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

Epistemology 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. Epis ...

or theory of knowledge – branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...

. The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher

James Frederick Ferrier James Frederick Ferrier (16 June 1808 – 11 June 1864) was a Scottish metaphysical writer and philosopher. He introduced the word ''epistemology'' in philosophical English, as well as coining agnoiology for the study of ignorance. Education ...

(1808–1864).Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007 Epistemology asks the questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", and "What do people know?"

Core topics of epistemology

Knowledge Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...

Gettier problem The Gettier problem, in the field of epistemology, is a landmark philosophical problem concerning the understanding of descriptive knowledge. Attributed to American philosopher Edmund Gettier, Gettier-type counterexamples (called "Gettier-cases") ...

** Sources of knowledge ***

Perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

***

Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

***

Introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...

*** Inference ***

Testimony In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. Etymology The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness. ...

** Types of knowledge ***

Descriptive knowledge In epistemology, descriptive knowledge (also known as propositional knowledge, knowing-that, declarative knowledge, or constative knowledge) is knowledge that can be expressed in a declarative sentence or an indicative proposition. "Knowing-that" c ...

- "Knowledge that" *** Procedural knowledge - "Knowledge how" *** Knowledge by acquaintance **

A priori and a posteriori ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ...

** Analytic-synthetic distinction **

Internalism and externalism Internalism and externalism are two opposite ways of integration of explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning, and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of d ...

* Justification ** Foundationalism – Self-evident basic beliefs justify other non-basic beliefs. **

Coherentism In philosophical epistemology, there are two types of coherentism: the coherence theory of truth; and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism). Coherent truth is divided between an anthropological approach, wh ...

– 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 Infinitism is the view that knowledge may be justified by an infinite chain of reasons. It belongs to epistemology, the branch of philosophy that considers the possibility, nature, and means of knowledge. Epistemological infinitism Since Getti ...

** Regress argument *

Truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...

Criteria of truth In epistemology, criteria of truth (or tests of truth) are standards and rules used to judge the accuracy of statements and claims. They are tools of verification, and as in the problem of the criterion, the reliability of these tools is disputed ...

Belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...

* Empiricism *

Rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy ...

Skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...

Contextualism Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the ''context'' in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the a ...

Fallibilism Originally, fallibilism (from Medieval Latin: ''fallibilis'', "liable to err") is the philosophical principle that propositions can be accepted even though they cannot be conclusively proven or justified,Haack, Susan (1979)"Fallibilism and Nece ...

* Innatism *

Naïve realism In philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, naïve realism (also known as direct realism, perceptual realism, or common sense realism) is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. When refer ...

Phenomenalism In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist in themselves, but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in ...

* Positivism * Reductionism *

Reliabilism Reliabilism, a category of theories in the philosophical discipline of epistemology, has been advanced as a theory both of justification and of knowledge. Process reliabilism has been used as an argument against philosophical skepticism, such as th ...

Branches of epistemology

Formal epistemology Formal epistemology uses formal methods from decision theory, logic, probability theory and computability theory to model and reason about issues of epistemological interest. Work in this area spans several academic fields, including philosophy, c ...

– subdiscipline of epistemology that uses

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the exp ...

from

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...

and computability theory to elucidate traditional epistemic problems. *

Meta-epistemology Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of ...

– metaphilosophical study of the subject, matter, methods and aims of epistemology and of approaches to understanding and structuring our knowledge of knowledge itself. *

Social epistemology Social epistemology refers to a broad set of approaches that can be taken in epistemology (the study of knowledge) that construes human knowledge as a collective achievement. Another way of characterizing social epistemology is as the evaluation o ...

– the study of collective knowledge and the social dimensions of knowledge *

Naturalized epistemology Naturalized epistemology (a term coined by W. V. O. Quine) is a collection of philosophic views concerned with the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. This shared emphasis on scientific methods of studying k ...

References

External links

What Is Epistemology?
– a brief introduction to the topic by Keith DeRose.
The Epistemological Lifeboat
by Birger Hjørland & Jeppe Nicolaisen (eds.)

– a collection of Michael Huemer's papers.

– Marjorie Clay (ed.), an electronic publication from The Council for Philosophical Studies.
Epistemology: The Philosophy of Knowledge
– an introduction at Groovyweb.
The Peripatetic
– A practical introduction to the theory of knowledge
A Theory of Knowledge
by Clóvis Juarez Kemmerich, on the Social Science Research Network, 2006.

; Justification
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Epistemology, 2. What is Justification?

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Public Justification

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic Justification

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification
{{epistemology

Core topics of epistemology

Branches of epistemology

See also

References

External links