach is to affirm that the justified true belief account of knowledge is deeply flawed and to seek a complete reconceptualization of knowledge These reconceptualizations often do not require justification at all 33 One such approach is to require that the true belief was produced by a reliable process Naturalized epistemologists often hold that the believed fact has to cause the belief 52 53 37 Virtue theorists are also interested in how the belief is produced For them the belief must be a manifestation of a cognitive virtue 54 55 5 The value problem EditWe 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 and true opinion can guide action Meno then wonders why knowledge is valued more than true belief and why knowledge and true belief are different Socrates responds that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief because it is tethered or justified Justification or working out the reason for a true belief locks down true belief 56 The problem is to identify what if anything makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief or that makes knowledge more valuable than a mere minimal conjunction of its components such as justification safety sensitivity statistical likelihood and anti Gettier conditions on a particular analysis of knowledge that conceives of knowledge as divided into components to which knowledge first epistemological theories which posit knowledge as fundamental are notable exceptions 57 The value problem re emerged in the philosophical literature on epistemology in the twenty first century following the rise of virtue epistemology in the 1980s partly because of the obvious link to the concept of value in ethics 58 Virtue epistemology Edit Main article Virtue epistemology In contemporary philosophy epistemologists including Ernest Sosa John Greco Jonathan Kvanvig 59 Linda Zagzebski and Duncan Pritchard have defended virtue epistemology as a solution to the value problem They argue that epistemology should also evaluate the properties of people as epistemic agents i e intellectual virtues rather than merely the properties of propositions and propositional mental attitudes The value problem has been presented as an argument against epistemic reliabilism by Linda Zagzebski Wayne Riggs and Richard Swinburne among others Zagzebski analogizes the value of knowledge to the value of espresso produced by an espresso maker The liquid in this cup is not improved by the fact that it comes from a reliable espresso maker If the espresso tastes good it makes no difference if it comes from an unreliable machine 60 For Zagzebski the value of knowledge deflates to the value of mere true belief She assumes that reliability in itself has no value or disvalue but Goldman and Olsson disagree They point out that Zagzebski s conclusion rests on the assumption of veritism all that matters is the acquisition of true belief 61 To the contrary they argue that a reliable process for acquiring a true belief adds value to the mere true belief by making it more likely that future beliefs of a similar kind will be true By analogy having a reliable espresso maker that produced a good cup of espresso would be more valuable than having an unreliable one that luckily produced a good cup because the reliable one would more likely produce good future cups compared to the unreliable one The value problem is important to assessing the adequacy of theories of knowledge that conceive of knowledge as consisting of true belief and other components According to Kvanvig an adequate account of knowledge should resist counterexamples and allow an explanation of the value of knowledge over mere true belief Should a theory of knowledge fail to do so it would prove inadequate 62 One of the more influential responses to the problem is that knowledge is not particularly valuable and is not what ought to be the main focus of epistemology Instead epistemologists ought to focus on other mental states such as understanding 63 Advocates of virtue epistemology have argued that the value of knowledge comes from an internal relationship between the knower and the mental state of believing 57 Acquiring knowledge EditSources of knowledge Edit Main article Knowledge Sources of 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 3 5 Important distinctions Edit A priori a posteriori distinction Edit Main article A priori and a posteriori As mentioned above epistemologists draw a distinction between what can be known a priori independently of experience and what can only be known a posteriori through experience Much of what we call a priori knowledge is thought to be attained through reason alone as featured prominently in rationalism This might also include a non rational faculty of intuition as defended by proponents of innatism In contrast a posteriori knowledge is derived entirely through experience or as a result of experience as emphasized in empiricism This also includes cases where knowledge can be traced back to an earlier experience as in memory or testimony 22 A way to look at the difference between the two is through an example Bruce Russell gives two propositions in which the reader decides which one he believes more clarification needed Option A All crows are birds Option B All crows are black If you believe option A then you are a priori justified in believing it because you don t have to see a crow to know it s a bird If you believe in option B then you are posteriori justified to believe it because you have seen many crows therefore knowing they are black He goes on to say that it doesn t matter if the statement is true or not only that if you believe in one or the other that matters 22 The idea of a priori knowledge is that it is based on intuition or rational insights Laurence BonJour says in his article The Structure of Empirical Knowledge 64 that a rational insight is an immediate non inferential grasp apprehension or seeing that some proposition is necessarily true 3 Going back to the crow example by Laurence BonJour s definition the reason you would believe in option A is because you have an immediate knowledge that a crow is a bird without ever experiencing one Evolutionary psychology takes a novel approach to the problem It says that there is an innate predisposition for certain types of learning Only small parts of the brain resemble a tabula rasa this is true even for human beings The remainder is more like an exposed negative waiting to be dipped into a developer fluid 65 Analytic synthetic distinction Edit The analytic synthetic distinction was first proposed by Immanuel Kant Main article Analytic synthetic distinction Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason drew a distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions He contended that some propositions are such that we can know they are true just by understanding their meaning For example consider My father s brother is my uncle We can know it is true solely by virtue of our understanding in what its terms mean Philosophers call such propositions analytic Synthetic propositions on the other hand have distinct subjects and predicates An example would be My father s brother has black hair Kant stated that all mathematical and scientific statements are synthetic a priori propositions because they are necessarily true but our knowledge about the attributes of the mathematical or physical subjects we can only get by logical inference While this distinction is first and foremost about meaning and is therefore most relevant to the philosophy of language the distinction has significant epistemological consequences seen most prominently in the works of the logical positivists 66 In particular if the set of propositions which can only be known a posteriori is coextensive with the set of propositions which are synthetically true and if the set of propositions which can be known a priori is coextensive with the set of propositions which are analytically true or in other words which are true by definition then there can only be two kinds of successful inquiry Logico mathematical inquiry which investigates what is true by definition and empirical inquiry which investigates what is true in the world Most notably this would exclude the possibility that branches of philosophy like metaphysics could ever provide informative accounts of what actually exists 22 66 The American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine in his paper Two Dogmas of Empiricism famously challenged the analytic synthetic distinction arguing that the boundary between the two is too blurry to provide a clear division between propositions that are true by definition and propositions that are not While some contemporary philosophers take themselves to have offered more sustainable accounts of the distinction that are not vulnerable to Quine s objections there is no consensus about whether or not these succeed 67 Science as knowledge acquisition Edit Main article Philosophy of science Science is often considered to be a refined formalized systematic institutionalized form of the pursuit and acquisition of empirical knowledge As such the philosophy of science may be viewed as an application of the principles of epistemology and as a foundation for epistemological inquiry 11 The regress problem EditMain article Regress argument 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 Socrates is mortal In this example how do we know that Socrates is human Presumably we apply other rules such as All born from human females are human Which then leaves open the question how do we know that all born from humans are human This is the regress problem how can we eventually terminate a logical argument with some statements that do not require further justification but can still be considered rational and justified As John Pollock stated to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified belief This means that one of two things can be the case Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of potential justification the nebula theory On this theory there is no rock bottom of justification Justification just meanders in and out through our network of beliefs stopping nowhere 68 The apparent impossibility of completing an infinite chain of reasoning is thought by some to support skepticism It is also the impetus for Descartes s famous dictum I think therefore I am Descartes was looking for some logical statement that could be true without appeal to other statements Responses to the regress problem Edit Many epistemologists studying justification have attempted to argue for various types of chains of reasoning that can escape the regress problem Foundationalism Edit Foundationalists respond to the regress problem by asserting that certain foundations or basic beliefs support other beliefs but do not themselves require justification from other beliefs These beliefs might be justified because they are self evident infallible or derive from reliable cognitive mechanisms Perception memory and a priori intuition are often considered possible examples of basic beliefs The chief criticism of foundationalism is that if a belief is not supported by other beliefs accepting it may be arbitrary or unjustified 69 Coherentism Edit Another response to the regress problem is coherentism which is the rejection of the assumption that the regress proceeds according to a pattern of linear justification To avoid the charge of circularity coherentists hold that an individual belief is justified circularly by the way it fits together coheres with the rest of the belief system of which it is a part This theory has the advantage of avoiding the infinite regress without claiming special possibly arbitrary status for some particular class of beliefs Yet since a system can be coherent while also being wrong coherentists face the difficulty of ensuring that the whole system corresponds to reality Additionally most logicians agree that any argument that is circular is at best only trivially valid That is to be illuminating arguments must operate with information from multiple premises not simply conclude by reiterating a premise Nigel Warburton writes in Thinking from A to Z that c ircular arguments are not invalid in other words from a logical point of view there is nothing intrinsically wrong with them However they are when viciously circular spectacularly uninformative 70 Infinitism Edit An alternative resolution to the regress problem is known as infinitism Infinitists take the infinite series to be merely potential in the sense that an individual may have indefinitely many reasons available to them without having consciously thought through all of these reasons when the need arises This position is motivated in part by the desire to avoid what is seen as the arbitrariness and circularity of its chief competitors foundationalism and coherentism The most prominent defense of infinitism has been given by Peter Klein 71 Foundherentism Edit An intermediate position known as foundherentism is advanced by Susan Haack Foundherentism is meant to unify foundationalism and coherentism Haack explains the view by using a crossword puzzle as an analogy Whereas for example infinitists regard the regress of reasons as taking the form of a single line that continues indefinitely Haack has argued that chains of properly justified beliefs look more like a crossword puzzle with various different lines mutually supporting each other 72 Thus Haack s view leaves room for both chains of beliefs that are vertical terminating in foundational beliefs and chains that are horizontal deriving their justification from coherence with beliefs that are also members of foundationalist chains of belief Schools of thought in epistemology EditEmpiricism Edit David Hume one of the most staunch defenders of empiricism Main article Empiricism 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 73 Certain forms exempt disciplines such as mathematics and logic from these requirements 74 There are many variants of empiricism including British empiricism logical empiricism phenomenalism and some versions of common sense philosophy Most forms of empiricism give epistemologically privileged status to sensory impressions or sense data although this plays out very differently in different cases Some of the most famous historical empiricists include John Locke David Hume George Berkeley Francis Bacon John Stuart Mill Rudolf Carnap and Bertrand Russell Rationalism Edit Main article Rationalism 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 Some of the most famous rationalists include Plato Rene Descartes Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz Skepticism Edit Main article Philosophical skepticism Skepticism is a position that questions the possibility of human knowledge either in particular domains or on a general level 75 Skepticism does not refer to any one specific school of philosophy but is rather a thread that runs through many epistemological debates Ancient Greek skepticism began during the Hellenistic period in philosophy which featured both Pyrrhonism notably defended by Pyrrho Sextus Empiricus and Aenesidemus and Academic skepticism notably defended by Arcesilaus and Carneades Among ancient Indian philosophers skepticism was notably defended by the Ajnana school and in the Buddhist Madhyamika tradition In modern philosophy Rene Descartes famous inquiry into mind and body began as an exercise in skepticism in which he started by trying to doubt all purported cases of knowledge in order to search for something that was known with absolute certainty 76 Epistemic skepticism questions whether knowledge is possible at all Generally speaking skeptics argue that knowledge requires certainty and that most or all of our beliefs are fallible meaning that our grounds for holding them always or almost always fall short of certainty which would together entail that knowledge is always or almost always impossible for us 77 Characterizing knowledge as strong or weak is dependent on a person s viewpoint and their characterization of knowledge 77 Much of modern epistemology is derived from attempts to better understand and address philosophical skepticism 75 Pyrrhonism Edit Main article Pyrrhonism One of the oldest forms of epistemic skepticism can be found in Agrippa s trilemma named after the Pyrrhonist philosopher Agrippa the Skeptic which demonstrates that certainty can not be achieved with regard to beliefs 78 Pyrrhonism dates back to Pyrrho of Elis from the 4th century BCE although most of what we know about Pyrrhonism today is from the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus 78 Pyrrhonists claim that for any argument for a non evident proposition an equally convincing argument for a contradictory proposition can be produced Pyrrhonists do not dogmatically deny the possibility of knowledge but instead point out that beliefs about non evident matters cannot be substantiated Cartesian skepticism Edit The Cartesian evil demon problem first raised by Rene Descartes note 2 supposes that our sensory impressions may be controlled by some external power rather than the result of ordinary veridical perception 79 In such a scenario nothing we sense would actually exist but would instead be mere illusion As a result we would never be able to know anything about the world since we would be systematically deceived about everything The conclusion often drawn from evil demon skepticism is that even if we are not completely deceived all of the information provided by our senses is still compatible with skeptical scenarios in which we are completely deceived and that we must therefore either be able to exclude the possibility of deception or else must deny the possibility of infallible knowledge that is knowledge which is completely certain beyond our immediate sensory impressions 80 While the view that no beliefs are beyond doubt other than our immediate sensory impressions is often ascribed to Descartes he in fact thought that we can exclude the possibility that we are systematically deceived although his reasons for thinking this are based on a highly contentious ontological argument for the existence of a benevolent God who would not allow such deception to occur 79 Responses to philosophical skepticism Edit Epistemological skepticism can be classified as either mitigated or unmitigated skepticism Mitigated skepticism rejects strong or strict knowledge claims but does approve weaker ones which can be considered virtual knowledge but only with regard to justified beliefs Unmitigated skepticism rejects claims of both virtual and strong knowledge 77 Characterizing knowledge as strong weak virtual or genuine can be determined differently depending on a person s viewpoint as well as their characterization of knowledge 77 Some of the most notable attempts to respond to unmitigated skepticism include direct realism disjunctivism common sense philosophy pragmatism fideism and fictionalism 81 Pragmatism Edit Main article Pragmatism Pragmatism is a fallibilist epistemology that emphasizes the role of action in knowing 82 Different interpretations of pragmatism variously emphasize truth as the final outcome of ideal scientific inquiry and experimentation truth as closely related to usefulness experience as transacting with instead of representing nature and human practices as the foundation of language 82 Pragmatism s origins are often attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce William James and John Dewey 82 In 1878 Peirce formulated the maxim Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of our conception to have Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object 83 William James suggested that through a pragmatist epistemology theories become instruments not answers to enigmas in which we can rest 84 28 In James s pragmatic method which he adapted from Peirce metaphysical disputes can be settled by tracing the practical consequences of the different sides of the argument If this process does not resolve the dispute then the dispute is idle 84 25 Contemporary versions of pragmatism have been developed by thinkers such as Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam Rorty proposed that values were historically contingent and dependent upon their utility within a given historical period 85 Contemporary philosophers working in pragmatism are called neopragmatists and also include Nicholas Rescher Robert Brandom Susan Haack and Cornel West Naturalized epistemology Edit Main article Naturalized epistemology In certain respects an intellectual descendant of pragmatism naturalized epistemology considers the evolutionary role of knowledge for agents living and evolving in the world 86 It de emphasizes the questions around justification and truth and instead asks empirically how reliable beliefs are formed and the role that evolution played in the development of such processes It suggests a more empirical approach to the subject as a whole leaving behind philosophical definitions and consistency arguments and instead using psychological methods to study and understand how knowledge is actually formed and is used in the natural world As such it does not attempt to answer the analytic questions of traditional epistemology but rather replace them with new empirical ones 87 Naturalized epistemology was first proposed in Epistemology Naturalized a seminal paper by W V O Quine 86 A less radical view has been defended by Hilary Kornblith in Knowledge and its Place in Nature in which he seeks to turn epistemology towards empirical investigation without completely abandoning traditional epistemic concepts 88 Epistemic relativism Edit Main article Relativism Epistemic relativism is the view that what is true rational or justified for one person need not be true rational or justified for another person Epistemic relativists therefore assert that while there are relative facts about truth rationality justification and so on there is no perspective independent fact of the matter 89 Note that this is distinct from epistemic contextualism which holds that the meaning of epistemic terms vary across contexts e g I know might mean something different in everyday contexts and skeptical contexts In contrast epistemic relativism holds that the relevant facts vary not just linguistic meaning Relativism about truth may also be a form of ontological relativism insofar as relativists about truth hold that facts about what exists vary based on perspective 89 Epistemic constructivism Edit Main articles Constructivist epistemology and Social constructivism Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all knowledge is a compilation of human made constructions 90 not the neutral discovery of an objective truth 91 Whereas objectivism is concerned with the object of our knowledge constructivism emphasizes how we construct knowledge 92 Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge and truth which emphasize intersubjectivity rather than objectivity and viability rather than truth The constructivist point of view is in many ways comparable to certain forms of pragmatism 93 Epistemic idealism Edit Main article Idealism Idealism is a broad term referring to both an ontological view about the world being in some sense mind dependent and a corresponding epistemological view that everything people know can be reduced to mental phenomena First and foremost idealism is a metaphysical doctrine As an epistemological doctrine idealism shares a great deal with both empiricism and rationalism Some of the most famous empiricists have been classified as idealists particularly Berkeley and yet the subjectivism inherent to idealism also resembles that of Descartes in many respects Many idealists believe that knowledge is primarily at least in some areas acquired by a priori processes or that it is innate for example in the form of concepts not derived from experience 94 The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human mind as in Kant s theory of transcendental idealism or they may be said to exist independently of the mind as in Plato s theory of Forms Some of the most famous forms of idealism include transcendental idealism developed by Immanuel Kant subjective idealism developed by George Berkeley and absolute idealism developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Schelling Bayesian epistemology Edit Bayesian epistemology is a formal approach to various topics in epistemology that has its roots in Thomas Bayes work in the field of probability theory One advantage of its formal method in contrast to traditional epistemology is that its concepts and theorems can be defined with a high degree of precision It is based on the idea that beliefs can be interpreted as subjective probabilities As such they are subject to the laws of probability theory which act as the norms of rationality These norms can be divided into static constraints governing the rationality of beliefs at any moment and dynamic constraints governing how rational agents should change their beliefs upon receiving new evidence The most characteristic Bayesian expression of these principles is found in the form of Dutch books which illustrate irrationality in agents through a series of bets that lead to a loss for the agent no matter which of the probabilistic events occurs Bayesians have applied these fundamental principles to various epistemological topics but Bayesianism does not cover all topics of traditional epistemology 95 96 97 98 Feminist epistemology Edit Main article Feminist epistemology Feminist epistemology is a subfield of epistemology which applies feminist theory to epistemological questions It began to emerge as a distinct subfield in the 20th century Prominent feminist epistemologists include Miranda Fricker who developed the concept of epistemic injustice Donna Haraway who first proposed the concept of situated knowledge Sandra Harding and Elizabeth Anderson 99 Harding proposes that feminist epistemology can be broken into three distinct categories Feminist empiricism standpoint epistemology and postmodern epistemology Feminist epistemology has also played a significant role in the development of many debates in social epistemology 100 Decolonial epistemology Edit Main article Decolonization of knowledge Epistemicide 101 is a term used in decolonisation studies that describes the killing of knowledge systems under systemic oppression such as colonisation and slavery The term was coined by Boaventura de Sousa Santos who presented the significance of such physical violence creating the centering of Western knowledge in the current world 102 This term challenges the thought of what is seen as knowledge in academia today Indian pramana Edit Main article Pramana Indian schools of philosophy such as the Hindu Nyaya and Carvaka schools and the Jain and Buddhist philosophical schools developed an epistemological tradition independently of the Western philosophical tradition called pramana Pramana can be translated as instrument of knowledge and refers to various means or sources of knowledge that Indian philosophers held to be reliable Each school of Indian philosophy had their own theories about which pramanas were valid means to knowledge and which were unreliable and why 103 A Vedic text Taittiriya Araṇyaka c 9th 6th centuries BCE lists four means of attaining correct knowledge smṛti tradition or scripture pratyakṣa perception aitihya communication by one who is expert or tradition and anumana reasoning or inference 104 105 In the Indian traditions the most widely discussed pramanas are Pratyakṣa perception Anumaṇa inference Upamaṇa comparison and analogy Arthapatti postulation derivation from circumstances Anupalabdi non perception negative cognitive proof and Sabda word testimony of past or present reliable experts While the Nyaya school beginning with the Nyaya Sutras of Gotama between 6th century BCE and 2nd century CE 106 107 were a proponent of realism and supported four pramanas perception inference comparison analogy and testimony the Buddhist epistemologists Dignaga and Dharmakirti generally accepted only perception and inference The Carvaka school of materialists only accepted the pramana of perception and hence were among the first empiricists in the Indian traditions 108 Another school the Ajnana included notable proponents of philosophical skepticism The theory of knowledge of the Buddha in the early Buddhist texts has been interpreted as a form of pragmatism as well as a form of correspondence theory 109 Likewise the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti has been interpreted both as holding a form of pragmatism or correspondence theory for his view that what is true is what has effective power arthakriya 110 111 The Buddhist Madhyamika school s theory of emptiness shunyata meanwhile has been interpreted as a form of philosophical skepticism 112 The main contribution to epistemology by the Jains has been their theory of many sided ness or multi perspectivism Anekantavada which says that since the world is multifaceted any single viewpoint is limited naya a partial standpoint 113 This has been interpreted as a kind of pluralism or perspectivism 114 115 According to Jain epistemology none of the pramanas gives absolute or perfect knowledge since they are each limited points of view Domains of inquiry in epistemology EditFormal epistemology Edit Main articles Formal epistemology and Computational epistemology Formal epistemology uses formal tools and methods from decision theory logic probability theory and computability theory to model and reason about issues of epistemological interest 116 Work in this area spans several academic fields including philosophy computer science economics and statistics The focus of formal epistemology has tended to differ somewhat from that of traditional epistemology with topics like uncertainty induction and belief revision garnering more attention than the analysis of knowledge skepticism and issues with justification Historical epistemology Edit Main article Historical epistemology Historical epistemology is the study of the historical conditions of and changes in different kinds of knowledge 117 118 There are many versions of or approaches to historical epistemology which is different from history of epistemology 119 Twentieth century French historical epistemologists like Abel Rey Gaston Bachelard Jean Cavailles and Georges Canguilhem focused specifically on changes in scientific discourse 120 121 Metaepistemology Edit Main article Metaepistemology Metaepistemology is the metaphilosophical study of the methods aims and subject matter of epistemology 122 In general metaepistemology aims to better understand our first order epistemological inquiry Some goals of metaepistemology are identifying inaccurate assumptions made in epistemological debates and determining whether the questions asked in mainline epistemology are the right epistemological questions to be asking Social epistemology Edit Main article Social epistemology Social epistemology deals with questions about knowledge in contexts where our knowledge attributions cannot be explained by simply examining individuals in isolation from one another meaning that the scope of our knowledge attributions must be widened to include broader social contexts 123 It also explores the ways in which interpersonal beliefs can be justified in social contexts 123 The most common topics discussed in contemporary social epistemology are testimony which deals with the conditions under which a belief x is true which resulted from being told x is true constitutes knowledge peer disagreement which deals with when and how I should revise my beliefs in light of other people holding beliefs that contradict mine and group epistemology which deals with what it means to attribute knowledge to groups rather than individuals and when group knowledge attributions are appropriate See also Edit Philosophy portalFor a topical guide see Outline of epistemology Epistemological pluralism term used in philosophy economics and virtually any field of study to refer to different ways of knowing things different epistemological methodologies for attaining a fuller description of a particular fieldPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback Evolutionary epistemology Ambiguous term applied to several concepts Knowledge falsification Deliberate misrepresentation of knowledge Knowledge first epistemology 2000 philosophical essay by Timothy WilliamsonPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Moral epistemology Branch of ethics seeking to understand ethical propertiesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Noology systematic study and organization of everything dealing with knowing and knowledgePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback Personal epistemology Cognition about knowledge and knowingPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Reformed epistemology School of philosophical thought Self evidence Epistemologically probative proposition Sociology of knowledge Field of study Theory of Knowledge IB Course Compulsory International Baccalaureate subjectPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targetsReferences EditNotes Edit In Scots the distinction is between wit and ken In French Portuguese Spanish Romanian German and Dutch to know a person is translated using connaitre conhecer conocer a cunoaște and kennen both German and Dutch respectively whereas to know how to do something is translated using savoir saber both Portuguese and Spanish a sti wissen and weten Modern Greek has the verbs gnwrizw gnorizo and 3erw ksero Italian has the verbs conoscere and sapere and the nouns for knowledge are conoscenza and sapienza German has the verbs wissen and kennen the former implies knowing a fact the latter knowing in the sense of being acquainted with and having a working knowledge of there is also a noun derived from kennen namely Erkennen which has been said to imply knowledge in the form of recognition or acknowledgment 21 The verb itself implies a process you have to go from one state to another from a state of not erkennen to a state of true erkennen This verb seems the most appropriate in terms of describing the episteme in one of the modern European languages hence the German name Erkenntnistheorie Skeptical scenarios in a similar vein date back to Plato s Allegory of the Cave although Plato s Allegory was quite different in both presentation and interpretation In contemporary philosophical literature something akin to evil demon skepticism is presented in brain in a vat scenarios See also the New Evil Demon Problem IEP Citations Edit a b c d e f g h i j Epistemology Encyclopedia Britannica Retrieved 22 June 2020 a b c Steup Matthias 2005 Epistemology In Zalta Edward N ed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Spring 2014 ed a b Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 10 June 2020 Borchert Donald M ed 1967 Epistemology Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol 3 Macmillan a b c d Steup Matthias Neta Ram Epistemology Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Fall 2020 ed Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Retrieved 22 May 2022 Wenning Carl J Autumn 2009 Scientific epistemology How scientists know what they know PDF Journal of Physics Teacher Education Online pp 3 15 Epistemology Oxford English Dictionary 3rd ed Oxford University Press 2014 Anonymous November 1847 Jean Paul Frederich Richter The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature Science and Art 12 317 hdl 2027 iau 31858055206621 Ferrier James Frederick 1854 Institutes of metaphysic the theory of knowing and being Edinburgh W Blackwood p 46 Retrieved 21 June 2018 Meyerson Emile 1908 Identite et realite Paris F Alcan p i OCLC 15556128 See also Suchting Wal Epistemology Historical Materialism 14 3 331 345 331 doi 10 1163 156920606778531770 ISSN 1465 4466 a b Piaget Jean 1967 L Epistemologie et ses varietes In Piaget Jean ed Logique et connaissance scientifique Encyclopedie de la Pleiade in French Vol 22 Paris Editions Gallimard pp 3 61 6 OCLC 1691632 Translated into English by Richard F Kitchener as Epistemology and its varieties academia edu Retrieved 6 May 2023 Locke John 1689 Introduction An Essay Concerning Human Understanding a b Hetherington Stephen 27 June 2019 Epistemology The Key Thinkers Kindle ed Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN 978 1 350 08529 9 Smith Margaret 1936 The Forerunner of Al Ghazali Cambridge University Press 68 1 65 78 JSTOR 25182038 via JSTOR Al Ghazali The Incoherence of Philosophers PDF Carus Paul 1891 Fundamental Problems The Method of Philosophy as a Systematic Arrangement of Knowledge Open Court p 29 a b Sturm Thomas 2011 Historical Epistemology or History of Epistemology The Case of the Relation Between Perception and Judgment Erkenntnis 75 3 303 324 doi 10 1007 s10670 011 9338 3 S2CID 142375514 a b Stroud Barry 2011 The History of Epistemology Erkenntnis 75 3 495 503 doi 10 1007 s10670 011 9337 4 S2CID 143497596 John Bengson Editor Marc A Moffett Editor Essays on Knowledge Mind and Action New York Oxford University Press 2011 For example Talbert Bonnie 2015 Knowing Other People Ratio 28 2 190 206 doi 10 1111 rati 12059 and Benton Matthew 2017 Epistemology Personalized The Philosophical Quarterly 67 269 813 834 doi 10 1093 pq pqx020 For related linguistic data see Benton Matthew 2017 Epistemology Personalized The Philosophical Quarterly 67 269 813 834 doi 10 1093 pq pqx020 esp Section 1 a b c d A Priori Justification and Knowledge Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 6 July 2020 a b c d e Belief Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 22 June 2020 Formal Representations of Belief Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 22 June 2020 a b c Truth Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 29 June 2020 Gorgias Project Gutenberg 5 October 2008 Retrieved 31 March 2017 The Analysis of Knowledge Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 12 June 2020 Descartes Rene 1985 The Philosophical Writings of Rene Descartes Vol I Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 28807 1 Descartes Rene 1985 Philosophical Writings of Rene Descartes Vol II Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 28808 8 Descartes Rene 1985 The Philosophical Writings of Rene Descartes Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 28808 8 Hannon Michael 2021 Knowledge concept of Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy London New York Routledge doi 10 4324 9780415249126 P031 2 ISBN 9780415250696 a b c d e Lehrer Keith 15 October 2015 1 The Analysis of Knowledge Theory of Knowledge Routledge ISBN 978 1 135 19609 7 a b c d e f g Ichikawa Jonathan Jenkins Steup Matthias 2018 The Analysis of Knowledge Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Retrieved 24 May 2022 Stanley Jason Willlamson Timothy 2001 Knowing How Journal of Philosophy 98 8 411 444 doi 10 2307 2678403 JSTOR 2678403 a b c d e f g h i Hetherington Stephen Knowledge Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 18 May 2022 a b c d e f g h i Zagzebski Linda 1999 What Is Knowledge In Greco John Sosa Ernest eds The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology Malden MA Blackwell pp 92 116 doi 10 1002 9781405164863 ch3 ISBN 9780631202905 OCLC 39269507 S2CID 158886670 a b c d e Klein Peter D 1998 Knowledge concept of In Craig Edward ed Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy London New York Routledge doi 10 4324 9780415249126 P031 1 ISBN 9780415250696 OCLC 38096851 a b c Stroll Avrum epistemology www britannica com Retrieved 20 May 2022 Gupta Anil 2021 Definitions 1 1 Real and nominal definitions Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Retrieved 28 May 2022 Pritchard Duncan 1 October 2013 3 Defining knowledge What is this thing called Knowledge Routledge ISBN 978 1 134 57367 7 McCain Kevin Problem of the Criterion Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 28 May 2022 Fumerton Richard 25 September 2008 The Problem of the Criterion The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism Black Tim 1 April 2002 Relevant alternatives and the shifting standards of knowledge Southwest Philosophy Review 18 1 23 32 doi 10 5840 swphilreview20021813 Sidelle Alan 2001 An Argument That Internalism Requires Infallibility Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 1 163 179 doi 10 1111 j 1933 1592 2001 tb00096 x Parikh Rohit Renero Adriana 2017 Justified True Belief Plato Gettier and Turing Philosophical Explorations of the Legacy of Alan Turing Turing 100 Springer International Publishing pp 93 102 doi 10 1007 978 3 319 53280 6 4 ISBN 978 3 319 53280 6 Hetherington Stephen Gettier Problems Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 28 May 2022 Rodriguez Angel Garcia 2018 Fake barns and our epistemological theorizing Critica Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofia 50 148 29 54 doi 10 22201 iifs 18704905e 2018 02 ISSN 0011 1503 JSTOR 26767766 S2CID 171635198 Goldman Alvin I 18 November 1976 Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge The Journal of Philosophy 73 20 771 791 doi 10 2307 2025679 JSTOR 2025679 a b Sudduth Michael Defeaters in Epistemology 2b Defeasibility Analyses and Propositional Defeaters Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 17 May 2022 Duran Juan M Formanek Nico 1 December 2018 Grounds for Trust Essential Epistemic Opacity and Computational Reliabilism Minds and Machines 28 4 645 666 doi 10 1007 s11023 018 9481 6 ISSN 1572 8641 S2CID 53102940 Kraft Tim 2012 Scepticism Infallibilism Fallibilism Discipline Filosofiche 22 2 49 70 Swain Marshall 1998 Knowledge causal theory of In Craig Edward ed Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy London New York Routledge doi 10 4324 9780415249126 P004 1 ISBN 9780415250696 OCLC 38096851 Poston Ted Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 17 May 2022 Baehr Jason S Virtue Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archived from the original on 25 May 2022 Retrieved 18 May 2022 Turri John Alfano Mark Greco John 2021 Virtue Epistemology The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Retrieved 18 May 2022 Plato 2002 Five Dialogues Indianapolis IN Hackett Pub Co pp 89 90 97b 98a ISBN 978 0 87220 633 5 a b Pritchard Duncan Turri John The Value of Knowledge Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 24 February 2016 Pritchard Duncan April 2007 Recent Work on Epistemic Value American Philosophical Quarterly 44 2 85 110 JSTOR 20464361 Kvanvig Jonathan L 2003 The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781139442282 page needed Zagzebski Linda The Search for the Source of Epistemic Good PDF Metaphilosophy 34 1 2 13 Goldman Alvin I amp Olsson E J 2009 Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge In Haddock A Millar A amp Pritchard D eds Epistemic Value Oxford University Press p 24 ISBN 978 0 19 923118 8 Kvanvig Jonathan 2003 The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press p 5 ISBN 978 0 521 03786 0 Kvanvig Jonathan 2003 The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 03786 0 BonJour Laurence 1985 The Structure of Empirical Knowledge Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Wilson E O Sociobiology The New Synthesis Cambridge Massachusetts The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1975 a b The Analytic Synthetic Distinction Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 7 July 2020 Russell G Truth in Virtue of Meaning A Defence of the Analytic Synthetic Distinction Oxford Oxford University Press 2008 John L Pollock 1975 Knowledge and Justification Princeton University Press Princeton New Jersey ISBN 978 0 691 07203 6 p 26 Zalta Edward N ed Foundational Theories of Epistemic Justification Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Warburton Nigel 1996 Thinking from A to Z Routledge ISBN 978 0415433716 Klein Peter D Turri John Infinitism in Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 8 June 2020 Haack Susan 1993 Evidence and Inquiry Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology Wiley Blackwell ISBN 978 0 631 19679 2 Psillos Stathis Curd Martin 2010 The Routledge companion to philosophy of science 1 publ in paperback ed London Routledge pp 129 138 ISBN 978 0 415 54613 3 Uebel Thomas 2015 Empiricism at the Crossroads The Vienna Circle s Protocol Sentence Debate Revisited Open Court p 14 ISBN 978 0 8126 9929 6 a b Klein Peter 2015 Skepticism in Zalta Edward N ed The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer 2015 ed Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University retrieved 1 October 2018 Popkin Richard 1972 Skepticism In Edwards Paul ed Encyclopedia of Philosophy Volume 7 Macmillan pp 449 461 ISBN 978 0 02 864651 0 a b c d Skepticism Encyclopedia of Empiricism 1997 a b Ancient Skepticism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University 2021 a b Descartes Epistemology Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 16 June 2020 Descartes Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 16 June 2020 Peter Suber Classical Skepticism Archived from the original on 3 February 2010 Retrieved 19 June 2018 a b c Legg Catherine Hookway Christopher 6 April 2021 Pragmatism In Zalta Edward N ed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer 2021 ed How to Make Our Ideas Clear Archived from the original on 3 October 2018 Retrieved 15 February 2018 a b James William 2000 Gunn Giles B ed Pragmatism and Other Writings Penguin Books ISBN 9780140437355 OCLC 41871068 Rorty R and Saatkamp H n d Rorty amp Pragmatism Nashville u a Vanderbilt Univ Press a b Quine Willard 2004 Epistemology Naturalized In E Sosa amp J Kim ed Epistemology An Anthology Malden MA Blackwell Publishing pp 292 300 ISBN 978 0 631 19724 9 Kim Jaegwon 1988 What Is Naturalized Epistemology Philosophical Perspectives 2 381 405 doi 10 2307 2214082 JSTOR 2214082 Kornblith Hilary 2002 Knowledge and its Place in Nature Oxford University Press a b Boghossian Paul 2006 Fear of Knowledge Oxford Oxford University Press Raskin J D 2002 Constructivism in psychology Personal construct psychology radical constructivism and social constructivism In J D Raskin amp S K Bridges Eds Studies in meaning Exploring constructivist psychology pp 1 25 New York Pace University Press p 4 Castello M amp Botella L 2006 Constructivism and educational psychology Archived 10 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine In J L Kincheloe amp R A Horn Eds The Praeger handbook of education and psychology Vol 2 pp 263 270 Westport CT Praeger p 263 Jonassen David H 1991 Objectivism versus constructivism Do we need a new philosophical paradigm Educational Technology Research and Development 39 3 5 14 doi 10 1007 bf02296434 S2CID 53412771 For an example see Weber Eric Thomas 2010 Rawls Dewey and Constructivism On the Epistemology of Justice Archived 22 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine London Continuum Markie Peter Rationalism vs Empiricism The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Stanford University Retrieved 17 July 2012 Talbott William 2016 Bayesian Epistemology The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Retrieved 6 March 2021 Olsson Erik J 2018 Bayesian Epistemology Introduction to Formal Philosophy Springer pp 431 442 Hartmann Stephan Sprenger Jan 2010 Bayesian Epistemology The Routledge Companion to Epistemology London Routledge pp 609 620 Hajek Alan Lin Hanti 2017 A Tale of Two Epistemologies Res Philosophica 94 2 207 232 doi 10 11612 resphil 1540 S2CID 160029122 Feminist Epistemology Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 17 June 2020 Feminist Social Epistemology Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 17 June 2020 Santos Boaventura de Sousa 17 November 2015 Epistemologies of the South 0 ed Routledge doi 10 4324 9781315634876 ISBN 978 1 317 26034 9 Bennett Karen November 2007 Epistemicide The Tale of a Predatory Discourse The Translator 13 2 151 169 doi 10 1080 13556509 2007 10799236 ISSN 1355 6509 S2CID 220274129 James Lochtefeld Pramana in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism Vol 2 N Z Rosen Publishing ISBN 0 8239 2287 1 pp 520 521 A B Keith 1989 The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads Archived 10 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine Part II p 482 S C Vidyabhusana 1971 A History of Indian Logic Ancient Mediaeval and Modern Schools Archived 10 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine p 23 Jeaneane Fowler 2002 Perspectives of Reality An Introduction to the Philosophy of Hinduism Sussex Academic Press ISBN 978 1 898723 94 3 p 129 B K Matilal Perception An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowledge Oxford University Press 1986 p xiv MM Kamal 1998 The Epistemology of the Carvaka Philosophy Archived 14 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 46 2 13 16 Jayatilleke K N Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge p 356 Cabezon Jose I 2000 Truth in Buddhist Theology in R Jackson and J Makransky eds Buddhist Theology Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars London Curzon 136 154 Tom Tillemans 2011 Dharmakirti Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Arnold Dan Buddhists Brahmins and Belief Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of belief and religion Archived 10 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine p 132 Griffin David Ray 2005 p 145 Stroud Scott R Anekantavada and Engaged Rhetorical Pluralism Explicating Jaina Views on Perspectivism Violence and Rhetoric dead link D Long Jeffery Jainism An Introduction 125 Formal Epistemology Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 6 July 2020 Wartofsky Marx W 1979 1973 Perception representation and the forms of action towards an historical epistemology Models Representation and the Scientific Understanding Synthese library Vol 129 Dordrecht Boston D Reidel pp 188 210 doi 10 1007 978 94 009 9357 0 11 ISBN 9027707367 OCLC 4775354 Wartofsky Marx W 1983 From genetic epistemology to historical epistemology Kant Marx and Piaget In Liben Lynn S ed Piaget and the Foundations of Knowledge The Jean Piaget Symposium series Hillsdale NJ Lawrence Erlbaum Associates pp 1 17 ISBN 0898592488 OCLC 22891908 Sturm Thomas November 2011 Historical epistemology or history of epistemology The case of the relation between perception and judgment Erkenntnis 75 3 303 324 doi 10 1007 s10670 011 9338 3 Braunstein Jean Francois 2012 Historical epistemology old and new Epistemology and history from Bachelard and Canguilhem to today s history of science conference 9 11 Dezember 2010 PDF Berlin Max Planck Institut fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte pp 33 40 OCLC 930958013 Pena Guzman David M February 2020 French historical epistemology discourse concepts and the norms of rationality Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 79 68 76 doi 10 1016 j shpsa 2019 01 006 Gerken Mikkel 2016 Metaepistemology Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1 ed London Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 25069 6 Retrieved 24 May 2021 a b Goldman Alvin Blanchard Thomas 2015 Social Epistemology In Zalta Edward N ed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Sources Edit Annis David 1978 A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification American Philosophical Quarterly 15 213 219 Ayer Alfred Jules 1936 Language Truth and Logic BonJour Laurence 2002 Epistemology Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses Lanham MD Rowman amp Littlefield Bovens Luc amp Hartmann Stephan 2003 Bayesian Epistemology Oxford Oxford University Press Butchvarov Panayot 1970 The Concept of Knowledge Evanston Northwestern University Press Cohen Stewart 1998 Contextualist Solutions to Epistemological Problems Skepticism Gettier and the Lottery Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 2 289 306 doi 10 1080 00048409812348411 Cohen Stewart 1999 Contextualism Skepticism and Reasons in Tomberlin 1999 Dancy Jonathan 1991 An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology Second Edition John Wiley amp Sons ISBN 0 631 13622 3 DeRose Keith 1992 Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15 213 219 DeRose Keith 1999 Contextualism An Explanation and Defense Archived 15 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine in Greco and Sosa 1999 Descartes Rene 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy Feldman Richard 1999 Contextualism and Skepticism in Tomberlin 1999 pp 91 114 Gettier Edmund 1963 Is Justified True Belief Knowledge Analysis Vol 23 pp 121 123 Online text Archived 19 August 2005 at the Wayback Machine Greco J amp Sosa E 1999 Blackwell Guide to Epistemology Blackwell Publishing Harris Errol E 1970 Hypothesis And Perception George Allen and Unwin London Reprinted 2002 Routledge London Harwood Sterling 1989 Taking Skepticism Seriously And In Context Philosophical Investigations 12 3 223 233 doi 10 1111 j 1467 9205 1989 tb00275 x Hay Clare 2008 The Theory of Knowledge A Coursebook The Lutterworth Press Cambridge ISBN 978 0 7188 3088 5 Hawthorne John 2005 The Case for Closure Contemporary Debates in Epistemology Peter Sosa and Matthias Steup ed 26 43 Hendricks Vincent F 2006 Mainstream and Formal Epistemology New York Cambridge University Press Kant Immanuel 1781 Critique of Pure Reason Keeton Morris T 1962 Empiricism in Dictionary of Philosophy Dagobert D Runes ed Littlefield Adams and Company Totowa NJ pp 89 90 Kirkham Richard 1984 Does the Gettier Problem Rest on a Mistake Mind 93 Klein Peter 1981 Certainty a Refutation of Skepticism Minneapolis MN University of Minnesota Press Kyburg H E 1961 Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press Korzybski Alfred 1994 1933 Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics Fifth Edition Ft Worth TX Institute of General Semantics Lewis David 1996 Elusive Knowledge Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 4 549 567 doi 10 1080 00048409612347521 Morin Edgar 1986 La Methode Tome 3 La Connaissance de la connaissance Method 3rd volume The knowledge of knowledge Morton Adam 2002 A Guide Through the Theory of Knowledge Third Edition Oxford Blackwell Publishing ISBN 1 4051 0012 5 Nelson Quee 2007 The Slightest Philosophy Indianapolis IN Dog Ear Publishing 296 pages Niiniluoto Ilkka 2002 Critical Scientific Realism Oxford Oxford Univ Press Plato Meno Popper Karl R 1972 Objective Knowledge An Evolutionary Approach Oxford Oxford Univ Press Preyer G Siebelt F Ulfig A 1994 Language Mind and Epistemology Dordrecht Kluwer Academic Publishers Russell Bertrand 1912 The Problems of Philosophy New York Oxford University Press Russell Bertrand 1940 An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth Nottingham Spokesman Books Santayana George 1923 Scepticism and Animal Faith New York Charles Scribner s Sons London Constable and Co Spir African 1877 Denken und Wirklichkeit Versuch einer Erneuerung der kritischen Philosophie Thought and Reality Attempt at a Renewal of Critical Philosophy Second Edition Leipzig J G Findel Schiffer Stephen 1996 Contextualist Solutions to Skepticism Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96 317 333 doi 10 1093 aristotelian 96 1 317 Steup Matthias 2005 Knowledge and Skepticism Contemporary Debates in Epistemology Peter Sosa and Matthias Steup eds 1 13 Tomberlin James ed 1999 Philosophical Perspectives 13 Epistemology Blackwell Publishing Turri John 2016 Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion An Essay in Philosophical Science Cambridge Open Book Publishers Open Book Publishers doi 10 11647 OBP 0083 ISBN 978 1 78374 183 0 Wittgenstein Ludwig 1922 Tractatus Logico Philosophicus Frank P Ramsey and C K Ogden trns Dover Online text Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine External links EditEpistemology at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Data from Wikidata Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Bayesian Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Evolutionary Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Naturalized Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Social Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Virtue Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Knowledge How entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Coherentism Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Contextualism in Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Epistemic Circularity Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Epistemic Justification Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Epistemology of Perception Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Ethnoepistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Evolutionary Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Fallibilism Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Feminist Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Infinitism in Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Moral Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Naturalistic Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Virtue Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Understanding in Epistemology Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Encyclopaedia Britannica Epistemology by Avrum Stroll and A P MartinichOther links The London Philosophy Study Guide Archived 23 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine offers many suggestions on what to read depending on the student s familiarity with the subject Epistemology amp Methodology Archived 1 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine Epistemology at PhilPapers Knowledge How at Philpapers Epistemology at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project What Is Epistemology a brief introduction to the topic by Keith DeRose Epistemology Introduction Part 1 and Part 2 by Paul Newall at the Galilean Library Teaching Theory of Knowledge 1986 Marjorie Clay ed an electronic publication from The Council for Philosophical Studies An Introduction to Epistemology by Paul Newall aimed at beginners Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Epistemology amp oldid 1153483863, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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