LESSON ONE

EPISTEMOLOGY

(THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE)

Most of the greatest evils that man
has inflicted upon man have come
through people feeling quite certain
about something which, in
fact, was false.

-Bertrand Russell

“He that knoweth not what he ought to know, is a brute

amongst men; he that knoweth no more than he hath need
of, is a man amongst brute beasts; and he that knoweth all
that may be known, is a god amongst men.”

—Pythagoras.

They live by what they think, not

by what they know.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of

knowledge, that is, with questions of what we know and how we know it.

The earliest Greek philosophers turned their attention outward toward the
physical world and tried to understand how the world works; then Socrates
came along and insisted that we must first understand the knowledge-
gathering instrument: the mind. The study of how the mind gathers
knowledge is called epistemology, and epistemologists have found that the
mind is endowed with four channels (senses, reason, intuition, and
authority) for gathering information. Each source is indispensable and
provides us with survival information, but each has its limitations, forcing us
to be very cautious in our use of it.

Epistemology is the study of the nature and scope of knowledge and

justified belief. It analyzes 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. It is essentailly about issues having to do with the creation
and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.

Epistemology' is the branch or subdivision of philosophy which is dedicated to

the study of knowledge, its attainment, and its limitations. Epistemology is
the branch of philosophy defined as the study of human knowledge. In
exploring this field we are touching one of evolution’s fundamental
mechanisms of survival, for it is by knowledge that we orient ourselves in the
world.

Through our senses we contribute just as much to our experience as do the

objects that they are experience of. How we are to understand the process of
perception, and how this should affect our understanding of the world that we
inhabit, is therefore vital for epistemology.

Epistemology tries to arrive at such standards through our empirical

investigation into how we interact with our fellows and the world around us as
we from our beliefs and evaluates them, what we seek in those activities, and
the particular ways in which we can and we cannot succeed.

If we think of Socrates and the natural philosophers who came before him, it's
not hard to see that they share some common concerns. The Pre-Socratics
were interested in understanding how the cosmos existed, and believed
that it was not necessary to appeal to mythology to do so. Socrates was
interested in living the good life and believed that any rational person could, if
they diligently tried, do so. But in both natural philosophy and moral
philosophy we are interested in knowing the truth. So, before we can answer
either Socrates or the natural philosophers, we must first have a conception of
what it is to know.

TWO WORLDS OR EXPERIENCES: Accurate knowledge of our two worlds—

the real world (“out there”) and the inner world of experience (“in here”)—
correctly informs us of conditions we must cope with. To know is to survive;
not to know, or to assess the real environment inaccurately, is to jeopardize the
fight for survival.

Among the billions of bits of information at our fingertips, it is difficult to

distinguish high-priority data. There are facts that are important; there are
causes that are crucial; there are ideas that work better than others. But
which? and to what end? Since not all facts are of equal importance at a given
time in a given situation, we are required to make value judgments. So, what
criteria can we use for deciding what is more important, what less? Everything
we know originates from four sources.

Epistemology asks questions like: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge

acquired?", "What do people know?", "What are the necessary and sufficient
conditions of knowledge?", "What is its structure, and what are its limits?",
"What makes justified beliefs justified?", "How we are to understand the
concept of justification?", "Is justification internal or external to one's own
mind?"
The kind of knowledge usually discussed in Epistemology is propositional
knowledge, "knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge-how" (for example,
the knowledge that "2 + 2 = 4", as opposed to the knowledge of how to go about
adding two numbers).

Knowledge is the awareness and understanding of particular aspects of reality.

It is the clear, lucid information gained through the process of reason applied
to reality. The traditional approach is that knowledge requires three necessary
and sufficient conditions, so that knowledge can then be defined as "justified
true belief":

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and

scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:

• What is knowledge?
• How is knowledge acquired?
Where does it come from?
• How do we know what we know?

Can we know anything at all?

In philosophy, epistemology refers to the study of the nature, origin, and limits
of human knowledge. The field is sometimes referred to as the theory of
knowledge.
 INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW

A. Three Central Questions:

1. What is knowledge? That is, what counts as knowledge as

opposed to belief or opinion?
2. Can we have knowledge? Are human beings capable of knowing
anything?
3. How do we get knowledge? What is the process by which
knowledge is obtained?

B. Three Preliminary Answers:

C.
1. What is Knowledge?
a. beliefs which are
b. true
c. for which we can give justification
2. Can we have knowledge?
a. Skepticism - "No!"
b. Dogmatism - "Yes!"
3. How do we obtain knowledge?
a. Rationalism - through reason alone , through rational
reflection on ideas alone
b. Empiricism - through the senses alone

D. Two Kinds of Beliefs:

Since Knowledge is composed of beliefs, it will be important, as we shall

see later, to determine the source of our beliefs. Generally speaking, we
can draw a distinction between two types of beliefs based on how those
beliefs are acquired.

1. A Priori - beliefs that require no experience (analytic propositions)

2. A Posteriori - beliefs that require experience (synthetic
propositions)
 A. To Know or not to know, ( expanding our preliminary answers-can we
have knowledge?)

Three possible answers

Relativism- it’s all knowledge

Skepticism- we can’t have knowledge

Dogmatisim- we can have knowledge

Relativism - what is true is 'true' for you

1. Absolute Relativism - truth is relative to each individual

2. Mitigated Relativism - truth is relative to the culture in which you are raised
3. The Problem with Relativism: it leads to inconsistencies and contradictions or a
denial of truth

Skepticism: Two varieties

4. Radical Skepticism - No one can know anything.

This position maintains that knowledge is, in principle, impossible to

attain. That is, it is impossible to be certain that our beliefs meet the
criterion of truth. Thus we have no knowledge.

5. Mitigated Skepticism - No one does know anything.

Dogmatism:

6. Radical Dogmatism - Anyone can know everything.

7. Mitigated Dogmatism - Some people have some knowledge.

Epistemology, the study of the theory of knowledge, is among the most

important areas of philosophy. The questions that it addresses include the
following:

What is knowledge?

The first problem encountered in epistemology is that of defining knowledge.

Philosophers use the tripartite theory of knowledge, which analyses knowledge
as justified true belief, as a working model much of the time. The tripartite
theory has, however, been refuted; Gettier cases show that some justified true
beliefs do not constitute knowledge. Rival analyses of knowledge have been
proposed, but there is as yet no consensus on what knowledge is. This
fundamental question of epistemology remains unsolved.

Though philosophers are unable to provide a generally accepted analysis of

knowledge, we all understand roughly what we are talking about when we use
words such as “knowledge”. Thankfully, this means that it is possible to get on
with epistemology, leaving unsolved the fundamental question as to what
knowledge is.

From where do we get our knowledge?

A second important issue in epistemology concerns the ultimate source of our

knowledge. There are two traditions: empiricism, which holds that our
knowledge is primarily based in experience, and rationalism, which holds that
our knowledge is primarily based in reason. Although the modern scientific
worldview borrows heavily from empiricism, there are reasons for thinking that
a synthesis of the two traditions is more plausible than either of them
individually.

How are our beliefs justified?

There are better and worse ways to form beliefs. In general terms, it is
important to consider evidence when deciding what to believe, because by
doing so we are more likely to form beliefs that are true. Precisely how this
should work, when we are justified in belief something and when we are not, is
another topic in the theory of knowledge. The three most prominent theories of
epistemic justification are foundationalism, coherentism, and reliabilism.

How do we perceive the world around us?

Much of our knowledge, it seems, does come to us through our senses,

through perception. Perception, though, is a complex process. The way that we
experience the world may be determined in part by the world, but it is also
determined in part by us. We do not passively receive information through our
senses; arguably, we contribute just as much to our experiences as do the
objects that they are experiences of. How we are to understand the process of
perception, and how this should effect our understanding of the world that we
inhabit, is therefore vital for epistemology.

Do we know anything at all?

The area of epistemology that has captured most imaginations is philosophical

scepticism. Alongside the questions of what knowledge is and how we come to
acquire it is the question whether we do in fact know anything at all. There is a
long philosophical tradition that says that we do not, and the arguments in
support of this position, though resisted by most, are remarkably difficult to
refute. The most persistent problem in the theory of knowledge is not what
knowledge is or what it comes from, but whether there is any such thing at all.

Empiricism

     1. All knowledge -- indeed, all ideas -- are supposed to derive from and are
         based upon sense perception.

     2. To be meaningful as well as to be true, an idea or statement must be

         traceable back to sense perception for validation (as meaningful) and
         verification.

   Nominalism (= concepts are names only)

A. All of the concepts and categories (i.e., the forms) with which we
     make sense of things are human constructs, not discoveries.
B. Concepts and categories are real only for those that use them, and
     their validity and truth is determined by their usefulness.
C. The only real things outside of the mind are particular, individual,
     contingent things, which are knowable only by sense perception.
D. Rational Truths are trivial because they are simply truths about the
     concepts and categories that we have constructed (they are
     analytically true).  But they tell us nothing about the world outside
the mind.

Sense perception (at least for empiricists following Descartes) is usually

conceived as "sense impressions" or "sense data" internal to the mind,
not as direct acquaintance with things in the world.

 It is conceived as passive, without depth, and atomistic (non-integrated),

         but representative of things outside the mind that have produced (or
         caused) sense impressions within us.

Sources of Knowledge of the Forms By Means of Which We Comprehend,

Order, and Deal with the World

     They are of four kinds (at least):

A. Transcendental norms (e.g., justice, beauty, goodness)

B. Mathematical and logical principles
C. Natural kinds (the true essences of things)
 D. General properties (features of things that may or may not be
essential)

     Not every one of the following answers purports to account for all four
     kinds.

     1. Platonic Rationalist Answer:

They exist objectively beyond and in some sense "above" our minds, and
are discovered by dialectical reasoning and a kind of intuitive
recollection.  (Note: Rationalists distinguish between these truths and
our ideas and opinions about them, which are our attempts at
apprehending and representing them to ourselves.)  This means that
there are realities to which the mind has access other than through
sense perception.  In some sense they are innate (or our access to them
is innate) but usually unconscious and unrecognized.

     2. Empiricist (or Nominalist) Answer:

They do not exist objectively outside of our minds; they are constructions
of the mind invented by us to order and make sense of our experience,
and their meaningfulness and truth are entirely given in terms of their
usefulness to that end.  The analytic truths of logic and mathematics are
simply truths concerning the structure of and relations between these
invented ideas.

      3. Aristotelian Answer:

They do exist objectively but within things themselves, to which we first

have access through sense perception.  Through a process of intellectual
abstraction and "induction" we discover them and gradually build up a
sure and confident knowledge of them.

     4. Kantian Answer:

They do not exist outside the mind yet they are not invented by us.  We
can discover them as the categories and principles with which the
rational mind necessarily comprehends and orders sense experience. 
They are imposed on experience by means of our rational apprehension
of the world, which (according to Kant) is in principle the same in all
rational beings.
     1. Rationalism

A.  True knowledge (or at least the most important knowledge) is

      essentially independent of sensory experience.  Some speak of it as
      involving a non-sensory form of experience (intuitive acquaintance).

B.  What is thus known is changeless, universal, necessary, and

      therefore certain (i.e., objectively certain, though not necessarily
      subjectively certain).

C.  It is discovered by dialectical philosophical reasoning, not by

      sense perception.   (Sense perception gives us only changeable,
      non-universal, non-necessary, and uncertain truths.)  The mind,
      therefore is not limited to the deliverances of sense perception.

D.  While logical and mathematical truths are examples, they are not the
      only or even the best examples.

E.  Note: Although Rationalists often distinguish sense perception

     (aisthesis) from true knowledge (episteme), all regard sense
     perception as more than mere opinion and as the source of
     our knowledge of tangible, physical things.

LESSON TWO

THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

Kinds of Knowledge

One kind of knowledge is procedural knowledge, sometimes called

competence or “know-how;” for example, one can know how to ride a bicycle,

Another kind of knowledge is acquaintance knowledge or familiarity; for

instance, one can know the department chairperson, or one can know
Philadelphia.

Epistemologists typically focus on propositional knowledge. A proposition

is something which can be expressed by a declarative sentence, and which
purports to describe a fact or a state of affairs, such as “Dogs are mammals,”
“2+2=7,” “It is wrong to murder innocent people for fun.”

The Nature of Propositional Knowledge

Having narrowed our focus to propositional knowledge, we must ask ourselves
what, exactly, constitutes knowledge. What does it mean for someone to
know something? What is the difference between someone who knows
something and someone else who does not know it, or between something one
knows and something one does not know? Since the scope of knowledge is so
broad, we need a general characterization of knowledge, one which is
applicable to any kind of proposition whatsoever. Epistemologists have usually
undertaken this task by seeking a correct and complete analysis of the concept
of knowledge, in other words a set of individually necessary and jointly
sufficient conditions which determine whether someone knows something.

THE THREE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge Seems to Require Three Necessary Components:

A. Belief
     (To know something, you must believe it in some sense.)

B. Truth
     (To know something, it must be true, or real.  In order to know
an imagined thing, the thing must be a real imagined thing.)

C. Justification
     (To know something, you must be able to show that you do; you
     must be able to provide sufficient evidence of your knowledge.)

Beliefs - A cognitive state of which you are aware, a cognitive state of

awareness that is not certain. Because one cannot know something that one
doesn't even believe in, the statement "I know x, but I don't believe that x is true"
is contradictory.

1. Hunch ( No justification is possible)

2. Opinions ( justified to some degree, but not certain)
3. Intuitions

Let us begin with the observation that knowledge is a mental state; that is,
knowledge exists in one’s mind, and unthinking things cannot know
anything. Further, knowledge is a specific kind of mental state. While “that”-
clauses can also be used to describe desires and intentions, these cannot
constitute knowledge. Rather, knowledge is a kind of belief. If one has no
beliefs about a particular matter, one cannot have knowledge about it.
For instance, suppose that I desire that I be given a raise in salary, and that I
intend to do whatever I can to earn one. Suppose further that I am doubtful as
to whether I will indeed be given a raise, due to the intricacies of the
university’s budget and such. Given that I do not believe that I will be given a
raise, I cannot be said to know that I will. Only if I am inclined to believe
something can I come to know it. Similarly, thoughts that an individual has
never entertained are not among his beliefs, and thus cannot be included in his
body of knowledge.

Truth - the belief must correspond with reality (the way the universe is) are
true, otherwise they are false. Since false propositions cannot be known - for
something to count as knowledge, it must actually be true. As Aristotle
famously (but rather confusingly) expressed it: "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."

Knowledge, then, requires belief. Of course, not all beliefs constitute

knowledge. Belief is necessary but not sufficient for knowledge. We are all
sometimes mistaken in what we believe; in other words, while some of our
beliefs are true, others are false. As we try to acquire knowledge, then, we are
trying to increase our stock of true beliefs (while simultaneously minimizing
our false beliefs).

We might say that the most typical purpose of beliefs is to describe or capture
the way things actually are; that is, when one forms a belief, one is seeking a
match between one’s mind and the world. (We sometimes, of course, form
beliefs for other reasons – to create a positive attitude, to deceive ourselves,
and so forth – but when we seek knowledge, we are trying to get things right.)
And, alas, we sometimes fail to achieve such a match; some of our beliefs do
not describe the way things actually are.

Note that we are assuming here that there is such a thing as objective truth, so
that it is possible for beliefs to match or to fail to match with reality. That is, in
order for someone to know something, there must be something one knows
about. Recall that we are discussing knowledge in the factive sense; if there are
no facts of the matter, then there’s nothing to know (or to fail to know). This
assumption is not universally accepted – in particular, it is not shared by some
proponents of relativism – but it will not be defended here. However, we can
say that truth is a condition of knowledge; that is, if a belief is not true, it
cannot constitute knowledge. Accordingly, if there is no such thing as truth,
then there can be no knowledge. Even if there is such a thing as truth, if there
is a domain in which there are no truths, then there can be no knowledge
within that domain. (For example, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then a
belief that something is beautiful cannot be true or false, and thus cannot
constitute knowledge.)

Justification - how we know our beliefs correspond with reality (the evidence
which demonstrates a connection between our beliefs and the world. The most
contentious part of all this is the definition of justification, and

Knowledge, then, requires factual belief. However, this does not suffice to
capture the nature of knowledge. Just as knowledge requires successfully
achieving the objective of true belief, it also requires success with regard to the
formation of that belief. In other words, not all true beliefs constitute
knowledge; only true beliefs arrived at in the right way constitute knowledge.

What, then, is the right way of arriving at beliefs? In addition to truth, what
other properties must a belief have in order to constitute knowledge? We might
begin by noting that sound reasoning and solid evidence seem to be the way to
acquire knowledge. By contrast, a lucky guess cannot constitute knowledge.
Similarly, misinformation and faulty reasoning do not seem like a recipe for
knowledge, even if they happen to lead to a true belief. A belief is said to be
justified if it is obtained in the right way. While justification seems, at first
glance, to be a matter of a belief’s being based on evidence and reasoning
rather than on luck or misinformation, we shall see that there is much
disagreement regarding how to spell out the details.

The requirement that knowledge involve justification does not necessarily mean
that knowledge requires absolute certainty, however. Humans are fallible
beings, and fallibilism is the view that it is possible to have knowledge even
when one’s true belief might have turned out to be false. Between beliefs which
were necessarily true and those which are true solely by luck lies a spectrum of
beliefs with regard to which we had some defeasible reason to believe that they
would be true. For instance, if I heard the weatherman say that there is a 90%
chance of rain, and as a result I formed the belief that it would rain, then my
true belief that it would rain was not true purely by luck. Even though there
was some chance that my belief might have been false, there was a sufficient
basis for that belief for it to constitute knowledge. This basis is referred to as
the justification for that belief. We can then say that, to constitute knowledge,
a belief must be both true and justified.

Note that because of luck, a belief can be unjustified yet true; and because of
human fallibility, a belief can be justified yet false. In other words, truth and
justification are two independent conditions of beliefs. The fact that a belief is
true does not tell us whether or not it is justified; that depends on how the
belief was arrived at. So, two people might hold the same true belief, but for
different reasons, so that one of them is justified and the other is unjustified.
Similarly, the fact that a belief is justified does not tell us whether it’s true or
false. Of course, a justified belief will presumably be more likely to be true than
to be false, and justified beliefs will presumably be more likely or more
probable to be true than unjustified beliefs.

The Nature of Justification

We have noted that the goal of our belief-forming practices is to obtain truth
while avoiding error, and that justification is the feature of beliefs which are
formed in such a way as to best pursue this goal. If we think, then, of the goal
of our belief-forming practices as an attempt to establish a match between
one’s mind and the world, and if we also think of the application or withholding
of the justification condition as an evaluation of whether this match was
arrived at in the right way, then there seem to be two obvious approaches to
construing justification: namely, in terms of the believer’s mind, or in terms of
the world.

1. Internalism: Justification rests upon a belief's relation to other

beliefs
a. Foundationalism - some beliefs are terminal or self-
justifying, all others derived from them
b. Coherentism - all beliefs are justified by their relations to all
your other beliefs; no terminal beliefs
2. Externalism: Justification rests upon the way a belief is formed;
the right process of belief formation gives justification (Cognitive
Science - 'right' brain states)

a. Internalism

Belief is a mental state, and belief-formation is a mental process. Accordingly,

one might reason, whether or not a belief is justified – whether, that is, it is
formed in the right way – can be determined by examining the thought-
processes of the believer during its formation. Such a view, which maintains
that justification depends solely on factors internal to the believer’s mind, is
called internalism. (The term “internalism” has different meanings in other
contexts; here, it will be used strictly to refer to this type of view about
epistemic justification.)

According to internalism, the only factors that are relevant to the determination
of whether a belief is justified are the believer’s other mental states. After all,
an internalist will argue, only an individual’s mental states – her beliefs about
the world, her sensory inputs (for example, her sense data) and her beliefs
about the relations between her various beliefs – can determine what new
beliefs she will form, so only an individual’s mental states can determine
whether any particular belief is justified. In particular, in order to be justified,
a belief must be appropriately based upon or supported by other mental states.
This raises the question of what constitutes the basing or support relation
between a belief and one’s other mental states. We might want to say that, in
order for belief A to be appropriately based on belief B (or beliefs B1 and B2, or
B1, B2, and…Bn), the truth of B must suffice to establish the truth of A, in
other words, B must entail A. (We shall consider the relationship between
beliefs and sensory inputs below.) However, if we want to allow for our
fallibility, we must instead say that the truth of B would give one good reason
to believe that A is also true (by making it likely or probable that A is true). An
elaboration of what counts as a good reason for belief, accordingly, is an
essential part of any internalist account of justification.

However, there is an additional condition that we must add: belief B must itself
be justified, since unjustified beliefs cannot confer justification on other beliefs.
Because belief B be must also be justified, must there be some justified belief C
upon which B is based? If so, C must itself be justified, and it may derive its
justification from some further justified belief, D. This chain of beliefs deriving
their justification from other beliefs may continue forever, leading us in an
infinite regress. While the idea of an infinite regress might seem troubling, the
primary ways of avoiding such a regress may have their own problems as well.
This raises the “regress problem,” which begins from observing that there are
only four possibilities as to the structure of one’s justified beliefs:

1. The series of justified beliefs, each based upon the other, continues
infinitely.
2. The series of justified beliefs circles back to its beginning (A is based on
B, B on C, C on D, and D on A).
3. The series of justified beliefs begins with an unjustified belief.
4. The series of justified beliefs begins with a belief which is justified, but
not by virtue of being based on another justified belief.

These alternatives seem to exhaust the possibilities. That is, if one has any
justified beliefs, one of these four possibilities must describe the relationships
between those beliefs. As such, a complete internalist account of justification
must decide among the four.

i. Foundationalism

Let us, then, consider each of the four possibilities mentioned above.
Alternative 1 seems unacceptable because the human mind can contain only
finitely many beliefs, and any thought-process that leads to the formation of a
new belief must have some starting point. Alternative 2 seems no better, since
circular reasoning appears to be fallacious. And alternative 3 has already been
ruled out, since it renders the second belief in the series (and, thus, all
subsequent beliefs) unjustified. That leaves alternative 4, which must, by
process of elimination, be correct.
This line of reasoning, which is typically known as the regress argument, leads
to the conclusion that there are two different kinds of justified beliefs: those
which begin a series of justified beliefs, and those which are based on other
justified beliefs. The former, called basic beliefs, are able to confer justification
on other, non-basic beliefs, without themselves having their justification
conferred upon them by other beliefs. As such, there is an asymmetrical
relationship between basic and non-basic beliefs. Such a view of the structure
of justified belief is known as “foundationalism. ” In general, foundationalism
entails that there is an asymmetrical relationship between any two beliefs: if A
is based on B, then B cannot be based on A.

Accordingly, it follows that at least some beliefs (namely basic beliefs) are
justified in some way other than by way of a relation to other beliefs. Basic
beliefs must be self-justified, or must derive their justification from some non-
doxastic source such as sensory inputs; the exact source of the justification of
basic beliefs needs to be explained by any complete foundationalist account of
justification.

ii. Coherentism

Internalists might be dissatisfied with foundationalism, since it allows for the

possibility of beliefs that are justified without being based upon other beliefs.
Since it was our solution to the regress problem that led us to foundationalism,
and since none of the alternatives seem palatable, we might look for a flaw in
the problem itself. Note that the problem is based on a pivotal but hitherto
unstated assumption: namely, that justification is linear in fashion. That is, the
statement of the regress problem assumes that the basing relation parallels a
logical argument, with one belief being based on one or more other beliefs in an
asymmetrical fashion.

So, an internalist who finds foundationalism to be problematic might deny this

assumption, maintaining instead that justification is the result of a holistic
relationship among beliefs. That is, one might maintain that beliefs derive their
justification by inclusion in a set of beliefs which cohere with one another as a
whole; a proponent of such a view is called a coherentist.

A coherentist, then, sees justification as a relation of mutual support among

many beliefs, rather than a series of asymmetrical beliefs. A belief derives its
justification, according to coherentism, not by being based on one or more
other beliefs, but by virtue of its membership in a set of beliefs that all fit
together in the right way. (The coherentist needs to specify what constitutes
coherence, of course. It must be something more than logical consistency,
since two unrelated beliefs may be consistent. Rather, there must be some
positive support relationship – for instance, some sort of explanatory
relationship – between the members of a coherent set in order for the beliefs to
be individually justified.)

Coherentism is vulnerable to the “isolation objection”. It seems possible for a

set of beliefs to be coherent, but for all of those beliefs to be isolated from
reality. Consider, for instance, a work of fiction. All of the statements in the
work of fiction might form a coherent set, but presumably believing all and only
the statements in a work of fiction will not render one justified. Indeed, any
form of internalism seems vulnerable to this objection, and thus a complete
internalist account of justification must address it. Recall that justification
requires a match between one’s mind and the world, and an inordinate
emphasis on the relations between the beliefs in one’s mind seems to ignore
the question of whether those beliefs match up with the way things actually
are.

b. Externalism

Accordingly, one might think that focusing solely on factors internal to the
believer’s mind will inevitably lead to a mistaken account of justification. The
alternative, then, is that at least some factors external to the believer’s mind
determine whether or not she is justified. A proponent of such a view is called
an externalist.

According to externalism, the only way to avoid the isolation objection and
ensure that knowledge does not include luck is to consider some factors other
than the individual’s other beliefs. Which factors, then, should be considered?
The most prominent version of externalism, called reliabilism, suggests that we
consider the source of a belief. Beliefs can be formed as a result of many
different sources, such as sense experience, reason, testimony, memory. More
precisely, we might specify which sense was used, who provided the testimony,
what sort of reasoning is used, or how recent the relevant memory is. For every
belief, we can indicate the cognitive process that led to its formation. In its
simplest and most straightforward form, reliabilism maintains that whether or
not a belief is justified depends upon whether that process is a reliable source
of true beliefs. Since we are seeking a match between our mind and the world,
justified beliefs are those which result from processes which regularly achieve
such a match. So, for example, using vision to determine the color of an object
which is well-lit and relatively near is a reliable belief-forming process for a
person with normal vision, but not for a color-blind person. Forming beliefs on
the basis of the testimony of an expert is likely to yield true beliefs, but forming
beliefs on the basis of the testimony of compulsive liars is not. In general, if a
belief is the result of a cognitive process which reliably (most of the time – we
still want to leave room for human fallibility) leads to true beliefs, then that
belief is justified.
The foregoing suggests one immediate challenge for reliabilism. The formation
of a belief is a one-time event, but the reliability of the process depends upon
the long-term performance of that process. (This can include counterfactual as
well as actual events. For instance, a coin which is flipped only once and lands
on heads nonetheless has a 50% chance of landing on tails, even though its
actual performance has yielded heads 100% of the time.) And this requires that
we specify which process is being used, so that we can evaluate its
performance in other instances. However, cognitive process can be described in
more or less general terms: for example, the same belief-forming process might
be variously described as sense experience, vision, vision by a normally-sighted
person, vision by a normally-sighted person in daylight, vision by a normally-
sighted person in daylight while looking at a tree, vision by a normally-sighted
person in daylight while looking at an elm tree, and so forth. The “generality
problem” notes that some of these descriptions might specify a reliable process
but others might specify an unreliable process, so that we cannot know
whether a belief is justified or unjustified unless we know the appropriate level
of generality to use in describing the process.

Even if the generality problem can be solved, another problem remains for
externalism. Keith Lehrer presents this problem by way of his example of Mr.
Truetemp. Truetemp has, unbeknownst to him, had a tempucomp – a device
which accurately reads the temperature and causes a spontaneous belief about
that temperature – implanted in his brain. As a result, he has many true
beliefs about the temperature, but he does not know why he has them or what
their source is. Lehrer argues that, although Truetemp’s belief-forming process
is reliable, his ignorance of the tempucomp renders his temperature-beliefs
unjustified, and thus that a reliable cognitive process cannot yield justification
unless the believer is aware of the fact that the process is reliable. In other
words, the mere fact that the process is reliable does not suffice, Lehrer
concludes, to justify any beliefs which are formed via that process.

There are several schools of thought on the subject:

According to Evidentialism, what makes a belief justified in this sense is the

possession of evidence - a belief is justified to the extent that it fits a person's
evidence.

Different varieties of Reliabilism suggest that either: 1) justification is not

necessary for knowledge provided it is a reliably-produced true belief; or 2)
justification is required but any reliable cognitive process (e.g. vision) is
sufficient justification.

Yet another school, Infallibilism, holds that a belief must not only be true and
justified, but that the justification of the belief must necessitate its truth, so
that the justification for the belief must be infallible.
Another debate focuses on whether justification is external or internal:

 Externalism holds that factors deemed "external" (meaning outside of the

psychological states of those who are gaining the knowledge) can be
conditions of knowledge, so that if the relevant facts justifying a
proposition are external then they are acceptable.
 Internalism, on the other hand, claims that all knowledge-yielding
conditions are within the psychological states of those who gain
knowledge.

LESSON THREE
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE

FOUR SOURCES: The first, our senses, can be thought of as our primary
source of information.

Two other sources, reason and intuition, are derivative in the sense that they
produce new facts from data already supplied to our minds.

The fourth source, authority (or “hearsay,” or “testimony” of others), is by

nature secondary, and second hand fact-claims are always more wiggly and
difficult to validate.

Why should there be a discipline such as epistemology? Aristotle (384–322 BC)

provided the answer when he said that philosophy begins in a kind of
wonder or puzzlement. Nearly all human beings wish to comprehend the
world they live in, and many of them construct theories of various kinds to
help them make sense of it. Because many aspects of the world defy easy
explanation, however, most people are likely to cease their efforts at some point
and to content themselves with whatever degree of understanding they have
managed to achieve.

Unlike most people, philosophers are captivated—some would say obsessed—

by the idea of understanding the world in the most general terms possible.
Accordingly, they attempt to construct theories that are synoptic, descriptively
accurate, explanatorily powerful, and in all other respects rationally defensible.
In doing so, they carry the process of inquiry further than other people tend to
do, and this is what is meant by saying that they develop a philosophy about
these matters.

Like most people, epistemologists often begin their speculations with the
assumption that they have a great deal of knowledge. As they reflect upon
what they presumably know, however, they discover that it is much less secure
than they realized, and indeed they come to think that many of what had been
their firmest beliefs are dubious or even false. Such doubts arise from
certain anomalies in our experience of the world. Although several of these
anomalies are discussed below in the section on the history of epistemology,
two in particular will be described in detail here in order to illustrate how they
call into question our common claims to knowledge about the world.

With the examination of the sources, nature, and accuracy of our knowledge,
we begin to develop epistemic awareness, a more informed understanding of
what we know and how we know it; and an exceedingly important part of this
awareness is coming to understand more clearly what we don’t know.

We face two epistemological problems.

(1) How can we determine which facts are true?

(2) How can we determine which facts are important?

The first can be dealt with in a relatively straightforward manner; the second
is often situational and more difficult to clarify.

We are all inundated by statements that are intended to be statements of truth.

But so many of these statements are not true, and we must therefore find ways
to double-check these fact-claims. We must learn somehow to filter out the
fictions but let in the valid and substantiated facts. So, on what criteria can we
decide what are facts and what are false claims?

Second, among the billions of bits of information at our fingertips, it is difficult

to distinguish high-priority data. There are facts that are important; there are
causes that are crucial; there are ideas that work better than others. But
which? and to what end? Since not all facts are of equal importance at a given
time in a given situation, we are required to make value judgments. So, what
criteria can we use for deciding what is more important, what less?

Everything we know originates from four sources. The first, our senses, can
be thought of as our primary source of information. Two other sources,
reason and intuition, are derivative in the sense that they produce new facts
from data already supplied to our minds. The fourth source, authority (or
“hearsay,” or “testimony” of others), is by nature secondary, and secondhand
fact-claims are always more wiggly and difficult to validate. Other sources of
knowledge are commonly claimed, and it is not inconceivable that there might
exist other sources; but if they do exist, knowledge derived from them is
problematic, and careful analysis usually finds that they can be subsumed
under one or more of the four known sources and must be seriously
questioned as legitimate, separate sources of reliable information.

THE SENSES: EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE

The primary source of all knowledge is our own senses. Throughout our
earlier years, this remains the most immediate channel of information about
ourselves and our environment. As beginners in life we “learn by doing,” and
doing in large part means to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, and so on. Our five
senses (or as many as twenty-three, psychologists tell us) are exploratory
organs; we use them to become acquainted with the world we live in.

Three of our senses—sight, sound, and smell—give us information about

events and objects that may lie at a distance, while two of the classical five
senses—taste and touch—inform us about happenings in the immediate
vicinity of our sensors. When assessed from the perspective of evolutionary
adaptation and survival, we can see the benefits of this arrangement.

These can be called objective senses since they tell us about the external world.

The eyes believe themselves;

the ears believe other people.
Chinese Fortune Cookie

We also possess numerous subjective senses that inform us about our inner
world. This is called internal environment. Without such senses we would not
experience a variety of sensations that we take for granted, such as headaches,
heartburn, and appendicitis pains.

Socrates and his friends Parmenides and Zeno argued that we can’t trust any
of the senses, it has been clear that our senses do not accurately report to us
what is going on in the real world. What they give us is useful information, not
scientifically accurate information. However, when we realize that they were not
designed to minister to our intellectual need for the truth, and when we
understand the exact nature of the “deceptions” and “translations” that occur
during the data-transmission processes from real objects/events through the
senses to our minds, then our frustration mounts; but from this realization we
can proceed to construct a more accurate picture of the true nature of things.

KNOWLEDGE FROM OTHERS

Other people, of course, are major sources of information for each of us, but all
such secondhand fact-claims are by nature distanced from our own immediate
experience where we can better judge the validity of such claims.
Historical knowledge begins for us when we attempt to re-create in our minds
images of those events. Our reliance upon others for the input about those
events is an inescapable dependency.

Knowledge of the sciences also comes to most of us by authority. We can’t

personally repeat every experiment conducted by scientists, so we must trust
the work and word of the specialists and accept.

By authority also we receive knowledge of the society in which we live, but

obviously such information can’t be accepted uncritically. Every culture is a
carrier of traditions, stories, myths, “common knowledge,” and “common
sense” that must be carefully screened before one can feel assured that he
possesses dependable information.

There is another, and perhaps more insidious, danger involved in relying upon
others for knowledge. Most of us are prone to the development of dependencies.
We commonly select one or two authorities, invest our trust in them, and
suppress our rational faculties, and even our moral instincts, to the point of
accepting whatever they tell us. Granted that the process of developing critical
skill is hard work, a mature reliance upon one’s own best judgment for what is
true and false, right and wrong, will help us to avoid becoming victim to others’
unworthy ideas and beliefs. As the existentialist philosophers have repeatedly
warned, dependencies inevitably get in the way of our taking charge of our lives
and making our own decisions.

REASON: USING KNOWN FACTS

Our reasoning faculties can also be a source of knowledge. “Reason” can be

defined as the process of using known facts to arrive at new facts. Hence, if we
start with data that we are sure of, we can apply deductive and inductive
methods and arrive at new information we did not have before. The two major
forms of conscious reasoning are deduction and induction.

We are drowning in information

but starved for knowledge.

INTUITION: KNOWLEDGE FROM THE DEPTHS

Intuition refers to insights or bits of knowledge that emerge into the light of
consciousness as a result of deeper subconscious activity. The subconscious
mind can perform complex operations, make connections, and create
understandings that the conscious mind, burdened with the task of mediating
and processing sense data, cannot readily handle. The subconscious mind is
not only a vast storehouse of information, but an extremely sophisticated
information processing machine.

Sometimes intuition is experienced as an emotional feeling. We often say

something like “I have the feeling he’s not telling the truth,” and it may be just
that—a feeling, but a feeling in the process of informing us of a true fact that
we should take seriously.

The psychologist Carl Jung suggested that the subconscious mind can
correlate data in such a way that it can “foresee” events that the conscious
mind, burdened with perception and immediate concerns, cannot sense.
Strictly speaking, such feelings would not be precognitive, but rather
premonitions derived from available data. Such premonitions, when accurate,
could become genuine items of knowledge.

Some people see things as they are

and ask “why?”; I dream things
that never were and ask “why
not?”
George Bernard Shaw

THE PRAGMATIC NATURE OF KNOWING

The most annoying problem in Western epistemology derives precisely from

this sense predicament: If we experience only our experiences (and not reality),
how can we be sure that we know anything about the real world? Or, to put it
differently, if objective physical phenomena are altered by our senses before
our minds have a chance to work with them, then how can we learn anything
about the original phenomena? Can we ever figure out what those phenomena
are? Or again: If we experience only the subjective side of our interface with
reality, can we ever know anything about the objective side of that interface
boundary?

In summary, what is the nature of our knowledge about the real world of
objects/events? Our knowledge of reality is composed of ideas our minds have
created on the basis of our sensory experience. It is a fabric of knowledge
woven by the mind. Knowledge is not given to the mind; nothing is “poured”
into it. Rather, the mind manufactures perceptions, concepts, ideas, beliefs,
and so forth and holds them as working hypotheses about external reality.
Every idea is a (subjective) working model that enables us to handle real
objects/events with some degree of pragmatic efficiency. However persuasive
our thoughts and images may be, they are only remote representations of
reality; they are tools that enable us to deal with reality. It is as though we
draw non dimensional maps to help us understand four-dimensional
territory.The semanticists have long reminded us to beware of confusing any
sort of map with the real landscape. “The map,” they say, “is not the territory.”
 The reading of all good books is
like conversation with the finest
men of past centuries.
---René Descartes

THE PRAGMATIC THINKER

In its attempt to make sense of the energy-environment in which we live, the

mind proves to be a versatile, creative instrument. It translates events of the
real world into experiences we can use in living. The mind is not at all the
“blank tablet,” the tabula rasa, that some earlier thinkers thought it to be.

We have a fairly clear understanding now of the general nature of knowledge.

Human knowledge is a collection of constructs created by the mind from the
raw materials of sensation; it is a series of scaled-down maps that we use to
find our way in the full-scale territory of the real world.

One of the basic functions of the human mind is to create abstractions. What
if we had to have a separate name for every object that we ever encountered:
for each candle, coin, animal, bell, seashell, cloud, and penguin? And a
separate word for every single event we ever experienced: the strumming of a
guitar, the meteor trail across the sky, the smell of a summer rain? If we were
forced to have a different symbol for each object and each event, clearly we
would be in trouble. In a few hours our memories would go on overload; in no
time we would run out of words with which we “fix” these single items in our
minds and use to connect and retrieve them. So what do we do? We place
singular items in groups. All the objects/events that have common qualities we
group together into a single package with a single label. Once we have so
packaged them, we no longer have to deal with the individual objects; we deal
only with the whole package. Abstractions, that is, are the mind’s packages
that enable us to handle infinite details of experience.

An abstraction, by definition, is an idea created by the mind to refer to all

objects which, possessing certain characteristics in common, are thought of in
the same class. The number of objects in the class can range from two to
infinity. We can refer to all men, all hurricanes, all books, all energy-forms—all
everything.
Einstein: “Any fool can know. The
point is . . . to understand!”

With clarity and quiet, I look

upon the world and say: All
that I see, hear, taste, smell and
touch are the creations of my
mind.
Nikos Kazantzakis
 HOW IS KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED?

Propositional knowledge can be of two types, depending on its source:

a priori (or non-empirical), where knowledge is possible independently of, or

prior to, any experience, and requires only the use of reason (e.g. knowledge of
logical truths and of abstract claims); or

a posteriori (or empirical), where knowledge is possible only subsequent, or

posterior, to certain sense experiences, in addition to the use of reason (e.g.
knowledge of the colour or shape of a physical object, or knowledge of
geographical locations).

Knowledge of empirical facts about the physical world will necessarily involve
perception, in other words, the use of the senses. But all knowledge requires
some amount of reasoning, the analysis of data and the drawing of
inferences. Intuition is often believed to be a sort of direct access to
knowledge of the a priori.

Memory allows us to know something that we knew in the past, even, perhaps,
if we no longer remember the original justification. Knowledge can also be
transmitted from one individual to another via testimony (that is, my
justification for a particular belief could amount to the fact that some trusted
source has told me that it is true).

THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION

Empiricism, which emphasizes the role of experience, especially experience

based on perceptual observations by the five senses in the formation of
ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. Refinements of this basic
principle led to Phenomenalism, Positivism, Scientism and Logical Positivism.

A. All knowledge (or at least the most important knowledge) is based upon
sense experience -- except perhaps for mathematical and logical truths, which
are based upon analysis and comparison of ideas which themselves originate in
sense experience.  (Some so-called empiricists allow for non-sensory
experience, but most exclude it.)

B. What is known is changeable, of questionable universality, contingent (not

necessary), and to some extent uncertain.  While mathematical and logical
truths are certain and unchanging, they are trivial because they tell us nothing
of vital importance about reality.
C. Knowledge about the world (i.e., about reality beyond the mind) is
discovered by empirical research (i.e., by observation, generalization, and
experimentation), not by reason operating independently from sense
perception.

D. With regard to universals (general categories and principles,

purportedly universal, unchanging, and necessary), most
empiricists take a nominalist position -- namely, that universals
are constructions and interpretations having no objective reality
outside of the mind.

Rationalism, which holds that knowledge is not derived from experience, but
rather is acquired by a priori processes or is innate (in the form of concepts)
or intuitive.

A. True knowledge (or at least the most important knowledge) is essentially

independent of sensory experience.  Some speak of it as involving a non-
sensory form of experience (intuitive acquaintance).

B. What is thus known is changeless, universal, necessary, and therefore

certain (i.e., objectively certain, though not necessarily subjectively certain).

C. It is discovered by dialectical philosophical reasoning, not by sense

perception.   (Sense perception gives us only changeable, non-universal, non-
necessary, and uncertain truths.)  The mind therefore is not limited to the
deliverances of sense perception.

D. While logical and mathematical truths are examples, they are not the
 only or even the best examples.

E. Although Rationalists often distinguish sense perception (aisthesis) from

true knowledge (episteme), all regard sense perception as more than mere
opinion and as the source of our knowledge of tangible, physical things.

Representationalism (or Indirect Realism or Epistemological Dualism),

which holds that the world we see in conscious experience is not the real
world itself, but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an
internal representation.

Constructivism (or Constructionism), which presupposes that all knowledge is

"constructed", in that it is contingent on convention, human perception and
social experience.
Combinations or fusions of Rationalism and Empiricism are possible
 (e.g., Aristotle, Kant). Sources of Knowledge of the Forms By Means of Which
We Comprehend, Order, and Deal with the World.

     They are of four kinds (at least):

A. Transcendental norms (e.g., justice, beauty, goodness)

B. Mathematical and logical principles
C. Natural kinds (the true essences of things)
D. General properties (features of things that may or may not be essential) Not
every one of the following answers purports to account for all four kinds.

WHAT CAN PEOPLE KNOW?

The fact that any given justification of knowledge will itself depend on
another belief for its justification appears to lead to an infinite regress.

Skepticism begins with the apparent impossibility of completing this infinite

chain of reasoning, and argues that, ultimately, no beliefs are justified and
therefore no one really knows anything.

Fallibilism also claims that absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible,

or at least that all claims to knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. Unlike
Skepticism, however, Fallibilism does not imply the need to abandon our
knowledge, just to recognize that, because empirical knowledge can be
revised by further observation, any of the things we take as knowledge might
possibly turn out to be false.

In response to this regress problem, various schools of thought have arisen:

 Foundationalism claims that some beliefs that support other beliefs are
foundational and do not themselves require justification by other beliefs
(self-justifying or infallible beliefs or those based on perception or
certain a priori considerations).
 Instrumentalism is the methodological view that concepts and theories
are merely useful instruments, and their worth is measured by how
effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena.
Instrumentalism therefore denies that theories are truth-evaluable.
Pragmatism is a similar concept, which holds that something is true only
insofar as it works and has practical consequences.
 Infinitism typically take the infinite series to be merely potential, and
an individual need only have the ability to bring forth the relevant
reasons when the need arises. Therefore, unlike most traditional
 theories of justification, Infinitism considers an infinite regress to be a
valid justification.
 Coherentism holds that an individual belief is justified circularly by the
way it fits together (coheres) with the rest of the belief system of which it
is a part, so that the regress does not proceed according to a pattern of
linear justification.
 Foundherentism is another position which is meant to be a unification
of foundationalism and coherentism.