Epistemology

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Certainty series:

• Agnosticism
• Belief
• Certainty
• Determinism
• Doubt
• Fatalism
• Estimation
• Fallibilism
• Epistemology
• Nihilism
• Probability
• Solipsism
• Uncertainty

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Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, "logos") or theory of knowledge addresses the questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?" It is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.[1]

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.

The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).[2]

Knowledge

The primary question that epistemology addresses is "What is knowledge?" This question is several millennia old.

Distinguishing knowing that from knowing how

In this article, and in epistemology in general, the kind of knowledge usually discussed is propositional knowledge, also known as "knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge-how." For example: in mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers. Many (but not all) philosophers thus think there is an important distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how", with epistemology primarily interested in the former. This distinction is recognized linguistically in many languages, though not in modern Standard English (N.B. some languages related to English still do retain these verbs, as in Scots: "ken" and "wit").[3] In Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi articulates a case for the epistemological relevance of both forms of knowledge; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded. It is worth pointing out that in recent times, some epistemologists (see Sosa, Greco, Kvanvig, Zagzebski) have argued that we should not think of knowledge this way. Epistemology should evaluate people's properties (i.e., intellectual virtues) instead of propositions' properties. This is, in short, because higher forms of cognitive success (i.e., understanding) involve non veritic features that can't be evaluated from a justified true belief view of knowledge.

Belief

Often, statements of "belief" mean that the speaker predicts something that will prove to be useful or successful in some sense—perhaps the speaker might "believe in" his or her favorite football team. This is not the kind of belief usually addressed within epistemology. The kind that is dealt with is when "to believe something" simply means any cognitive content held as true. For example, to believe that the sky is blue is to think that the proposition "The sky is blue" is true.

Knowledge represents cognitive awareness, but does not imply belief. The statement "I know astrology, but I don't believe it" is perfectly acceptable. Conversely, it is also possible that someone believes in astrology but knows virtually nothing about it. Belief is a subjective personal basis for individual behavior, while truth is an objective state independent of the individual. On occasion, knowledge and belief can conflict producing "Cognitive dissonance".

Truth

See also: Criteria of truth

If someone believes something, he or she thinks that it is true but may be mistaken. This is not the case with knowledge. For example, a man thinks that a particular bridge is safe enough to support him, and he attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. It could be said that the man believed that the bridge was safe, but that his belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight then he might be justified in subsequently holding that he knew the bridge had been safe enough for his passage, at least at that particular time. For something to count as knowledge, it must actually be true.

The Aristotelian definition of truth states:

"To say of something which is that it is not, or to say of something which is not that it is, is false. However, to say of something which is that it is, or of something which is not that it is not, is true."

Justification

Plato

In Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, Socrates considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, the last being that knowledge is true belief that has been "given an account of"—meaning explained or defined in some way. According to the theory that knowledge is justified true belief, in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have a good reason for doing so. One implication of this would be that no one would gain knowledge just by believing something that happened to be true. For example, an ill person with no medical training, but a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that they will recover from their illness quickly. Nevertheless, even if this belief turned out to be true, the patient would not have known that they would get well since their belief lacked justification. The definition of knowledge as justified true belief was widely accepted until the 1960s. At this time, a paper written by the American philosopher Edmund Gettier provoked widespread discussion. See theories of justification for other views on the idea.

The Gettier problem

In 1963 Edmund Gettier called into question the theory of knowledge that had been dominant among philosophers for thousands of years[4]. In a few pages, Gettier argued that there are situations in which one's belief may be justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. That is, Gettier contended that while justified belief in a proposition is necessary for that proposition to be known, it is not sufficient. As in the diagram above, a true proposition can be believed by an individual but still not fall within the "knowledge" category (purple region).

According to Gettier, there are certain circumstances in which one does not have knowledge, even when all of the above conditions are met. Gettier proposed two thought experiments, which have come to be known as "Gettier cases," as counterexamples to the classical account of knowledge. One of the cases involves two men, Smith and Jones, who are awaiting the results of their applications for the same job. Each man has ten coins in his pocket. Smith has excellent reasons to believe that Jones will get the job and, furthermore, knows that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (he recently counted them). From this Smith infers, "the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket." However, Smith is unaware that he has ten coins in his own pocket. Furthermore, Smith, not Jones, is going to get the job. While Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones will get the job, he is wrong. Smith has a justified true belief that a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job; however, according to Gettier, Smith does not know that a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, because Smith's belief is "...true by virtue of the number of coins in Smith's pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his belief...on a count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job." (see [4] p.122.) These cases fail to be knowledge because the subject's belief is justified, but only happens to be true in virtue of luck.

Responses to Gettier

The responses to Gettier have been varied. Usually, they have involved substantive attempts to provide a definition of knowledge different from the classical one, either by recasting knowledge as justified true belief with some additional fourth condition, or as something else altogether.

Infallibilism, indefeasibility

In one response to Gettier, the American philosopher Richard Kirkham has argued that the only definition of knowledge that could ever be immune to all counterexamples is the infallibilist one.^{[citation needed]} To qualify as an item of knowledge, so the theory goes, a belief must not only be true and justified, the justification of the belief must necessitate its truth. In other words, the justification for the belief must be infallible. (See Fallibilism, below, for more information.)

Yet another possible candidate for the fourth condition of knowledge is indefeasibility. Defeasibility theory maintains that there should be no overriding or defeating truths for the reasons that justify one's belief. For example, suppose that person S believes they saw Tom Grabit steal a book from the library and uses this to justify the claim that Tom Grabit stole a book from the library. A possible defeater or overriding proposition for such a claim could be a true proposition like, "Tom Grabit's identical twin Sam is currently in the same town as Tom." So long as no defeaters of one's justification exist, a subject would be epistemically justified.

The Indian philosopher B K Matilal has drawn on the Navya-Nyaya fallibilism tradition to respond to the Gettier problem. Nyaya theory distinguishes between know p and know that one knows p - these are different events, with different causal conditions. The second level is a sort of implicit inference that usually follows immediately the episode of knowing p (knowledge simpliciter). The Gettier case is analyzed by referring to a view of Gangesha (13th c.), who takes any true belief to be knowledge; thus a true belief acquired through a wrong route may just be regarded as knowledge simpliciter on this view. The question of justification arises only at the second level, when one considers the knowledgehood of the acquired belief. Initially, there is lack of uncertainty, so it becomes a true belief. But at the very next moment, when the hearer is about to embark upon the venture of knowing whether he knows p, doubts may arise. "If, in some Gettier-like cases, I am wrong in my inference about the knowledgehood of the given occurrent belief (for the evidence may be pseudo-evidence), then I am mistaken about the truth of my belief -- and this is in accord with Nyaya fallibilism: not all knowledge-claims can be sustained."[5]