LESSON 2: EPISTEMOLOGY
Basic Questions: Can man know the truth?
Is truth relative or Objective?
Is human knowledge reliable?
What is Epistemology?
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which studies the possibility, origins, nature, and scope of human knowledge. The word "epistemology" originated from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech).
Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of justification? What makes justified beliefs justified? Is justification internal or external to one's own mind? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.
What is Knowledge?
Knowledge is the information of which a person, organization or other entity is aware. Knowledge is gained either by experience, learning and perception or through association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.
The unreliability of memory limits the certainty of knowledge about the past, while unpredictability of events yet to occur limits the certainty of knowledge about the future.
Descartes defines knowledge in terms of doubt. While distinguishing rigorous knowledge (scientia) and lesser grades of conviction (persuasio), Descartes writes:
I distinguish the two as follows: there is conviction when there remains some reason which might lead us to doubt, but knowledge is conviction based on a reason so strong that it can never be shaken by any stronger reason.
While answering a challenge as to whether he succeeds in founding such knowledge, Descartes writes:
But since I see that you are still stuck fast in the doubts which I put forward in the First Meditation, and which I thought I had very carefully removed in the succeeding Meditations, I shall now expound for a second time the basis on which it seems to me that all human certainty can be founded.
First of all, as soon as we think that we correctly perceive something, we are spontaneously convinced that it is true. Now if this conviction is so firm that it is impossible for us ever to have any reason for doubting what we are convinced of, then there are no further questions for us to ask: we have everything that we could reasonably want. … For the supposition which we are making here is of a conviction so firm that it is quite incapable of being destroyed; and such a conviction is clearly the same as the most perfect certainty.
On the other hand Plato defines knowledge through three ideas:
1. “Knowledge is nothing other than perception” (aisthêsis).
3. “Knowledge is “true belief with an account” (meta logou alêthê doxan)
Socrates claimed that knowledge was "the art of love" which he connected with the concept of "the love of wisdom."
The Importance of Epistemology
Epistemology is important because it is fundamental to how we think. Without some means of understanding how we acquire knowledge, how we rely upon our senses, and how we develop concepts in our minds, we have no coherent path for our thinking. A sound epistemology is necessary for the existence of sound thinking and reasoning — this is why so much philosophical literature can involve seemingly arcane discussions about the nature of knowledge. Unfortunately, atheists who frequently debate questions that derive from differences in how people approach knowledge aren't always familiar with this subject.
Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.
Epistemology is the investigation into the grounds and nature of knowledge itself. The study of epistemology focuses on our means for acquiring knowledge and how we can differentiate between truth and falsehood. Modern epistemology generally involves a debate between rationalism and empiricism, or the question of whether knowledge can be acquired a priori or a posteriori:
The term epistemology was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864). In the self-evident truths concerning knowing and the known discussed in the Epistemology or Theory of Knowing Ferrier is thought to have coined the term epistemology in this work. It explains that the fact that any intelligence, in addition to knowing whatever it knows, must as the ground or condition of its knowledge have some cognizance of itself is the basis of the whole philosophical system. In addition, the only possible kind of knowable is one which is both known of an object and known by a subject (Object + Subject, or Thing + Intelligence). This leads to the conclusion that the only independent universe which any mind can think of is the universe in synthesis with some other mind or ego.
Epistemology, Truth, and Why We Believe What We Believe:
Atheists and theists differ in what they believe: theists believe in some god, atheists do not. Although their reasons for believing or not believing vary, it's common for atheists and theists to also differ in what they consider to be appropriate criteria for truth and, therefore, the proper criteria for a reasonable belief. Theists commonly rely upon criteria like tradition, custom, revelation, faith, and intuition. Atheists common reject these criteria in favor of correspondence, coherence, and consistency. Without discussing these different approaches, debates over what ones believes are unlikely to go very far.
Why Does Epistemology Matter to Atheism?
Many debates between atheist and theists revolve around fundamental issues which people don't recognize or never get around to discussing. Many of these are epistemological in nature: in disagreeing about whether it's reasonable to believe in the existence of god, to believe in miracles, to accept revelation and scriptures as authoritative, and so forth, atheists and theists are ultimately disagreeing about basic epistemological principles. Without understanding this and understanding the various epistemological positions, people will just end up talking past each other.
A. EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES
It is common for epistemological theories to avoid skepticism by adopting a foundationalist approach. To do this, they argue that certain types of statements have a special epistemological status — that of not needing to be justified. So it is possible to classify epistemological theories according to the type of statement that each argues has this special status.
1. Empiricism
Empiricists claim knowledge is a product of human experience. Statements of observations take pride of place in empiricist theory. Naïve empiricism holds simply that our ideas and theories need to be tested against reality and accepted or rejected on the basis of how well they correspond to observed facts. The central problem for epistemology then becomes explaining this correspondence, for any knowledge to be properly inferred or deduced, it is to be gained ultimately from one's sense-based experience.
Empiricism is associated with science. While there can be little doubt about the effectiveness of science, there is much philosophical debate about how and why science works. The Scientific Method was once favored as the reason for scientific success, but recently difficulties in the philosophy of science have led to a rise in Coherentism.
Empiricism is sometimes associated with a tradition called Logical empiricism, or positivism, which places higher emphasis on ideas about reality rather than on experiences of reality.
2. Idealism
Idealism is a theory of reality and of knowledge that attributes to consciousness, or the immaterial mind, a primary role in the constitution of the world. More narrowly, within metaphysics, idealism is the view that all physical objects are mind-dependent and can have no existence apart from a mind that is conscious of them. This view is contrasted with materialism, which maintains that consciousness itself is reducible to purely physical elements and processes—thus, according to the materialistic view, the world is entirely mind-independent, composed only of physical objects and physical interactions.
It holds that what we refer to and perceive as the external world is in some way an artifice of the mind. Analytic statements (for example, mathematical truths), are held to be true without reference to the external world, and these are taken to be exemplary knowledge statements. George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel held various idealist views. Idealism is itself a metaphysical thesis, but has important epistemological consequences.
a. PLATO
In the 5th and 4th centuries bc, Plato postulated the existence of a realm of Ideas that the varied objects of common experience imperfectly reflect. He maintained that these ideal Forms are not only more clearly intelligible but also more real than the transient and essentially illusory objects themselves (see Plato: Theory of Forms).
b. GEORGE BERKELEY and EMMANUEL KANT
Eighteenth-century Irish philosopher George Berkeley speculated that all aspects of everything of which one is conscious are actually reducible to the ideas present in the mind. The observer does not conjure external objects into existence, however; the true ideas of them are caused in the human mind directly by God. Eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant greatly refined idealism through his critical inquiry into what he believed to be the limits of possible knowledge. Kant held that all that can be known of things is the way in which they appear in experience; there is no way of knowing what they are substantially in themselves. He also held, however, that the fundamental principles of all science are essentially grounded in the constitution of the mind rather than being derived from the external world.
c. GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
Nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel disagreed with Kant's theory concerning the inescapable human ignorance of what things are in themselves, instead arguing for the ultimate intelligibility of all existence. Hegel also maintained that the highest achievements of the human spirit (culture, science, religion, and the state) are not the result of naturally determined processes in the mind, but are conceived and sustained by the dialectical activity (see Dialectic) of free, reflective intellect. Further strains of idealistic thought can be found in the works of 19th-century Germans Johann Gottlieb Fichte and F. W. J. Schelling, 19th-century Englishman F. H. Bradley, 19th-century Americans Charles Sanders Peirce and Josiah Royce, and 20th-century Italian Benedetto Croce.
3. Naïve realism
Naïve realism, or Common-Sense realism is the belief that there is a real external world, and that our perceptions are caused directly by that world. It has its foundation in causation in that an object being there causes us to see it. Thus, it follows, the world remains as it is when it is perceived - when it is not being perceived - a room is still there once we exit. The opposite theory to this is solipsism. Naïve realism fails to take into account the psychology of perception.
The naïve realist theory may be characterized as the acceptance of the following 5 beliefs:
- "There exists a world of material objects.
- Statements about these objects can be known to be true through sense-experience.
- These objects exist not only when they are being perceived but also when they are not perceived. The objects of perception are largely perception-independent.
- These objects are also able to retain properties of the types we perceive them as having, even when they are not being perceived. Their properties are perception-independent.
- By means of our senses, we perceive the world directly, and pretty much as it is. In the main, our claims to have knowledge of it are justified.
4. Phenomenalism
Phenomenalism is a development from George Berkeley's claim that to be is to be perceived. According to phenomenalism, when you see a tree, you see a certain perception of a brown shape, when you touch it, you get a perception of pressure against your palm. On this view, one shouldn't think of objects as distinct substances, which interact with our senses so that we may perceive them; rather we should conclude that all that really exists is the perception itself.
5. Pragmatism
Pragmatism about knowledge holds that what is important about knowledge is that it solves certain problems that are constrained both by the world and by human purposes. The place of knowledge in human activity is to resolve the problems that arise in conflicts between belief and action. Pragmatists are also typically committed to the use of the experimental method in all forms of inquiry, a non-skeptical fallibilism about our current store of knowledge, and the importance of knowledge proving itself through future testing.
6. Rationalism
Rationalists believe that there are a priori or innate ideas that are not derived from sense experience. These ideas, however, may be justified by experience. These ideas may in some way derive from the structure of the human mind, or they may exist independently of the mind. If they exist independently, they may be understood by a human mind once it reaches a necessary degree of sophistication.
The epitome of the rationalist view is Descartes' Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"), in which the skeptic is invited to consider that the mere fact that he doubts this claim implies that there is a doubter. Because doubting is a kind of thinking, the claim must be correct. Spinoza derived a rationalist system in which there is only one substance, God. Leibniz derived a system in which there are an infinite number of substances, his Monads.
7. Representationalism
Representationalism or Representative realism, unlike Naïve Realism, proposes that we cannot see the external world directly, but only through our perceptual representations of it. In other words, the objects and the world that you see around you are not the world itself, but merely an internal virtual-reality replica of that world. The so-called veil of perception removes the real world from our direct inspection.
8. Relativism
Relativism as advocated by Protagoras maintains that all things are true and in a constant state of flux, revealing certain aspects of truth at one time while concealing them at another. While it claims that there is no objective truth, it also holds that anything which a man can perceive is true, but not necessarily true to the next person.
9. Skepticism
When scientists or philosophers ask "Is knowledge possible?", they mean to say "Am I ever sufficiently justified in believing something in order to have knowledge?" Adherents of Philosophical skepticism often say "no". Philosophical skepticism is the position which critically examines whether the knowledge and perceptions people have is true; adherents of this position hold that one can never obtain true knowledge, since justification is never certain. This is a different position from Scientific skepticism, which is the practical stance that one should not accept the veracity of claims until solid evidence is produced.
B. CRITERIA OF TRUTH
It is of primary importance to survey the different criterion of TRUTH that philosophers employed in their search. In the course of time, aside from faith, culture, time, mythology etc., philosophers have developed and made use of different criteria.. Some of these are still employed up to the present. Below are some of these criteria:
- Naïve realism – the belief that reality is precisely what as it appear to be. It adheres to the tenet “ seeing is believing”
- Feelings- the belief that what one feels is the truth and that the best criterion of truth is a hunch.
- Custom and tradition- this is used by many as a criterion of truth particularly in matters pertaining to morals, politics, dress etc. If something is in accordance with customs and traditions then it is taken as true.
- Time- is regarded as an excellent test if not the final test of truth. Whatever stood the test of time is considered as true.
- Intuition- “truth that comes from one knows not where”. It is not a test of truth but a source of truth
- Revelation-“Truth which comes from God” . A source of truth and not a test of it
- Instinct- What is instinctive must by virtue of that fact be true since nature deem it so. But most knowledge is beyond the bounds of instinct. It is not therefore a test of truth
- Majority, Plurality, Consensus Gentium- The number of people who believes in the truth determines its truthfulness. but truth is not necessarily dependent on how many believes it to be true
- Authority- certain individual who has mastered a field of study may be considered as a criterion of truth but authority gives only opinions which may be true or maybe false
10.Correspondence- a belief that when an idea agrees with its
object, it is proof of its truth. However, it is a definition of
truth not a criterion
11.Pragmatism- If an idea works then it is true.
12.Consistency- means the absence of contradiction. If ideas
don’t contain any contradiction then it must be true.
13.Coherence- a systematic consistent explanation of all the facts
of experience. Its technical name is reason. This is considered to be the ultimate criterion of truth
C. THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE: Can Humans know? What can we know?
a. Rationalist Position
1. Plato- through Socrates in the dialogue called Meno
- we cannot acquire knowledge through learning
- any knowledge that we can have we must already know
- we remember what we already know
- all the knowledge of forms or universals are already in our minds.
Sources of knowledge according to Plato:
- knowledge cannot come from experience nor from education, since it is already in us
- knowledge is within us when we were born
Plato’s kinds of knowledge
1. visible
-images or shadows
-opinions
2. Intelligible-platonic ideas
-lower level -Platonic ideas used as hypotheses without understanding their nature
-highest level- complete knowledge, when one knows the platonic idea, fully aware of it and understanding its nature
Education for Plato does not actually teach the future philosopher-kings instead it trains them to recollect the knowledge that is and always has been with in him
Steps in recollecting knowledge
step 1: leads them to realize the inadequacy of sense
information and to notice the recurrence of
certain oddities in the visible world. Knowledge through the use of reason
step 2: consist of training the mind to deal with
abstraction, to reason about universals or form, to do this the student is trained in arithmetic
step 3: geometry
step 4: complete liberation from the shadows of the
cave through the study of dialectic
Plato’s Dialectic-The process of examining one's hypothesis and assumption and concept until one had arrived at full and complete understanding of them
2. Rene Descartes
-Man is capable of discovering absolutely true knowledge
-The quest for certainty should start with a doubt- Cartesian doubt
-The certainty of existence- a starting point for justifying the entire structure of human knowledge
-I think therefore I am ( cogito ergo sum)
-Condition of truth- clarity and distinctiveness
-clear- present and apparent to the thinking mind
-distinct- is that which is so precise and different from everything else, that it contains nothing within itself but what is clear
- innate ideas which cannot comes from experience such as God and mathematical objects
-the faculty of judgment functions reliably in relation to the clear and distinct innate ideas that God has implanted in us
b. The Empirical Position
1. John Locke
-Denial of innate ideas:
-the mind is a “white paper” void of any characters and without any ideas
-all things anybody knows comes from experience
-knowledge comes through the senses or by reflection
-the most basic elements of knowledge are simple ideas
-primary qualities-items in our experience which must belong to the objects that we are experiencing. Ex. Sizes and shapes
-secondary qualities- the power to produce various sensations in us by the primary qualities-color
-simple ideas constantly appear together and always seem conjoined, we presume that these ideas belong to one thing
Kinds of knowledge
1. inspection of tax or more ideas to see if they are identical or different
2. the discovery that two or more ideas are related to each other
3. the discovery of the co-existence of two or more ideas or that two or more ideas belong together or go together
4. the discovery whether or not any of our ideas are experiences of something that exists outside of our mind, that is they are ideas of some real existence
Degree of knowledge and assurance:
1. intuitive knowledge- by simply looking at two or more ideas, we see immediately that something is true about them
2. demonstration-connecting the ideas we are comparing with some others before we can come to any knowledge not as reliable as intuitive knowledge but can give no assurance
3. sensitive knowledge-which are relied on by nearly everyone-it assures us of the actual existence of particular things. It may be false but it is sufficient for our ordinary purpose
Limitation of knowledge:
1. intuitive knowledge- about our real existence
2. demonstrative knowledge- God’s existence
3. for anything else we have sensitive knowledge
-We can never be absolutely sure that somethings have to happen and others cannot happen…any science that man can develop must always fall short of complete certainty
2. George Berkeley
-the existence of things consists in their being perceived “esse est percepi” (to be is to be perceived)
-Immaterialism- things are only the ideas we have of them
-the real things of the world are only the ideas that we have and there is “no independently existing material object”
-the information that I gain through my senses is accurate information about the
ideas in God’s mind, and consists of true knowledge about real things
-theory of notion- in addition to the ideas in our mind, there are also other items called notions. The basic notion is our awareness of ourselves
-we also develop a notion of God, as the omnipresent spirit, who thinks and perceives all the ideas
-it is through notion that we learn about the structure of the world
3. David Hume
Hume claimed in the “Treatise of Human Nature” that:
1. at the outset that what is to be examined is the mental nature of human beings, their psychology, in order to see the actual process by which our alleged knowledge develops
2. everything that we are aware can be classified as impressions and ideas
3. with regard to our ideas, we have two faculties: memory and imagination
4. knowledge consists of information that can be gained from inspection of two or more ideas
5. resemblance and difference between two ideas are intuitive and certain
6. as to causality between two ideas we can only have uncertainty
7. what we perceive are merely constant conjunction
8. every knowledge of causality depends upon the principle of the uniformity of nature but we can never be sure if this law will be true in the future
9. But why believe it? We believe it due to a psychological custom or habit. Only the associated ideas are thought of with “force and vivacity”
10. Hume concluded with complete skepticism about the possibility of human beings knowing anything about the universe
11. We are aware of impressions with no necessary relation to each other
12. thus knowledge or even the philosophy one believes is a matter of taste and of habits and customs.
No comments:
Post a Comment