Alethiology (or alethology, "the study of aletheia") literally means the study of truth, but can more accurately be translated as the study of the nature of truth.[1]
It could be argued that alethiology is synonymous with epistemology, the study of knowledge, and that dividing the two is mere semantics, but sometimes a distinction is made between the two. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and its acquisition. Alethiology is specifically concerned with the nature of truth, which is only one of the areas studied by epistemologists.[citation needed]
The term alethiology is rare. The ten-volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions it only once, in the article "Lambert, Johann Heinrich (1728–77)":
Part Two of the Neues Organon is the 'Alethiology or Doctrine of Truth'. Lambert’s key concern here is with the nature and function of the simple concepts that serve as the building blocks for the logical construction of true propositions.[2]
The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition describes the discipline as "…an uncommon expression for the doctrine of truth, used by Sir William Hamilton in his philosophic writings when treating of the rules for the discrimination of truth and error."[3]
The term appears in The Banalization of Nihilism (pp. 17–18) in contrast to several other types of nihilism, especially epistemological nihilism. The views of several philosophers are then distinguished by reference to 'alethiological nihilism', 'epistemological nihilism' and the like.[4]
Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Nihilism is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev, who made use of it in his novel Fathers and Sons.
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".
Johann Heinrich Lambert was a polymath from the Republic of Mulhouse, generally referred to as either Swiss or French, who made important contributions to the subjects of mathematics, physics, philosophy, astronomy and map projections.
Eastern philosophy or Asian philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy; all of these are dominant in East Asia and Vietnam, and Indian philosophy, which are dominant in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia.
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi was an influential German philosopher, literary figure, and socialite.
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that it is a form of true belief, many controversies in philosophy focus on justification: whether it is needed at all, how to understand it, and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies intensified due to a series of thought experiments by Edmund Gettier and have provoked various alternative definitions. Some of them deny that justification is necessary and replace it, for example, with reliability or the manifestation of cognitive virtues. Others contend that justification is needed but formulate additional requirements, for example, that no defeaters of the belief are present or that the person would not have the belief if it was false.
Hindu philosophy encompasses the philosophies, world views and teachings of Hinduism that emerged in Ancient India which include six systems (shad-darśana) – Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. In Indian tradition, the word used for philosophy is Darshana, from the Sanskrit root drish.
Mīmāṁsā is a Sanskrit word that means "reflection" or "critical investigation" and thus refers to a tradition of contemplation which reflected on the meanings of certain Vedic texts. This tradition is also known as Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā because of its focus on the earlier (pūrva) Vedic texts dealing with ritual actions, and similarly as Karma-Mīmāṁsā due to its focus on ritual action (karma). It is one of six Vedic "affirming" (āstika) schools of Hinduism. This particular school is known for its philosophical theories on the nature of dharma, based on hermeneutics of the Vedas, especially the Brāḥmanas and Saṃhitas. The Mīmāṃsā school was foundational and influential for the vedāntic schools, which were also known as Uttara-Mīmāṁsā for their focus on the "later" (uttara) portions of the Vedas, the Upaniṣads. While both "earlier" and "later" Mīmāṃsā investigate the aim of human action, they do so with different attitudes towards the necessity of ritual praxis.
Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Vedas as a valid source of knowledge; whether the school believes in the premises of Brahman and Atman; and whether the school believes in afterlife and Devas.
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). By transcendental Kant means that his philosophical approach to knowledge transcends mere consideration of sensory evidence and requires an understanding of the mind's innate modes of processing that sensory evidence.
Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school, although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.
Ethical intuitionism is a view or family of views in moral epistemology. It is foundationalism applied to moral knowledge, the thesis that some moral truths can be known non-inferentially. Such an epistemological view is by definition committed to the existence of knowledge of moral truths; therefore, ethical intuitionism implies cognitivism.
Acosmism, in contrast to pantheism, denies the reality of the universe, seeing it as ultimately illusory, and only the infinite unmanifest Absolute as real. Conceptual versions of Acosmism are found in eastern and western philosophies.
Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of epistemology, and the methodology of epistemology.
Pramana literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge". In Indian philosophies, pramana are the means which can lead to knowledge, and serve as one of the core concepts in Indian epistemology. It has been one of the key, much debated fields of study in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism since ancient times. It is a theory of knowledge, and encompasses one or more reliable and valid means by which human beings gain accurate, true knowledge. The focus of pramana is how correct knowledge can be acquired, how one knows, how one does not know, and to what extent knowledge pertinent about someone or something can be acquired.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:
Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship for pramāṇa-vāda and Hetu-vidya. Pramāṇa-vāda is an epistemological study of the nature of knowledge; Hetu-vidya is a system of logic. These models developed in India during the 5th through 7th centuries.
Cartesianism is the philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes and its subsequent development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza. Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences. For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge.
An anti-nihilistic novel is a form of novel from late 19th-century Russian literature, that came as a reaction to the disillusioned attitudes of the Russian nihilist movement and revolutionary socialism of the 1860s and 1870s. The genre was influential in shaping subsequent ideas on nihilism as a philosophy and cultural phenomenon. Its name derives from the historical usage of the word nihilism as broadly applied to revolutionary movements within the Russian Empire at the time.
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