In the study of knowledge, methodism refers to the
epistemological
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
approach where one asks "How do we know?" before "What do we know?" The term appears in
Roderick Chisholm
Roderick Milton Chisholm (; November 27, 1916 – January 19, 1999) was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, and the philosophy of perception.
The '' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso ...
's "
The Problem of the Criterion", and in the work of his student,
Ernest Sosa
Ernest Sosa (born June 17, 1940) is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University.
Educa ...
("The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge"). Methodism is contrasted with
particularism, which answers the latter question before the former.
Since the question "How do we know?" does not presuppose that we know, it is receptive to skepticism. In this way, Sosa claims,
Hume no less than
Descartes was an epistemological methodist.
References
*''The Raft and the Pyramid'', by Ernest Sosa
See also
*
Methodology
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
Epistemological theories
Philosophical methodology
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