Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature,origin,and limits of knowledge. Also called theory of knowledge,it explores different types of knowledge,such as propositional knowledge about facts,practical knowledge in the form of skills,and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief,truth,and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises,they investigate sources of justification,such as perception,introspection,memory,reason,and testimony.
Social epistemology refers to a broad set of approaches that can be taken in epistemology that construes human knowledge as a collective achievement. Another way of characterizing social epistemology is as the evaluation of the social dimensions of knowledge or information.
Justification is a property of beliefs that fulfill certain norms about what a person should believe. Epistemologists often identify justification as a component of knowledge distinguishing it from mere true opinion. They study the reasons why someone holds a belief. Epistemologists are concerned with various features of belief,which include the ideas of warrant,knowledge,rationality,and probability,among others.
Knowledge is an awareness of facts,a familiarity with individuals and situations,or a practical skill. Knowledge of facts,also called propositional knowledge,is often characterized as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief,many controversies focus on justification. This includes questions like how to understand justification,whether it is needed at all,and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies intensified in the latter half of the 20th century due to a series of thought experiments called Gettier cases that provoked alternative definitions.
The Gettier problem,in the field of epistemology,is a landmark philosophical problem concerning the understanding of descriptive knowledge. Attributed to American philosopher Edmund Gettier,Gettier-type counterexamples challenge the long-held justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge. The JTB account holds that knowledge is equivalent to justified true belief;if all three conditions are met of a given claim,then we have knowledge of that claim. In his 1963 three-page paper titled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?",Gettier attempts to illustrate by means of two counterexamples that there are cases where individuals can have a justified,true belief regarding a claim but still fail to know it because the reasons for the belief,while justified,turn out to be false. Thus,Gettier claims to have shown that the JTB account is inadequate because it does not account for all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge.
The epistemic virtues,as identified by virtue epistemologists,reflect their contention that belief is an ethical process,and thus susceptible to intellectual virtue or vice. Some epistemic virtues have been identified by W. Jay Wood,based on research into the medieval tradition. Epistemic virtues are sometimes also called intellectual virtues.
Contextualism,also known as epistemic contextualism,is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action,utterance,or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that,in some important respect,the action,utterance,or expression can only be understood relative to that context. Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts,such as "meaning P","knowing that P","having a reason to A",and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Other philosophers contend that context-dependence leads to complete relativism.
Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is an American philosopher. She is the Emerita George Lynn Cross Research Professor,as well as Emerita Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics,at the University of Oklahoma. She writes in the areas of epistemology,philosophy of religion,and virtue theory.
Virtue epistemology is a current philosophical approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of intellectual and specifically epistemic virtues. Virtue epistemology evaluates knowledge according to the properties of the persons who hold beliefs in addition to or instead of the properties of the propositions and beliefs. Some advocates of virtue epistemology also adhere to theories of virtue ethics,while others see only loose analogy between virtue in ethics and virtue in epistemology.
The philosophy of testimony considers the nature of language and knowledge's confluence,which occurs when beliefs are transferred between speakers and hearers through testimony. Testimony constitutes words,gestures,or utterances that convey beliefs. This definition may be distinguished from the legal notion of testimony in that the speaker does not have to make a declaration of the truth of the facts.
Computational epistemology is a subdiscipline of formal epistemology that studies the intrinsic complexity of inductive problems for ideal and computationally bounded agents. In short,computational epistemology is to induction what recursion theory is to deduction. It has been applied to problems in philosophy of science.
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.
Formal epistemology uses formal methods from decision theory,logic,probability theory and computability theory to model and reason about issues of epistemological interest. 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.
Ernest Sosa is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University,but he spent most of his career at Brown University.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:
Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions "What is knowledge?","How is knowledge acquired?","What do people know?","How do we know what we know?",and "Why do we know what we know?". Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth,belief,and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge,as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.
Miranda Fricker,FBA FAAS is a British philosopher who is Professor of Philosophy at New York University,co-director of the New York Institute of Philosophy,and honorary professor at the University of Sheffield. Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice.
Religious epistemology broadly covers religious approaches to epistemological questions,or attempts to understand the epistemological issues that come from religious belief. The questions asked by epistemologists apply to religious beliefs and propositions whether they seem rational,justified,warranted,reasonable,based on evidence and so on. Religious views also influence epistemological theories,such as in the case of Reformed epistemology.
The issue of peer disagreement in epistemology discusses the question of how a person should respond when he learns that somebody else with the same body of knowledge disagrees with them.
Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge,theory of knowledge,and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philosophers,for example,that it constitutes a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality and that propositional knowledge involves true belief. Most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy focus on propositional knowledge or knowledge-that,as in knowing that Dave is at home,in contrast to knowledge-how (know-how) expressing practical competence. However,despite the intense study of knowledge in epistemology,the disagreements about its precise nature are still both numerous and deep. Some of those disagreements arise from the fact that different theorists have different goals in mind:some try to provide a practically useful definition by delineating its most salient feature or features,while others aim at a theoretically precise definition of its necessary and sufficient conditions. Further disputes are caused by methodological differences:some theorists start from abstract and general intuitions or hypotheses,others from concrete and specific cases,and still others from linguistic usage. Additional disagreements arise concerning the standards of knowledge:whether knowledge is something rare that demands very high standards,like infallibility,or whether it is something common that requires only the possession of some evidence.
