Epistemology

EPISTEMOLOGY

* "episteme" - (Greek) means 'Knowledge'

* Clarify our ideas through linguistic analysis

* Identified with Methodology - true knowledge is that which can be verified or confirmed

* Concerns:

o deals with the various problems that arise concerning knowledge

 What is the source/sources of knowledge?

 Given the source, what can we know (type of knowledge)?

 How are we to validate our knowledge claims?

o complex and specialized problems of knowledge, such as:

 the distinction between belief and knowledge (on the religious plane the problem of faith and reason)

 the nature of truth, or

 the problems of perception

 the external world

 Meaning

 other minds,

* dominated by two schools of thought/philosophical movement

Epistemological Issues Rationalism Empiricism

Source/s of Knowledge reason reason and experience

Type/s of Knowledge Formal Knowledge

Analytic

A priori Empirical Knowledge

Synthetic

A posteriori

Method of Verification Coherence Theory of Truth Correspondence Theory of Truth

Proponents * Rene Descartes

* Baruch Benedict de Spinoza

* Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz * David Hume

* George Berkeley

* John Locke

Types of Knowledge

Rationalism Empiricism

Formal Knowledge

- Mathematics; Geometry Empirical Knowledge

- Chemistry; Physics

Analytic

- A proposition whose predicate is contained in the subject.

"All bachelors are unmarried males."

- Is interchangeable, the meaning of the proposition will remain the same even if interchanged (e.g. bachelors to unmarried males and vice versa)

"All unmarried males are unmarried males."

- Will