The branch of philosophy that studies knowledge itself: what it is, how it differs from mere belief, and how, if at all, it can be justified. The classical analysis treats knowledge as justified true belief, a formula traced to Plato's Theaetetus, though Edmund Gettier's 1963 counterexamples showed that justified true belief can still fall short of knowledge, opening a live debate over what a fourth condition would have to add. Epistemology also asks where knowledge comes from: rationalists such as Descartes held that reason alone can establish some truths, while empiricists such as Locke and Hume held that all substantive knowledge of the world must ultimately trace back to sense experience. Scepticism, the challenge that we may know far less than we assume, runs through the branch from Pyrrho to Descartes' own methodical doubt.
Facts
Disputed
Key DebateInternalism versus externalism about justification: internalists hold that what justifies a belief must be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, on reflection alone, while externalists such as reliabilists hold that a belief can be justified by standing in a reliable relation to the world, such as ordinary perception, that the believer need not be aware of at all. 1 Whether justification is a matter of the believer's own accessible reasons or can be conferred by a reliable process the believer need not be aware of divides epistemologists into internalist and externalist camps. Key DebateThe Gettier problem: Edmund Gettier's 1963 counterexamples showed that a belief can be justified and true purely by luck without amounting to knowledge, so justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge; the search for a fourth condition, or a wholly different analysis of knowledge, remains open more than sixty years later. 1 Edmund Gettier's 1963 three-page paper overturned a definition of knowledge many philosophers had treated as settled, and the search for a replacement has not converged. Central QuestionWhat can we know, and how do we know it? 1 Key DebateRationalism versus empiricism: whether substantive knowledge can be reached by reason alone, as Descartes argues from the cogito, or requires grounding in sense experience, as Locke argues against any innate ideas. 1 Epistemology
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Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Academic Skepticism is classified as an epistemological school: its central concern is the possibility and limits of knowledge (the New Academy's suspension of judgment on the criterion of truth).
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Problem of Induction (Wikipedia)
Source Problem of the Criterion (Wikipedia)
Purva Mimamsa is centrally an epistemology of Vedic exegesis: it systematizes the pramanas (valid means of knowledge) for interpreting scriptural injunctions.
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Ancient Skepticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Reliabilist Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sophism's defining thesis (Protagoras's "man is the measure of all things") is an epistemological relativism about truth and knowledge.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Tabula Rasa (Wikipedia)
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Open Questions
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source The Analysis of Knowledge (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Sources
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informationentry: Epistemology
The term "epistemology" comes from the Greek words "episteme" and "logos". "Episteme" can be translated as "knowledge" or "understanding" or "acquaintance", while "logos" can be translated as "account" or "argument" or "reason".
- s.v. Epistemology
- entry: Rene Descartes; entry: John Locke
- s.v. The Analysis of Knowledge
- s.v. Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic Justification
- Includes: Plato
- Includes: Immanuel Kant
- Includes: David Hume
- Includes: The Critique of Pure Reason
- Includes: The Problem of Induction
- Includes: John Locke
- Includes: Socrates
- Includes: Rene Descartes
- Includes: Rationalism, s.v. Rationalism vs. Empiricism
- Includes: Empiricism, s.v. Rationalism vs. Empiricism
- Associated With: Plato, entry: Epistemology; Plato's Theaetetus
- Includes: Pyrrho of Elis
View the Source Epistemology (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroductionQuote, Introduction
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called the theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge.
Ancient Skepticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Includes: Pyrrhonism
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Includes: Nyaya, entry: Nyaya, IntroductionQuote, Includes: Nyaya, entry: Nyaya, Introduction
Epistemologically, Nyaya develops a sophisticated precursor to contemporary reliabilism (particularly process reliabilism), centered on the notion of knowledge-sources (pramana).
Tabula Rasa (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Tabula Rasa, IntroductionQuote, Includes: Tabula Rasa, Introduction
Tabula rasa; Latin for "blank slate"
Problem of Induction (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Problem of Induction, Lead sectionQuote, Includes: Problem of Induction, Lead section
The problem of induction is a philosophical problem that questions the rationality of predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations.
Reliabilist Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Reliabilism, Reliabilist Epistemology (SEP), introductionQuote, Includes: Reliabilism, Reliabilist Epistemology (SEP), introduction
According to the reliabilist approach to epistemology, any adequate account will need to mention the reliability of the process responsible for the belief, or truth-conducive considerations more generally.
Problem of the Criterion (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Problem of the Criterion, Problem of the criterion (Wikipedia), introductionQuote, Includes: Problem of the Criterion, Problem of the criterion (Wikipedia), introduction
In the field of epistemology, the problem of the criterion is an issue regarding the starting point of knowledge.
Open Questions (3 open questions)
What Satisfies the Missing Condition for Knowledge?
Edmund Gettier's 1963 counterexamples showed that justified true belief, the classical tripartite analysis inherited from Plato's Theaetetus, is not sufficient for knowledge: there are cases of justified true belief that still fall short of knowing. Epistemologists have proposed many candidate fourth conditions since, but the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's own survey concludes that despite considerable attention, particularly in the late twentieth century, no analysis has been widely accepted.
What would resolve this A precise, counterexample-resistant fourth condition, or a replacement analysis of knowledge altogether, that a broad consensus of epistemologists converges on rather than one that continues to generate further counterexamples.
EpistemologyThe Analysis of Knowledge (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
What must be added to, or substituted for, justified true belief for a definition of knowledge that survives Gettier-style counterexamples?
Since Edmund Gettier's 1963 paper, proposed fourth conditions (a no-false-lemmas clause, causal theories, reliabilism, safety and sensitivity conditions, virtue epistemology) have each met their own counterexamples, and no replacement analysis commands consensus.
What would resolve this An analysis of knowledge that survives every known Gettier-style case without ruling out clear cases of ordinary knowledge would resolve it; some epistemologists instead argue the project of analyzing knowledge into more basic conditions should be abandoned.
EpistemologyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Must what justifies a belief be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, or can a reliable process the believer is unaware of confer justification?
Internalists argue that a justification a thinker cannot access from the inside cannot be doing any justifying work for that thinker; externalists reply that small children and animals plainly have justified perceptual beliefs despite being unable to reflect on their own reliability. Neither side has produced a case the other accepts as decisive.
What would resolve this A shared account of what justification is FOR, whether it is about the thinker's own responsible believing or about tracking truth, would settle which condition is required; the two camps currently start from different accounts of that point.
EpistemologyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dissenting Readings (2 dissenting readings)
Key Debate
Williamson rejects the entire project of analyzing knowledge into justified true belief plus a further condition: on his knowledge-first view, knowledge is itself the most basic mental state, not a compound built from belief, truth and justification, so Gettier cases show only that the analytic project was misconceived from the start, not that it merely needs a fourth condition.
A dissenting reading, from Timothy WilliamsonStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Information
Key Debate
Goldman argues that reliabilism, an externalist theory on which a belief is justified when produced by a process that reliably yields true beliefs, better matches ordinary judgments about knowledge than internalism does: a subject with no access at all to why their perception is reliable, a small child, for instance, is still credited with justified perceptual beliefs, which internalism's access requirement cannot easily accommodate.
A dissenting reading, from Alvin GoldmanStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Information
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Gettier problem, and why does it matter for the definition of knowledge?
In 1963 Edmund Gettier showed that a belief can be justified and true purely by luck without counting as knowledge, so justified true belief is not enough to define knowledge, and philosophers are still looking for what else is needed.
For centuries philosophers defined knowledge as justified true belief. In 1963 Edmund Gettier published counterexamples showing a person could hold a belief that was both justified and true, yet only by luck, in a way that did not seem to amount to real knowledge. That showed justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge on its own. More than sixty years later, philosophers are still searching for a fourth condition to add, or for a wholly different analysis of what knowledge actually is.
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