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Epistemology

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Epistemology. First published Wed Dec 14, 2005 Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? 1. 1.1 Knowledge as Justified True Belief There are various kinds of knowledge: knowing how to do something (for example, how to ride a bicycle), knowing someone in person, and knowing a place or a city. According to TK, knowledge that p is, at least approximately, justified true belief (JTB). Initially, we may say that the role of justification is to ensure that S's belief is not true merely because of luck. 1.2 The Gettier Problem The tripartite analysis of knowledge as JTB has been shown to be incomplete.

To state conditions that are jointly sufficient for knowledge, what further element must be added to JTB? 2. 2.2 Evidence vs. 2.3 Internal vs. Epistemology. 1. The Varieties of Cognitive Success There are many different kinds of cognitive success, and they differ from one another along various dimensions. Exactly what these various kinds of success are, and how they differ from each other, and how they are explanatorily related to each other, and how they can be achieved or obstructed, are all matters of controversy. This section provides some background to these various controversies. 1.1 What Kinds of Things Enjoy Cognitive Success?

Cognitive successes can differ from each other by virtue of qualifying different kinds of things. Some of the recent controversies concerning the objects of cognitive success concern the metaphysical relations among the cognitive successes of various kinds of objects: Does the cognitive success of a process involve anything over and above the cognitive success of each state in the succession of states that comprise the execution of that process? 1.2 Constraints and Values 1.3 Substantive and Structural 1.4. 2. 3. A priori and a posteriori. The terms a priori ("from the earlier") and a posteriori ("from the later") are used in philosophy (epistemology) to distinguish two types of knowledge, justification, or argument: A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience (for example "All bachelors are unmarried"). Galen Strawson has stated that an a priori argument is one in which "you can see that it is true just lying on your couch.

You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science. "[1]A posteriori knowledge or justification is dependent on experience or empirical evidence (for example "Some bachelors I have met are very happy"). There are many points of view on these two types of knowledge, and their relationship is one of the oldest problems in modern philosophy. The terms a priori and a posteriori are primarily used as adjectives to modify the noun "knowledge" (for example, "a priori knowledge"). Examples[edit] [edit] 5_1_millican.mp4 (video/mp4 Object)

Meno's knowledge paradox

Epistemology. 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? " (in historical epistemology), "What are the methods, aims, and subject matter of epistemological inquiry?

" Etymology[edit] The title of one of the principal works of Fichte is 'Wissenschaftslehre,' which, after the analogy of technology ... we render epistemology.[10] The word was first used to present a philosophy in English by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854. Historical and philosophical context[edit] Contemporary historiography[edit] Knowledge[edit] EpistemologicalResearch.html.