Philosophy:Outline of epistemology

Short description: Overview of and topical guide to epistemology

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:

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

Core topics of epistemology

Main article: Philosophy:Epistemology

• Knowledge
  • Sources of knowledge (Pramana in Sanskrit)
    • Perception
    • Memory
    • Introspection
    • Inference
    • Testimony
  • Types of knowledge
    • Descriptive knowledge – "Knowledge that"
    • Procedural knowledge – "Knowledge how"
    • Knowledge by acquaintance
  • A priori and a posteriori
  • Analytic–synthetic distinction
  • Gettier problem
• Justification
  • Regress argument
    • Münchhausen trilemma
  • Theories of justification
    • Foundationalism – 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.
    • Infinitism – Beliefs are justified by infinite chains of reasons.
    • Foundherentism – Both fallible foundations and coherence are components of justification—proposed by Susan Haack.
    • Internalism and externalism – The believer must be able to justify a belief through internal knowledge (internalism), or outside sources of knowledge can be used to justify a belief (externalism).
    • Innatism – The mind is born with knowledge.
    • Reformed epistemology – Beliefs are warranted by proper cognitive function—proposed by Alvin Plantinga.
    • Evidentialism – Beliefs depend solely on the evidence for them.
    • Reliabilism – A belief is justified if it is the result of a reliable process.
    • Infallibilism – Knowledge is incompatible with the possibility of being wrong.
    • Fallibilism – Claims can be accepted even though they cannot be conclusively proven or justified.
    • Non-justificationism – Knowledge is produced by attacking claims and refuting them instead of justifying them.
  • Falsification (Falsifiability)
  • Proof (truth)
    • Standard of proof
• Truth
  • Criteria of truth
• Belief
  • Belief revision
• Virtue epistemology
  • Unity of knowledge and action

Schools of thought

• Empiricism
• Rationalism
• Epistemological skepticism
• Pragmatism
• Naturalized epistemology
• Contextualism
• Relativism
• Constructivist epistemology
• Idealism
• Bayesian epistemology
• Feminist epistemology
• Innatism
• Naïve realism
• Phenomenalism
• Positivism
• Critical rationalism

Domains of inquiry in epistemology

• Formal epistemology – subdiscipline of epistemology that uses formal methods from logic, probability theory and computability theory to elucidate traditional epistemic problems
  • Computational epistemology
• Historical epistemology – study of the historical conditions of, and changes in, different kinds of knowledge
• Meta-epistemology – metaphilosophical study of the subject, matter, methods and aims of epistemology and of approaches to understanding and structuring knowledge of knowledge itself
• Social epistemology – study of collective knowledge and the social dimensions of knowledge

Related fields

• Philosophy of science
• Sociology of knowledge

See also

• Applied epistemology
• Epistemic logic
• History of epistemology
• Personal epistemology

Further reading

• Annis, David (1978). "A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification". American Philosophical Quarterly 15: 213–219. 
• Ayer, Alfred Jules. 1936. Language, Truth, and Logic.
• BonJour, Laurence. 2002. Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Bovens, Luc & Hartmann, Stephan. 2003. Bayesian Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Butchvarov, Panayot. 1970. The Concept of Knowledge. Evanston, Northwestern University Press.
• Cohen, Stewart (1998a). "Contextualist Solutions to Epistemological Problems: Skepticism, Gettier, and the Lottery". Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (2): 289–306. doi:10.1080/00048409812348411. 
• Cohen, Stewart. 1999. "Contextualism, Skepticism, and Reasons", in Tomberlin 1999.
• Dancy, Jonathan. 1991. An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Second Edition). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-631-13622-3
• DeRose, Keith (1992). "Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15: 213–219. 
• DeRose, Keith. 1999. "Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense ", in Greco and Sosa 1999.
• Descartes, Rene. 1641. Meditations on First Philosophy
• Feldman, Richard. 1999. "Contextualism and Skepticism", in Tomberlin 1999, pp. 91–114.
• Gettier, Edmund. 1963. "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Analysis, Vol. 23, pp. 121–123. Online text .
• Greco, J. & Sosa, E. 1999. Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Blackwell Publishing.
• Harris, Errol E. 1970. Hypothesis And Perception, George Allen and Unwin, London, Reprinted 2002 Routledge, London.
• Harwood, Sterling (1989). "Taking Skepticism Seriously – And In Context". Philosophical Investigations 12 (3): 223–233. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9205.1989.tb00275.x. 
• Hay, Clare. 2008. The Theory of Knowledge: A Coursebook, The Lutterworth Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-7188-3088-5
• Hawthorne, John. 2005. "The Case for Closure", Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Peter Sosa and Matthias Steup (ed.): 26–43.
• Hendricks, Vincent F. 2006. Mainstream and Formal Epistemology, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Kant, Immanuel. 1781. Critique of Pure Reason.
• Keeton, Morris T. 1962. "Empiricism", in Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, pp. 89–90.
• Kirkham, Richard. 1984. "Does the Gettier Problem Rest on a Mistake?" Mind, 93.
• Klein, Peter. 1981. Certainty: a Refutation of Skepticism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Kyburg, H.E. 1961. Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
• Korzybski, Alfred. 1994 (1933). Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Fifth Edition. Ft. Worth, TX: Institute of General Semantics.
• Lennon, Kathleen, ed (2012-10-12) (in en). Knowing the Difference : Feminist Perspectives in Epistemology. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203216125. ISBN 978-1-134-87791-1. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781134877911. 
• Lewis, David (1996). "Elusive Knowledge". Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (4): 549–567. doi:10.1080/00048409612347521. 
• Morin, Edgar. 1986. La Méthode, Tome 3, La Connaissance de la connaissance (Method, 3rd volume : The knowledge of knowledge)
• Morton, Adam. 2002. A Guide Through the Theory of Knowledge (Third Edition) Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-4051-0012-5
• Nelson, Quee. 2007. The Slightest Philosophy, Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 296 pages.
• Niiniluoto, Ilkka. 2002. Critical Scientific Realism, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
• Plato. Meno.
• Popper, Karl R. 1972. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
• Preyer, G./Siebelt, F./Ulfig, A. 1994. Language, Mind and Epistemology, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Russell, Bertrand. 1912. The Problems of Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Russell, Bertrand. 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Nottingham: Spokesman Books.
• Santayana, George. 1923. Scepticism and Animal Faith, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons – London: Constable and Co.
• Spir, African. 1877. Denken und Wirklichkeit: Versuch einer Erneuerung der kritischen Philosophie (Thought and Reality: Attempt at a Renewal of Critical Philosophy), (Second Edition) Leipzig: J.G. Findel.
• Schiffer, Stephen (1996). "Contextualist Solutions to Skepticism". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96: 317–333. doi:10.1093/aristotelian/96.1.317. 
• Steup, Matthias. 2005. "Knowledge and Skepticism", Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Peter Sosa and Matthias Steup (eds.): 1–13.
• Tomberlin, James (ed.). 1999. Philosophical Perspectives 13, Epistemology, Blackwell Publishing.
• Turri, John (2016). Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion: An Essay in Philosophical Science. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Open Book Publishers. doi:10.11647/OBP.0083. ISBN 978-1-78374-183-0. http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/397/knowledge-and-the-norm-of-assertion--an-essay-in-philosophical-science. Retrieved 21 April 2016. 
• Wagner, Pierre (2002). "Introduction". in Pierre Wagner (in fr). Les Philosophes et la science. Folio-essais. Paris: Éditions Gallimard. pp. 9–65. ISBN 9782070416257. 
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Frank P. Ramsey and C.K. Ogden (trns.), Dover. Online text .

External links

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles

• Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Bayesian Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Evolutionary Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Naturalized Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Social Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Virtue Epistemology entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Knowledge How entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles

• "Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/Epistemo. 
• "Coherentism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/coherent. 
• "Contextualism in Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/contextu. 
• "Epistemic Circularity". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/ep-circ. 
• "Epistemic Justification". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/epi-just. 
• "Epistemology of Perception". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/epis-per. 
• "Ethnoepistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethno-ep. 
• "Evolutionary Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/evo-epis. 
• "Fallibilism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallibil. 
• "Feminist Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/fem-epis. 
• "Infinitism in Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/inf-epis. 
• "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/int-ext. 
• "Moral Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/mor-epis. 
• "Naturalistic Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/nat-epis. 
• "Virtue Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/virtueep. 
• "Understanding in Epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/understa. 

Encyclopædia Britannica

• Epistemology by Avrum Stroll and A.P. Martinich

Other links

• The London Philosophy Study Guide offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject: Epistemology & Methodology
• Outline of epistemology at PhilPapers
• Knowledge-How at Philpapers
• Outline of epistemology at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
• What Is Epistemology? – a brief introduction to the topic by Keith DeRose.
• Epistemology Introduction, Part 1 and Part 2 by Paul Newall at the Galilean Library.
• Teaching Theory of Knowledge (1986) – Marjorie Clay (ed.), an electronic publication from The Council for Philosophical Studies.
• An Introduction to Epistemology by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
• A Summary of Sunni Epistemology A concise and accessible introduction to epistemology in the Muslim world for laymen