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Worldwide: The Website of Global Positivism. A Priori Justification and Knowledge. First published Sun Dec 9, 2007 Knowledge is generally thought to require justified true belief, even if justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge as Edmund Gettier famously argued (1967). In Gettier cases the person, in some sense, is lucky to believe what is true on the basis of his evidence. For example, you see poodles in a field that have been bred and clipped to look just like sheep, and on the basis of what you see you form the belief that there are sheep in the field. Luckily there are—hiding out of sight behind some boulders! You have a justified true belief that is not knowledge. In lottery cases if you hold a losing ticket you have a justified true belief that it will lose, the justification resting on your knowledge that it is very likely that any given ticket will lose, but many think you do not know that your ticket will lose.

So having a justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge, but it does seem necessary. 1. Consider the following analogy. 2. Epistemology. Branch of philosophy concerning knowledge 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? "[4][1][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? " Etymology[edit] The etymology of the word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek epistēmē, meaning "knowledge, understanding, skill, scientific knowledge",[7][note 1] and the English suffix -ology, meaning "the science or discipline of (what is indicated by the first element)".[9] The word "epistemology" first appeared in 1847, in a review in New York's Eclectic Magazine : Historical and philosophical context[edit] Contemporary historiography[edit] Knowledge[edit] [edit] Kant's Theory of Judgment.

First published Wed Jul 28, 2004; substantive revision Sun Aug 4, 2013 Theories of judgment, whether cognitive (i.e., object-representing, thought-expressing, truth-apt) judgment or practical (i.e., act-representing, choice-expressing, evaluation-apt) judgment, bring together fundamental issues in semantics, logic, cognitive psychology, and epistemology (collectively providing for what can be called the four “faces” of cognitive judgment [see also Martin 2006]), as well as action theory, moral psychology, and ethics (collectively providing for the three “faces” of practical judgment): indeed, the notion of judgment is central to any general theory of human rationality. 1. The Nature of Judgment 1.1 The power of judgment and the other faculties of cognition The power of judgment, while a non-basic faculty, is nevertheless the central cognitive faculty of the human mind. 1.2 Judgments are essentially propositional cognitions But what exactly are judgments?

The Vienna Circle and Logical Positivism.