Questions tagged [epistemology]
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, acquisition thereof, and the justification of belief in a given claim.
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Should I trust my own thoughts when studying philosophy?
I sometimes find myself disagreeing with Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or other seasoned philosophers. However, I am scared to trust my own thoughts lest my ideas are erroneous. I do not know ...
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Is there any philosophical theory behind the concept of object in computer science?
From - Object (computer science) - Wikipedia:
A language is usually considered object-based if it includes the basic capabilities for an object: identity, properties, and attributes. A language is ...
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I read this quote in the book A Cyborg Manifesto. Could someone explain it in layperson terms
Ambivalence towards the disrupted unities mediated by high-tech culture requires not
sorting consciousness into categories of ‘clear-sighted critique grounding a
solid political epistemology’ versus ‘...
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Are beliefs like "I am in pain" really incorrigible and basic?
I am reading about epistemology and foundationalism and I see this claim that beliefs about your own inner mental states are incorrigible and basic. But is that really so? For someone to believe the ...
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What logical fallacy is made in this argument that seems to prove that learning is futile?
To learn is to gain more knowledge.
Having more knowledge means having more that one can forget.
∴, the more one learns, the more one forgets.
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What would constitute as justification?
Follow up to this post. The question here is quite short, what would constitute as justification in regards to justified belief theory? Seems something a bit vague to me.
My main motivation to this ...
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Does Gettier paradox exist when we use deductive reasoning?
Show that 1+1+1=3
1+1+1 = (1 + (1+1)) = (1+3) =3
The mistake in the inner bracket calculation is that I considered 1+1 to be equal 3, and that of the outer bracket is that is that I considered 1 plus ...
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Can we know that we are breathing analytically/a priori?
P1: I exist (perhaps from the cogito, or just some intuition) as a human being
P2: Human beings must respirate to exist
C1: I am respirating
Surely C1 is synthetic? Or, at least, something that we ...
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What do materialists mean by 'material' ? Is it matter ? Is it energy ? What is our evidence for its existence? [closed]
Overview of relevant material views.
Evidence for existence of this material.
Role of the observer.
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Hume’s Empiricism and the Possibility of an Epistemology Grounded in Metaphysics
Was epistemology continued in metaphysics? Was the impossibility of an epistemology grounded in metaphysics made impossible by Humean empiricism in the sense that a posteriori questions of fact are ...
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Can the sexual double standard be justified according to this logic/reasoning? [closed]
The sexual double standard is a social phenomenon where the sexual value of males and females are evaluated differently, based on their sexual history with sexual partners of the opposite sex.
Given ...
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Actual content of Gettier cases
I'd not rewrite here classical Gettier cases.
Each of cases hinges on a crucial fact: after obtaining "knowledge" from observable facts via disjunctive introduction or entailment, the ...
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Is an omniscient entity self-refuting?
Consider a thought experiment involving 'something' and three individuals attempting to understand it: one person claims it is a red ball, another asserts it is a simulation, and the third insists it ...
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Relationship between basic statements of knowledge and rare exceptions
Being not a philosophy scholar, I am trying to get up to speed on the nature of statements about basic, established facts in human knowledge and how these relate to the existance of rare exceptions. ...
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In search of the history of causation in philosophical realism
My question is about the history of the concept of causality within philosophical realism and I note that there already are some posts addressing fundamental questions such as:
What would reality be ...
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Is there something a little artificial about 'miracles'?
A miracle is something that is currently inexplicable by the laws of nature: statues crying blood; the resurrection of the dead; turning water into wine; etc.. Suppose I can accurately guess the ...
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Is the idea of weak and strong evidence incoherent?
Hypotheses are either true or not. Justin is either a murderer or not. There is either a God or not.
If statements are either true or false, how can it be the case that certain forms of evidence ...
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Two ways of thinking about social reality (progressive/fluid vs conservative/structure)
Regarding topics on biological sex, gender, sexual orientation and relationships it seems there are broadly 2 ways of thinking about social reality (roughly corresponding to more progressive and more ...
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Explain how the Phenomenal Conservatism and Common Sense Privilege arguments works to justify belief in other minds
Please explain how the Phenomenal Conservatism and Common Sense Privilege argument works to justify belief in other minds.
Here it is written that it is used to justify belief in other minds, but I ...
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Why can't we have a tighter definition of what makes something necessary?
Why can’t we define 'necessary' tighter, by making it include empirical evidence of such a statement?
Everything that is agreed to be necessarily can be empirically verified. For example, if we put ...
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Methodologies for exploring philosophic assumptions in media?
I am interested in exploring the philosophic assumptions present in a video game I am currently enjoying, but I am struggling to find methodologies or works that could assist me in this endeavor.
I am ...
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What is the basis of the sunk cost fallacy?
Is the so called sunk cost fallacy truly a total fallacy, or does it have some kernel of truth? Certainly it is a widespread instinctive/impulsive form of reasoning. Presumably it must then have had ...
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Can someone explain to me what a contingent fact is?
English is not my first language and I'm trying to understand Williams Argument in "Deciding to believe" when he says that it is not possibe to bring about belief at will and that this is ...
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In which work does Wolfgang Stegmuller criticize anti-inductivism and Karl Popper?
In the introductory note to the third edition of Fact Fiction and Forecast, Nelson Goodman writes that "Wolfgang Stegmuller has corrected the notion thnat 'anti-inductivists' of the school of ...
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Can beliefs be immoral?
Suppose a white supremacist to whom non-white races are inferior. Do they commit an immoral act insofar as they verbally or physically act on what they believe? Or is the belief itself immoral?
What’s ...
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The possibility of knowledge [closed]
If a skeptic comes to argue against the possibility of Knowledge, Would you refute it? If yes, why? If not, Why?
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To what extent can one admit that language is an adequate outlet for explicit feelings and experiencings?
If I am sharing my thoughts and another person goes “oh, that’s relatable,” or “yeah, I totally get it,” and other variations like “I feel you on that one!” Do they, really? Is language ever enough, ...
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Would my argument of knowledge being a social construct be a resolution to The Problem of the Criterion?
Questions from https://iep.utm.edu/problem-of-the-criterion/:
What do we know?
How are we to decide in any particular case whether we have knowledge?
I’ve been reading into The Problem of the ...
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Seeking Clarification on the Terminology Used in Spinoza and Locke's Epistemologies
I'm currently studying the works of Spinoza and Locke and I'm struggling to fully comprehend their respective epistemologies. Specifically, I'm trying to understand the relationship between Spinoza's ...
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If an argument cannot be known as sound, can it still be claimed as sound?
I have read the the criteria to determine if an argument is sound is if its claim is valid and its premises are true.
However, what if no one can know whether or not an argument is sound because no ...
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Information surplus as a limit upon knowledge: do we 'know' too much to know enough?
I'm not quite sure how to begin looking for information about this question, which may have something to say about the question itself, but it essentially comes down to:
Has the availability of ...
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Can moral truths be known a priori or are they based on experience?
I am currently working on an essay that explores the concept of a priori knowledge and whether or not it can exist. I would love to hear any thoughts or opinions on this topic that anyone may have.
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What does Kant mean by object of the senses in relation to pure geometry?
In studying Kant I am running into a problem. Kant refers to pure geometry as only having objective reality under the condition that it refers only to objects of the senses (Prolegomena, Note I). If ...
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Is philosophy any different from emotional reasoning? [closed]
Emotional reasoning is considered a flawed form of reasoning because you essentially believe in something because you feel it to be true. But isn’t this the case for any question in philosophy?
For ...
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Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
If I experience a coincidence or a coincidence happens in the world that seems to be at extremely low odds, does this imply that God exists? If it doesn’t imply that God exists, can it at least make ...
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Can circular reasoning be logical, and can it provide support for the Bible?
Circular reasoning is a type of logical fallacy where the premise is used to prove the conclusion. A basis example would be:
This historical movie is creditable.
Why?
Because it says so.
In this ...
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Is all of philosophy unfalsifiable?
How do you know you’re wrong about anything? Without having to use underlying philosophical theories that themselves involve axioms that can’t be proved, how is someone proven wrong about quite ...
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Antiknowledge (as epistemic antigraphs)
So this essay covers the idea of "antisets," which are such as A, B such that A ∪ B = 0 (without A and B being themselves 0). This concept is extended in another essay to talk of antigraphs, ...
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How does probability constitute as knowledge in justified belief theory?
This is not the classic lottery paradox. Details of that are available at Epistemic Paradoxes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Suppose there is one lottery with 100,000 tickets and one prize. I ...
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Basic truths as self-justified or parajustified
Some foundationalists maintain that basic truths are self-justifying, which means they are allowing, in some exceptional cases at least, a form of circular reasoning; petitio principii or begging the ...
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"Truth" as a description of our cognition versus "truth" as a description of reality
In reading about the feud of foundationalism, infinitism and coherentism, there seems to be some arguments based on how cognition/reasoning works. However, an argument of the form (vaguely put by me) ...
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How can we prove that the supernatural or paranormal doesn't exist?
Agnostic theists and atheists believe themselves to be hopelessly ignorant concerning the existence of the supernatural or paranormal. To them, gnostic atheism isn't adequately supported by evidence, ...
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Is the unlearned nature of language a la Chomsky a way back into logical empiricist epistemology?
***I'm struggling to erect the supports of this question because of lack of knowledge, I hope that it makes sense and is useful and appropriate for this site.
I'm hoping there's a form of logical ...
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Multigraphs, hypergraphs, and the epistemic regress
Some definitions (from what I can tell):
A multigraph is a graph where a node can connect via multiple edges.
A hypergraph is a graph where a single edge can connect more than two nodes. ...
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Jeffreys probability problem
I'm looking for feedback on the problem below from Jeffreys' probability primer. I think (a) is 0.0009 and (b) is 1 in 1000. Is this correct?
(a) In an urn with 1000 balls, one is green and the rest ...
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Which philosophers have considered irrational conviction
It seems a characteristic of humans to be convinced about a matter in the absence of overwhelming evidence, even where logic suggests that are other valid alternative positions to take. We see this in ...
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Why is Xenophanes B34 epistemological fragment also gnoseological?
I was reading a History of Ancient Philosophy (from the National Research council in Spain, CSIC) book where the following Xenophanes' fragment B34 is classified as gnoseological, without further ...
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Does philosophy rely on intuitions? If so, does this mean all of philosophy is nothing more than hunches?
Does philosophy rely on intuitions? If so, and all of philosophy comes down to intuition, how can one person be deemed to be more rational than other? In this world, most would agree that you cannot ...
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What is the source of authority of epistemic deontology?
Many epistemologists speak of ‘epistemic deontology’, the view that we have a duty to epistemically justify what we believe, and that it is impermissible to believe without proper justification. Some ...
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How do we use topology to model knowledge?
The topology of knowledge: In this application, topological spaces are used to model the structure of knowledge, where the open sets correspond to coherent bodies of knowledge and the closure ...
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