Outline Of Epistemology

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The Outline Of Epistemology is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:

Epistemology or theory of knowledge – branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864). Epistemology asks the questions: “What is knowledge?”, “How is knowledge acquired?”, and “What do people know?”

Core topics of epistemology

Main article: Epistemology

Knowledge
- Knowledge that (“descriptive knowledge”)
- Knowledge how (“procedural knowledge”)
- Knowledge by acquaintance
Truth
Justification
Philosophical skepticism
Scientific method

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Knowledge

Branches of epistemology

Main article: Epistemology § Schools of thought in epistemology

Formal epistemology – subdiscipline of epistemology that uses formal methods from logic, probability theory and computability theory to elucidate traditional epistemic problems.
Meta-epistemology – metaphilosophical study of the subject, matter, methods and aims of epistemology and of approaches to understanding and structuring our knowledge of knowledge itself.
Social epistemology – the study of collective knowledge and the social dimensions of knowledge

Epistemological theories

Justification

Theories of justification
- Foundationalism – Self-evident basic beliefs justify other non-basic beliefs.
- Coherentism – Beliefs are justified if they cohere with other beliefs a person holds, each belief is justified if it coheres with the overall system of beliefs.
- Internalism – The believer must be able to justify a belief through internal knowledge.
- Externalism – Outside sources of knowledge can be used to justify a belief.
- Skepticism – A variety of viewpoints questioning the possibility of knowledge.
  - Academic skepticism – A school of skepticism which rejects the existence of truth and maintains that knowledge is impossible.
  - Pyrrhonian skepticism – A school of skepticism which emphasises suspension of belief to attain ataraxia (tranquility of mind).
- Minority viewpoints include:
  - Foundherentism – A combination of foundationalism and coherentism proposed by Susan Haack.
  - Infinitism – Beliefs are justified by infinite chains of reasons, as proposed by Peter D. Klein.
Common justifiers
- Scientific method – body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
- Occam’s Razor – the principle that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). The popular interpretation of this principle is that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. However, this is often confused, as the ‘simple’ “is really referring to the theory with the fewest new assumptions.”
- Empiricism – theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge arises from evidence gathered via sense experience. Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or tradition.
- Induction – kind of reasoning that allows for the possibility that the conclusion is false even where all of the premises are true. The premises of an inductive logical argument indicate some degree of support (inductive probability) for the conclusion but do not entail it; i.e. they do not ensure its truth.
- Pragmatism – philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that impractical ideas are to be rejected.
- Probability theory – branch of mathematics concerned with analysis of random phenomena. The central objects of probability theory are random variables, stochastic processes, and events: mathematical abstractions of non-deterministic events or measured quantities that may either be single occurrences or evolve over time in an apparently random fashion. If repeated many times the sequence of random events will exhibit certain statistical patterns, which can be studied and predicted.
- Abductive Reasoning or Inference to the Best Explanation – kind of logical inference described by Charles Sanders Peirce as the process of arriving at an explanatory hypothesis. Thus, to abduce a hypothetical explanation a as a conclusion from a noticed curious circumstance b as a premise, is to surmise that a may be true because then b would be a matter of course.