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EPISTEMOLOGY
Definition
The branch of philosophy defined as " the study of human knowledge "
Theory of the origin, nature, scope and limits of knowledge
What are our basic sources of knowledge?
The senses: knowledge from observation
Reason: from knowing facts
Intuition: from the subconscious
Authority: from the testimony of others
Are there other sources?
Instinct (inherited pattern of behavior)
Racial Memory (collective unconscious);
Extrasensory
Perception (telepathy, clairvoyance, or precognition);
Anamnesis (recollection);
Supernatural revelation;
Spiritualism (fortune tellers);
Occult Sources
Greek Epistemology
Plato (can be said to be real originator of epistemology)
1.Knowledge and forms
a. The forms are independent of the sensible world
b. The forms are known by reason
c. The forms are always objects of knowledge
2. Knowledge and true or false beliefs
3. Knowledge and sense perception
4. Knowledge and logos
Aristotle
1. Universal knowledge is inherent in particular
2. Sense perception is an actualizing of potentiality
3. Sense has its own special sense object
4. Knowledge of the essence of the thing itself is given by real definition
5. Knowledge is a part of science
Medieval Epistemology
Realism;
Conceptualism;
Nominalism
Skepticism
1.To justify the possibility and impossibility of knowledge
2.To justify the certainty and uncertainty of knowledge: a. Skepticism by rationalists and
skepticism by empiricists, b. Relative skepticism and absolute skepticism
Continental Rationalism
Descartes
1. The systematization of knowledge in geometrical form
2. The method of doubt
3. The indubitable proposition: "I think, therefor I am"
a. I cannot doubt that I think; I cannot doubt that I doubt; I cannot the existence of myself as the
thinker
b. I doubt the existence of the external world; I doubt the existence of God; I doubt the existence of
my body
4. Different qualities must have different types of knowing
5. Representative theory
6. Occasional theory
Spinoza
1. Monism: the mental and the physical are two aspects of one thing; the goal of all knowledge is
seeing the world as a single whole
2. Truth must have an intrinsic criterion
3. Three grades of knowledge
Leibniz
1. Necessary truths by reason
2. Contingent truth by fact
3. Perception as a property of monad
4. Sense perception as the source of error
5. All ideas as innate
British Empiricism
Locke
1. Two kinds of ideas
2. Two kinds of qualities
3. The causal theory of perception
4. Three complex ideas
5. General words as sighs of general ideas
6. Four kinds of knowledge
7. Three degrees of knowledge
8. The correspondence theory of truth
Berkeley
1. Material substances are unknowable
2. "To be is to be perceived"
3. Objects are identical with collections of ideas
4. To prevent skepticism and to give certainty to knowledge
5. Knowledge is founded on sense perception
Hume
1. Understanding is limited
2. Distinction between impressions and ideas
3. Ideas can be particular in their nature
4. Causality is a connection or a habit of association
5. The "mind" is merely "a bundle or collection of different perceptions"
6. Perceptions are logically independent of any owner and any object
7. We have no impression of the self
Russell
1. Knowledge by acquaintance is impossible to be error
2. Knowledge by description is possible to be error
3. Knowledge by description can be reduced to knowledge by acquaintance
4.Logical atomism
Logical empiricism
Meaningful propositions must be either analytical or empirically verifiable
Agnosticism
Kant
1. To represent the juncture of rationalism or British empiricism
2. To draw the boundaries between the proper use of the understanding and improper use of reason
3. To distinguish priori and posteriori, analytical and synthetic judgments
4. To distinguish the metaphysical deduction an transcendental deduction
5. To find categories of understanding
6. No valid judgments can be made about things themselves
Phenomenology
Husserl
1.To investigate the essence of mental acts and their objects
2.To investigate the essence of different phenomena as they appear to consciousness
3.To adopt the method of approach: the bracketing of prepositions