Questions tagged [epistemology]
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, acquisition thereof, and the justification of belief in a given claim.
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Even though we close our eyes, can we perceive a place?
Even though we close our eyes, can we perceive place?
For example, if we close our eyes, we see darkness and black color, then do we see dark place and black place?
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How can materialists make claims?
I dont have all the modern philosophical terms down, but I cannot see how materialists/physicalists can make any claims. If there is nothing but physical universe, then there is no “truth”. Actually ...
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Is it possible to trust Historical Testimonies Information coming from only biased sources? [closed]
Suppose, person A is an expert/member of a particular historical field/community B. Naturally all the historical information we will get from him will be biased. If no opposite party/claims are found ...
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What did Kant mean by “objects” and how do they relate to intutions and concepts?
I am trying to understand Kant's taxonomy of ideas (or "representations") and I am stuck on his meaning of "intuition", in particular, whether or not the object of an intuition ...
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Why do equivalent propositions sometimes differ in apparency?
I study maths, and I have found that a useful way of thinking about two propositions A and B being equivalent is to regard them as being two different ways of saying the same thing, or equivalently, ...
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According to some epistemologists, what bias leads to the Occam's razor?
According to some epistemologists, what bias leads to the Occam's razor? The Occam's razor seems like a bias, because the thinking that the simplest thing should be favored seem to imply something ...
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I read lots of introduction books about philosophy, now I want to learn more. Reccomend some books thar are not too basic or too advanced
What should I read?
Should I read the books philosophers themselves wrote or the ones that is written by someone else???
I don't want books that only give introduction. I read lots of easy ...
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what part of philosophy studies the ideas of (individual, attribute, proposition, argument, theory, and science)?
There is the idea of individual and attribute, after there is the idea of proposition, with that we can do arguments. After the idea of proposition is the idea of theory and after the idea of science, ...
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Are moral justifications considered to be epistemologically justified knowledge?
Are moral justifications considered to be epistemologically justified knowledge? Moral justifications don't refer to an objective truth, so I am wondering if these subjective truths can be considered ...
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Infiniherentism?
Foundherentism is a proposed solution to the regress problem advanced by Susan Haack. She uses an analogy with crossword puzzles to describe this proposal. This seems to imply a plurality of epistemic ...
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The structure of the epistemic regress
I just read this essay on coherentism, and it resonated with a question I have about reconciling foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism. The gist of the essay is that there are graph-theoretic ...
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Hume's induction using circularity fallacy
Hello everyone, i was going through this reading of a book in which it present Hume's induction wrong using circularity . I was trying to find some error in it as given there but could not pinpoint ...
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Can we say that human beings are behaving more and more like machines?
In all societies people complied to some behavioral expectation. In the middle age for instance people felt that they were assigned by God their position in society, and they would comply to the ...
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When can we have certainty in what we claim to know?
This is a question that my friends asked me a few times. I am confused, because I have been trying to answer this question myself, but I can't seem to come up with any valid answer. For example, what ...
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Questions about consistency and double standards
I'd actually would like to share some thoughts on the topics mentioned in the title so someone could tell me if I missed anything (it's an "is it really that?" type of question).
Are ...
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Is Occam's Razor a Prior?
In Bayesian statistics, the posterior probability of a hypothesis is composed of two parts:
the prior, reflecting our initial belief in a certain hypothesis, and
the likelihood, which represents how ...
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Do different elements of logic have different epistemological strength?
Do different elements of logic have different epistemological strength? By epistemological strength, I mean epistemological certainty or the certainty the concept is true and grounded on truth. For ...
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What are the prerequisites for knowing something?
I want to get some references, expand and check mi intuitions. I think the epistemological prerequisites to know something are by order:
an external reality, which is stable to a minimum degree so ...
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Are the premises of deductive arg's. founded upon inductive cases?…help is what I am in need of
Let's take this example of a deductive argument:
P1: Monkeys like bananas.
P2: Lucy is a monkey.
C: Therefore, Lucy likes bananas.
Disregarding whether this argument is true or false, how does one ...
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What makes a fallacy… a fallacy?
According to Wikipedia, a fallacy is "the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or 'wrong moves' in the construction of an argument". I'm curious, however, about how are some things ...
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Paraepistemic logic?
Suppose a u-operator for "it is understood that" and a k-operator for "it is known that"; let S stand for various sentences. Here are some possible rules for relating these:
uS → ...
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Understanding, knowledge, and analytic truth
I read through this SEP article and wondered about the possibility of "understanding logic" vs. epistemic logic. One difference I could see would be that uS wouldn't necessarily be factive, ...
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Is the epistemic regress infinite or finite?
Is the epistemic regress infinite or finite? It is often assumed to be infinite, but was there any discussion about how some epistemic regress may not be infinite in certain cases, or a endpoint where ...
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Bostrom's probabilistic argument for simulation
I am reading Bostrom's famous paper "Are you living in a computer simulation?", but I can't understand his probabilistic reasoning.
Why does he define the fraction of observers that live in ...
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Is this a case of JTB that may be true, but not knowledge?
Belief: P != NP
True? Maybe.
Justification: Experimental evidence
Basically the justification for the belief is that despite lots of research nobody has managed to discover an efficient solution for ...
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How does Kant treat the sublime in the Anthropology compared with the Third Critique?
Is Kant treating the sublime consistently in the third critique and Anthropology? In other words, what are the differences being addressed in these empirical and transcendental inquires regarding the ...
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Is X = X considered to be knowledge?
Is X = X considered to be knowledge? I am wondering if a circular knowledge that doesn't state anything but state a circular fact or a redundant fact is considered to be knowledge? Is it, and if it is ...
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Is there any counterexample given against radical skepticism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_skepticism
I am thinking that simple statement such as "I am", "I think" are all beliefs that are also knowledge and conditional statements ...
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Relation premise between epistemic activity and ontological principle?
Background
I'm trying to teach myself philosophy and heads up it's not going well. A philosopher friend of mine gave me the following text (https://drive.google.com/file/d/...
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Is it possible to find a counter model for epistemic closure in Nozick's system?
The epistemic closure is that:
If S knows (if p then q) then (If S knows p then S knows q).
In Nozick's Truth-Tracking Analysis
S knows p if and only if
p is true
S believes that p
If p were false, ...
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Confirmatiom theory and background knowledge K
What is the reason behind explicitly stating the background knowledge K when discussing formal theories of confirmation?
Excluding the idea that the normal epistemologica practice always presupposes ...
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Is wisdom a priori or posteriori?
I was not sure if the distinction/emergence of wisdom from knowledge gives it any additional or different reasons for being one or the other.
So I suppose more specifically, if it helps: if wisdom is ...
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How may the terms “a priori” and “a posteriori” be used in(side) of mathematics?
This question seems either trivial or somewhat vague; let me explain further.
I apologize if I am misunderstanding the concepts or missing the point entirely; I am a mathematics student and I ...
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Fallacy by Sherlock Holmes 'Eliminate the impossible, and what remains must be the truth'
In The Sign of Four, Holmes asks Watson: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
This may be ...
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Is the statement “no form of human knowledge can justify metaphysical absolutes” self defeating?
A common objection to the statement "no form of human knowledge can justify metaphysical absolutes" is that the statement itself is a metaphysical claim.
One response is that the statement ...
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Are these valid examples of axiomatic statements?
I'm trying to understand if a couple of statements would be considered axiomatic:
Example 1: "murder is the unjustified killing of a person; if there was a murder, then a person was killed ...
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Is this argument for simulated reality really valid?
I was skimming through the wikipedia article on the simulation hypothesis and saw the following argument by Elon Musk:
If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be
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How is The Philosophical Subsector of Epistemology Exemplified in Blade Runner
so as the title suggest I am wondering how epistemology is presented in blade runner. I know that epistemology in basic terms is "how we know what we know", and that is presented through the ...
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Are there any points that can't be made without thought experiments?
Are all thought experiments simply another way to assert certain claims and examples or does it have inherent epistemological value?
Edit: is there any point that can't be made without thought ...
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Can we experimentally prove reality?
Can you experimentally prove that you are doing an experiment?
Also, can you experimentally prove the person doing the science (the scientist) exists or is real?
This is a refutational question on ...
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Defending the Unpopular: Foundationalism
Foundationalism, once considered a valid and popular philosophy, now receives nearly universal contempt. There seems to be a consensus, in both analytic and continental camps, it is dead.
Are there ...
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What was Roger Bacon's contribution to the sign-interpreter relation in semiotics?
From some of his quotes that I found on wikipedia and his SEP entries it seems that he considered essential to a sign it's relation to an interpreter and it's signified object.
Can someone flesh out ...
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Proof truth is absolute and not relative
First of all, I want to point out I am not any expert in philosophy, so this question is not based in no further readings, but only my own knowledge in logic.
Imagine I want to proof the truth is ...
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Is it there a “completely expressive” formal system / logic language?
I wonder whether it exists a formal system such that all (or a considerable number of) the others can be considered as a subsets or fragments of it.
I would say that, for instance, First-Order logic ...
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Science as an example of infinitism
In the IEP article on infinitism, §4b, an objection to infinitism called "the proof of concept objection" is described. The problem is: if potentially endless nonrepeating sequences of ...
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What is the nature of the mental images that are perceived by patients who suffer from Charles Bonnet Syndrome?
I am not sure if this question should be asked in the Philosophy or Neuroscience forum as both domains are relevant to this inquiry. Will have a go anyway.
One of the defining characteristics of CBS ...
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Why would laws of nature not be reducible to physics alone?
Is there any reason why special sciences like chemistry , biology , neuroscience and psychology would need their own immutable laws that aren't reflective of physical laws ?
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Absolute confirmation of Carnap and consistency condition
In formal epistemology, consistency condition states that:
An evidence E can't confirm both H and its negation, not-H.
Carnap states that for the concept of absolute confirmation, the consistency ...
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A broad question on Deleuze's analysis of kantian philosophy ( doctrine of faculties)
In Kant's Critical Philosophy ( Doctrine of faculties) Deleuze displays a 2-dimensional analysis of mind faculties
(1) faculties defined by the relation between the representation, the object and the ...
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Why can anything be discovered in mathematics at all?
Imagine a Perfect Mathematician that has superhuman abilities -- if you give him or her a formal foundational system for mathematics like ZFC with all the underlying logical machinery, he or she is ...
