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Epistemology (
(
listen); from
Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē, meaning 'knowledge', and
λόγος, logos, meaning 'logical discourse') is the
branch of
philosophy concerned with the theory of
knowledge.
[1]
Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the
rationality of belief. Much of the debate in epistemology centers on
four areas: (1) the
philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as
truth,
belief, and
justification,
[2][3] (2) various problems of
skepticism,
(3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and (4)
the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses
such questions as "What makes justified beliefs justified?",
[4] "What does it mean to say that we know something?"
[5] and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"
[6]
The term "epistemology" was first used by Scottish philosopher
James Frederick Ferrier in 1854.
[a] However, according to Brett Warren,
King James VI of Scotland had previously personified this philosophical concept as the character
Epistemon in 1591.
[8]
Epistemon
In a philosophical dialogue,
King James VI of Scotland penned the character
Epistemon
as the personification of a philosophical concept to debate on
arguments of whether the ancient religious perceptions of witchcraft
should be punished in a politically fueled Christian society. The
arguments King James poses, through the character Epistemon, are based
on ideas of theological reasoning regarding society's belief, as his
opponent
Philomathes takes a philosophical stance on society's
legal aspects but seeks to obtain greater knowledge from Epistemon,
whose name is Greek for
scientist. This philosophical approach signified a
Philomath seeking to obtain greater knowledge through
epistemology
with the use of theology. The dialogue was used by King James to
educate society on various concepts including the history and etymology
of the subjects debated.
[8]
Etymology
The word
epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek
epistēmē meaning "knowledge" and the suffix
-logy, meaning "logical
discourse" (derived from the Greek word
logos meaning "discourse").
J.F. Ferrier coined
epistemology on the model of '
ontology',
to designate that branch of philosophy which aims to discover the
meaning of knowledge, and called it the 'true beginning' of philosophy. The word is equivalent to the concept
Wissenschaftslehre, which was used by German philosophers
Johann Fichte and
Bernard Bolzano for different projects before it was taken up again by
Husserl. French philosophers then gave the term
épistémologie a narrower meaning as 'theory of knowledge
[théorie de la connaissance].' E.g.,
Émile Meyerson opened his
Identity and Reality, written in 1908, with the remark that the word 'is becoming current' as equivalent to 'the philosophy of the sciences.'
[9]
Knowledge
In mathematics, it is known
that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing
how to add two numbers, and knowing a
person (e.g., oneself),
place (e.g., one's hometown),
thing (e.g., cars), or
activity (e.g., addition). Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between
"knowing that" (know a concept),
"knowing how" (understand an operation), and
"acquaintance-knowledge" (know by relation), with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these.
[10]
While these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are
defined explicitly in other languages (N.B. some languages related to
English have been said to retain these verbs, e.g.
Scots: "wit" and "
ken"). In French, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Dutch
to know (a person) is translated using
connaître,
conhecer,
conocer and
kennen respectively, whereas
to know (how to do something) is translated using
savoir,
saber,
wissen and
weten. Modern Greek has the verbs
γνωρίζω (gnorízo) and
ξέρω (kséro). Italian has the verbs
conoscere and
sapere and the nouns for
knowledge are
conoscenza and
sapienza. German has the verbs
wissen and
kennen. Wissen implies knowing a fact,
kennen implies knowing in the sense of being acquainted with and having a working knowledge of; there is also a noun derived from
kennen, namely
Erkennen,
which has been said to imply knowledge in the form of recognition or
acknowledgment. The verb itself implies a process: you have to go from
one state to another, from a state of "not-
erkennen" to a state of true
erkennen.
This verb seems to be the most appropriate in terms of describing the
"episteme" in one of the modern European languages, hence the German
name "
Erkenntnistheorie". The theoretical interpretation and significance of these linguistic issues remains controversial.
In his paper
On Denoting and his later book
Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell stressed the distinction between "
knowledge by description" and "
knowledge by acquaintance".
Gilbert Ryle is also credited with stressing the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in
The Concept of Mind. In
Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi
argues for the epistemological relevance of knowledge how and knowledge
that; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a
bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the
physics involved in maintaining a state of
balance
cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that
it is important to understand how both are established and grounded.
This position is essentially Ryle's, who argued that a failure to
acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how
leads to
infinite regress.
In recent times, epistemologists including
Sosa,
Greco,
Kvanvig,
Zagzebski
and Duncan Pritchard have argued that epistemology should evaluate
people's "properties" (i.e., intellectual virtues) and not just the
properties of propositions or of propositional mental attitudes.
[citation needed]
Belief
In common speech, a "statement of belief" is typically an expression
of faith or trust in a person, power or other entity—while it includes
such traditional views, epistemology is also concerned with what we
believe. This includes 'the' truth, and everything else we accept as
'true' for ourselves from a cognitive point of view.
Truth
Whether someone's belief is true is not a prerequisite for (its) belief. On the other hand, if something is actually
known,
then it categorically cannot be false. For example, if a person
believes that a bridge is safe enough to support them, and attempts to
cross it, but the bridge then collapses under their weight, it could be
said that they
believed that the bridge was safe but that their belief was mistaken. It would
not be accurate to say that they
knew
that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if
the bridge actually supported their weight, then the person might say
that they had believed the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving
it to themself (by crossing it), they
know it was safe.
Epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper
truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true
propositions, and others as a system of justified true sentences. Plato, in his
Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer.
[11]
Justification
In the
Theaetetus,
Socrates
considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, the last being
that knowledge is true belief "with an account" (meaning explained or
defined in some way). According to the theory that knowledge is
justified true belief, in order to know that a given proposition is
true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one
must also have a good reason for doing so. One implication of this would
be that no one would gain knowledge just by believing something that
happened to be true. For example, an ill person with no medical
training, but with a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that
he will recover from his illness quickly. Nevertheless, even if this
belief turned out to be true, the patient would not have
known that he would get well since his belief lacked justification.
The definition of knowledge as justified true belief was widely
accepted until the 1960s. At this time, a paper written by the American
philosopher
Edmund Gettier provoked major widespread discussion.
Gettier problem
Edmund Gettier
is best known for a short paper entitled 'Is Justified True Belief
Knowledge?' published in 1963, which called into question the theory of
knowledge that had been dominant among philosophers for thousands of
years.
[12]
This in turn called into question the actual value of philosophy if
such an obvious and easy counterexample to a major theory could exist
without anyone noticing it for thousands of years. In a few pages,
Gettier argued that there are situations in which one's belief may be
justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. That is, Gettier
contended that while justified belief in a true proposition is necessary
for that proposition to be known, it is not sufficient. As in the
diagram, a true proposition can be believed by an individual (purple
region) but still not fall within the "knowledge" category (yellow
region).
According to Gettier, there are certain circumstances in which one
does not have knowledge, even when all of the above conditions are met.
Gettier proposed two
thought experiments, which have come to be known as "Gettier cases", as
counterexamples
to the classical account of knowledge. One of the cases involves two
men, Smith and Jones, who are awaiting the results of their applications
for the same job. Each man has ten coins in his pocket. Smith has
excellent reasons to believe that Jones will get the job and,
furthermore, knows that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (he recently
counted them). From this Smith infers, "the man who will get the job has
ten coins in his pocket." However, Smith is unaware that he also has
ten coins in his own pocket. Furthermore, Smith, not Jones, is going to
get the job. While Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones will
get the job, he is wrong. Smith has a justified true belief that the man
who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket; however, according to
Gettier, Smith does not
know that the man who will get the job
has ten coins in his pocket, because Smith's belief is "...true by
virtue of the number of coins in
Jones's pocket, while Smith does
not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his
belief...on a count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely
believes to be the man who will get the job." (see
[12]
p. 122.) These cases fail to be knowledge because the subject's belief
is justified, but only happens to be true by virtue of luck. In other
words, he made the correct choice (believing that the man who will get
the job has ten coins in his pocket) for the wrong reasons. This example
is similar to those often given when discussing belief and truth,
wherein a person's belief of what will happen can coincidentally be
correct without his or her having the actual knowledge to base it on.
Responses to Gettier
The responses to Gettier have been varied. Usually, they have
involved substantial attempts to provide a definition of knowledge
different from the classical one, either by recasting knowledge as
justified true belief with some additional fourth condition, or
proposing a completely new set of conditions, disregarding the classical
ones entirely.
Infallibilism, indefeasibility
In one response to Gettier, the American philosopher
Richard Kirkham has argued that the only definition of knowledge that could ever be immune to all counterexamples is the
infallibilist one.
[13] To qualify as an item of knowledge, goes the theory, a belief must not
only be true and justified, the justification of the belief must
necessitate its truth. In other words, the justification for the belief must be infallible.
Yet another possible candidate for the fourth condition of knowledge is
indefeasibility. Defeasibility
theory maintains that there should be no overriding or defeating truths
for the reasons that justify one's belief. For example, suppose that
person
S believes he saw Tom Grabit steal a book from the library
and uses this to justify the claim that Tom Grabit stole a book from
the library. A possible defeater or overriding proposition for such a
claim could be a true proposition like, "Tom Grabit's identical twin Sam
is currently in the same town as Tom." When no defeaters of one's
justification exist, a subject would be epistemologically justified.
The Indian philosopher
B. K. Matilal has drawn on the
Navya-Nyāya fallibilism tradition to respond to the Gettier problem. Nyaya theory distinguishes between
know p and
know that one knows p—these
are different events, with different causal conditions. The second
level is a sort of implicit inference that usually follows immediately
the episode of knowing p (knowledge
simpliciter). The Gettier case is examined by referring to a view of
Gangesha Upadhyaya
(late 12th century), who takes any true belief to be knowledge; thus a
true belief acquired through a wrong route may just be regarded as
knowledge simpliciter on this view. The question of justification arises
only at the second level, when one considers the knowledgehood of the
acquired belief. Initially, there is lack of uncertainty, so it becomes a
true belief. But at the very next moment, when the hearer is about to
embark upon the venture of
knowing whether he knows p, doubts may
arise. "If, in some Gettier-like cases, I am wrong in my inference
about the knowledgehood of the given occurrent belief (for the evidence
may be pseudo-evidence), then I am mistaken about the truth of my belief
– and this is in accordance with Nyaya fallibilism: not all
knowledge-claims can be sustained."
[14]
Reliabilism
Reliabilism has been a significant line of response to the Gettier problem among philosophers, originating with work by
Alvin Goldman
in the 1960s. According to reliabilism, a belief is justified (or
otherwise supported in such a way as to count towards knowledge) only if
it is produced by processes that typically yield a sufficiently high
ratio of true to false beliefs. In other words, this theory states that a
true belief counts as knowledge only if it is produced by a reliable
belief-forming process. Examples of reliable processes include: standard
perceptual processes, remembering, good reasoning, and introspection.
[15]
Reliabilism has been challenged by Gettier cases.
Another
argument that challenges reliabilism, like the Gettier cases (although
it was not presented in the same short article as the Gettier cases), is
the case of Henry and the barn façades. In the thought experiment, a
man, Henry, is driving along and sees a number of buildings that
resemble barns. Based on his perception of one of these, he concludes
that he has just seen barns. While he has seen one, and the perception
he based his belief that the one he saw was of a real barn, all the
other
barn-like
buildings he saw were façades. Theoretically, Henry does not know that
he has seen a barn, despite both his belief that he has seen one being
true and his belief being formed on the basis of a reliable process
(i.e. his vision), since he only acquired his true belief by accident.
[16]
Other responses
Robert Nozick has offered the following definition of knowledge:
S knows that
P if and only if:
- P;
- S believes that P;
- if P were false, S would not believe that P;
- if P were true, S would believe that P.[17]
Nozick argues that the third of these conditions serves to address
cases of the sort described by Gettier. Nozick further claims this
condition addresses a case of the sort described by
D. M. Armstrong:
[18]
A father believes his daughter innocent of committing a particular
crime, both because of faith in his baby girl and (now) because he has
seen presented in the courtroom a conclusive demonstration of his
daughter's innocence. His belief via the method of the courtroom
satisfies the four subjunctive conditions, but his faith-based belief
does not. If his daughter were guilty, he would still believe her
innocent, on the basis of faith in his daughter; this would violate the
third condition.
The British philosopher
Simon Blackburn
has criticized this formulation by suggesting that we do not want to
accept as knowledge beliefs, which, while they "track the truth" (as
Nozick's account requires), are not held for appropriate reasons. He
says that "we do not want to award the title of knowing something to
someone who is only meeting the conditions through a defect, flaw, or
failure, compared with someone else who is not meeting the conditions."
[19]
In addition to this, externalist accounts of knowledge, such as
Nozick's, are often forced to reject closure in cases where it is
intuitively valid.
Timothy Williamson
has advanced a theory of knowledge according to which knowledge is not
justified true belief plus some extra condition(s), but primary. In his
book
Knowledge and its Limits,
Williamson argues that the concept of knowledge cannot be broken down
into a set of other concepts through analysis—instead, it is
sui generis.
Thus, though knowledge requires justification, truth, and belief, the
word "knowledge" can't be, according to Williamson's theory, accurately
regarded as simply shorthand for "justified true belief".
Alvin Goldman writes in his
Causal Theory of Knowing that in order for knowledge to truly exist there must be a
causal chain between the proposition and the belief of that proposition.
Externalism and internalism
A central debate about the nature of justification is a debate
between epistemological externalists on the one hand, and
epistemological internalists on the other.
Externalists hold that factors deemed "external", meaning outside of
the psychological states of those who gain knowledge, can be conditions
of justification. For example, an externalist response to the Gettier
problem is to say that, in order for a justified true belief to count as
knowledge, there must be a link or dependency between the belief and
the state of the external world. Usually this is understood to be a
causal link. Such causation, to the extent that it is "outside" the
mind, would count as an external, knowledge-yielding condition.
Internalists, on the other hand, assert that all knowledge-yielding
conditions are within the psychological states of those who gain
knowledge.
Though unfamiliar with the internalist/externalist debate himself, many point to
René Descartes
as an early example of the internalist path to justification. He wrote
that, because the only method by which we perceive the external world is
through our senses, and that, because the senses are not infallible, we
should not consider our concept of knowledge to be infallible. The only
way to find anything that could be described as "indubitably true", he
advocates, would be to see things "clearly and distinctly".
[20]
He argued that if there is an omnipotent, good being who made the
world, then it's reasonable to believe that people are made with the
ability to know. However, this does not mean that man's ability to know
is perfect. God gave man the ability to know, but not omniscience.
Descartes said that man must use his capacities for knowledge correctly
and carefully through methodological doubt.
[21]
The dictum "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) is also commonly
associated with Descartes' theory, because in his own methodological
doubt, doubting everything he previously knew in order to start from a
blank slate, the first thing that he could not logically bring himself
to doubt was his own existence: "I do not exist" would be a
contradiction in terms; the act of saying that one does not exist
assumes that someone must be making the statement in the first place.
Though Descartes could doubt his senses, his body and the world around
him, he could not deny his own existence, because he was able to doubt
and must exist in order to do so. Even if some "evil genius" were to be
deceiving him, he would have to exist in order to be deceived. This one
sure point provided him with what he would call his Archimedean point,
in order to further develop his foundation for knowledge. Simply put,
Descartes' epistemological justification depended upon his indubitable
belief in his own existence and his clear and distinct knowledge of God.
[22]
Value problem
We
generally assume that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief.
If so, what is the explanation? A formulation of the value problem in
epistemology first occurs in
Plato's
Meno. Socrates points out to Meno that a man who knew the way to
Larissa could lead others there correctly. But so, too, could a man who
had true beliefs about how to get there, even if he had not gone there
or had any knowledge of Larissa. Socrates says that it seems that both
knowledge and true opinion can guide action. Meno then wonders why
knowledge is valued more than true belief, and why knowledge and true
belief are different. Socrates responds that knowledge is more valuable
than mere true belief because it is tethered, or justified.
Justification, or working out the reason for a true belief, locks down
true belief.
[23]
The problem is to identify what (if anything) makes knowledge more
valuable than mere true belief, or that makes knowledge more valuable
than a more minimal conjunction of its components, such as
justification, safety, sensitivity, statistical likelihood, and
anti-Gettier conditions, on a particular analysis of knowledge that
conceives of knowledge as divided into components (to which
knowledge-first epistemological theories, which posit knowledge as
fundamental, are notable exceptions).
[24] The value problem reemerged in the philosophical literature on epistemology in the twenty-first century following the rise of
virtue epistemology in the 1980s, partly because of the obvious link to the concept of value in ethics.
[25]
The value problem has been presented as an argument against epistemic
reliabilism by philosophers including
Linda Zagzebski,
Wayne Riggs and
Richard Swinburne.
Zagzebski analogizes the value of knowledge to the value of espresso
produced by an espresso maker: "The liquid in this cup is not improved
by the fact that it comes from a reliable espresso maker. If the
espresso tastes good, it makes no difference if it comes from an
unreliable machine."
[26]
For Zagzebski, the value of knowledge deflates to the value of mere
true belief. She assumes that reliability in itself has no value or
disvalue, but Goldman and Olsson disagree. They point out that
Zagzebski's conclusion rests on the assumption of veritism: all that
matters is the acquisition of true belief.
[27]
To the contrary, they argue that a reliable process for acquiring a
true belief adds value to the mere true belief by making it more likely
that future beliefs of a similar kind will be true. By analogy, having a
reliable espresso maker that produced a good cup of espresso would be
more valuable than having an unreliable one that luckily produced a good
cup because the reliable one would more likely produce good future cups
compared to the unreliable one.
The value problem is important to assessing the adequacy of theories
of knowledge that conceive of knowledge as consisting of true belief and
other components. According to
Kvanvig,
an adequate account of knowledge should resist counterexamples and
allow an explanation of the value of knowledge over mere true belief.
Should a theory of knowledge fail to do so, it would prove inadequate.
[28]
One of the more influential responses to the problem is that
knowledge is not particularly valuable and is not what ought to be the
main focus of epistemology. Instead, epistemologists ought to focus on
other mental states, such as understanding.
[29]
Advocates of virtue epistemology have argued that the value of
knowledge comes from an internal relationship between the knower and the
mental state of believing.
[24]
Acquiring knowledge
A priori and a posteriori knowledge
The nature of this distinction has been disputed by various philosophers; however, the terms may be roughly defined as follows:
- A priori
knowledge is knowledge that is known independently of experience (that
is, it is non-empirical, or arrived at beforehand, usually by reason).
It will henceforth be acquired through anything that is independent from
experience.
- A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is known by experience (that is, it is empirical, or arrived at afterward).
A priori knowledge is a way of gaining knowledge without the need of
experience. In Bruce Russell's article "A Priori Justification and
Knowledge"
[30]
he says that it is "knowledge based on a priori justification," (1)
which relies on intuition and the nature of these intuitions. A priori
knowledge is often contrasted with posteriori knowledge, which is
knowledge gained by experience. A way to look at the difference between
the two is through an example. Bruce Russell gives two propositions in
which the reader decides which one he believes more. Option A: All crows
are birds. Option B: All crows are black. If you believe option A, then
you are a priori justified in believing it because you don't have to
see a crow to know it's a bird. If you believe in option B, then you are
posteriori justified to believe it because you have seen many crows
therefore knowing they are black. He goes on to say that it doesn't
matter if the statement is true or not, only that if you believe in one
or the other that matters.
The idea of a priori knowledge is that it is based on
intuition or rational insights. Laurence BonJour says in his article "The Structure of Empirical Knowledge",
[31]
that a "rational insight is an immediate, non-inferential grasp,
apprehension or 'seeing' that some proposition is necessarily true." (3)
Going back to the crow example, by Laurence BonJour's definition the
reason you would believe in option A is because you have an immediate
knowledge that a crow is a bird, without ever experiencing one.
Evolutionary psychology
takes a novel approach to the problem. It says that there is an innate
predisposition for certain types of learning. "Only small parts of the
brain resemble a
tabula rasa;
this is true even for human beings. The remainder is more like an
exposed negative waiting to be dipped into a developer fluid"
[32]
Analytic–synthetic distinction
Immanuel Kant, in his
Critique of Pure Reason,
drew a distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" propositions. He
contended that some propositions are such that we can know them to be
true just by understanding their meaning. For example, consider, "My
father's brother is my uncle." We can know it to be true solely by
virtue of our understanding what its terms mean. Philosophers call such
propositions "analytic". Synthetic propositions, on the other hand, have
distinct subjects and predicates. An example would be, "My father's
brother has black hair." Kant stated that all mathematical and
scientific statements are analytic a priori propositions because they
are
necessarily true but our knowledge about the attributes of the mathematical or physical subjects we can only get by logical inference.
The American philosopher
Willard Van Orman Quine, in his
Two Dogmas of Empiricism,
famously challenged the distinction, arguing that the two have a blurry
boundary. Some contemporary philosophers have offered more sustainable
accounts of the distinction.
[33]
Branches or schools of thought
Historical
The
historical study of philosophical epistemology is the historical study
of efforts to gain philosophical understanding or knowledge of the
nature and scope of human knowledge.
[34]
Since efforts to get that kind of understanding have a history, the
questions philosophical epistemology asks today about human knowledge
are not necessarily the same as they once were.
[34]
But that does not mean that philosophical epistemology is itself a
historical subject, or that it pursues only or even primarily historical
understanding.
[34]
Empiricism
In philosophy,
empiricism is generally a theory of knowledge focusing on the role of experience, especially experience based on
perceptual observations by the
senses. Certain forms treat all knowledge as empirical,
[citation needed] while some regard disciplines such as
mathematics and
logic as exceptions.
[citation needed]
There are many variants of empiricism,
positivism,
realism and
common sense
being among the most commonly expounded. But central to all empiricist
epistemologies is the notion of the epistemologically privileged status
of
sense data.
Idealism
Many
idealists believe that knowledge is primarily (at least in some areas) acquired by
a priori processes or is
innate—for example, in the form of concepts not derived from experience. The relevant theoretical processes often go by the name "
intuition".
[35] The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human
mind (as in
Kant's theory of
transcendental idealism), or they may be said to exist independently of the mind (as in Plato's
theory of Forms).
Rationalism
By contrast with empiricism and idealism, which centres around the
epistemologically privileged status of sense data (empirical) and the
primacy of Reason (theoretical) respectively, modern rationalism adds a
third 'system of thinking', (as
Gaston Bachelard has termed these areas) and holds that all three are of equal importance: The empirical, the theoretical and the
abstract. For Bachelard, rationalism makes equal reference to all three systems of thinking.
Constructivism
Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all "knowledge is a compilation of human-made constructions",
[36] "not the neutral discovery of an objective truth".
[37] Whereas objectivism is concerned with the "object of our knowledge", constructivism emphasises "how we construct knowledge".
[38] Constructivism proposes new definitions for
knowledge and
truth that form a new
paradigm, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical
objectivity,
and on viability instead of truth. Piagetian constructivism, however,
believes in objectivity—constructs can be validated through
experimentation. The constructivist point of view is pragmatic;
[39] as
Vico said: "The norm of the truth is to have made it."
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is an empiricist epistemology formulated by
Charles Sanders Peirce,
William James, and
John Dewey,
which understands truth as that which is practically applicable in the
world. Peirce formulates the maxim: 'Consider what effects, that might
conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our
conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole
of our conception of the object.'
[40] This suggests that we are to analyse ideas and objects in the world for their practical value. This is in contrast to any
correspondence theory of truth
which holds that what is true is what corresponds to an external
reality. William James suggests that through a pragmatist epistemology
'Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas in which we
can rest.'
[41] A more contemporary understanding of pragmatism was developed by the philosopher
Richard Rorty who proposed that values were historically contingent and dependent upon their utility within a given historical period.
[42]
Regress problem
The regress problem is the problem of providing a complete logical
foundation for human knowledge. The traditional way of supporting a
rational argument is to appeal to other rational arguments, typically
using chains of reason and rules of logic. A classic example that goes
back to Aristotle is deducing that
Socrates is mortal. We have a logical rule that says
All humans are mortal and an assertion that
Socrates is human and we deduce that
Socrates is mortal. In this example how do we know that Socrates is human? Presumably we apply other rules such as:
All born from human females are human.
Which then leaves open the question how do we know that all born from
humans are human? This is the regress problem: how can we eventually
terminate a logical argument with some statement(s) that do not require
further justification but can still be considered rational and
justified?
As John Pollock stated:
... to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified
belief. This means that one of two things can be the case. Either there
are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being
able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each
justified belief there is an infinite regress of (potential)
justification [the nebula theory]. On this theory there is no rock
bottom of justification. Justification just meanders in and out through
our network of beliefs, stopping nowhere.[43]
The apparent impossibility of completing an infinite chain of reasoning is thought by some to support
skepticism. It is also the impetus for Descartes' famous dictum:
I think, therefore I am. Descartes was looking for some logical statement that could be true without appeal to other statements.
Response to the regress problem
Many
epistemologists studying justification have attempted to argue for
various types of chains of reasoning that can escape the regress
problem.
Foundationalists
respond to the regress problem by asserting that certain "foundations"
or "basic beliefs" support other beliefs but do not themselves require
justification from other beliefs. These beliefs might be justified
because they are self-evident, infallible, or derive from reliable
cognitive mechanisms. Perception, memory, and a priori intuition are
often considered to be possible examples of basic beliefs.
The chief criticism of foundationalism is that if a belief is not
supported by other beliefs, accepting it may be arbitrary or
unjustified.
[44]
Another response to the regress problem is
coherentism,
which is the rejection of the assumption that the regress proceeds
according to a pattern of linear justification. To avoid the charge of
circularity,
coherentists
hold that an individual belief is justified circularly by the way it
fits together (coheres) with the rest of the belief system of which it
is a part. This theory has the advantage of avoiding the infinite
regress without claiming special, possibly arbitrary status for some
particular class of beliefs. Yet, since a system can be coherent while
also being wrong, coherentists face the difficulty of ensuring that the
whole system
corresponds
to reality. Additionally, most logicians agree that any argument that
is circular is trivially valid. That is, to be illuminating, arguments
must be linear with conclusions that follow from stated premises.
However, Warburton writes in 'Thinking from A to Z', "Circular
arguments are not invalid; in other words, from a logical point of view
there is nothing intrinsically wrong with them. However, they are, when
viciously circular, spectacularly uninformative. (Warburton 1996)."
A position known as "
foundherentism", advanced by
Susan Haack,
is meant to be a unification of foundationalism and coherentism. One
component of this theory is what is called the "analogy of the crossword
puzzle." Whereas, for example, infinitists regard the regress of
reasons as "shaped" like a single line,
Susan Haack has argued that it is more like a crossword puzzle, with multiple lines mutually supporting each other.
[45]
An alternative resolution to the regress problem is known as "
infinitism".
Infinitists take the infinite series to be merely potential, in the
sense that an individual may have indefinitely many reasons available to
them, without having consciously thought through all of these reasons
when the need arises. This position is motivated in part by the desire
to avoid what is seen as the arbitrariness and circularity of its chief
competitors, foundationalism and coherentism.
Indian pramana
Indian philosophical schools such as the Hindu
Nyaya, and
Carvaka, and later, the
Jain and
Buddhist philosophical
schools, developed an epistemological tradition which is termed
"pramana" independently of the Western philosophical tradition. Pramana
can be translated as "instrument of knowledge" and refers to various
means or sources of knowledge which were held to be reliable by Indian
philosophers. Each school of Indian philosophy had their own theories
about which pramanas were valid means to knowledge and which was
unreliable (and why).
[46] A
Vedic text,
Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (c. 9th–6th centuries BCE), lists "four means of attaining correct knowledge":
smṛti ("tradition" or "scripture"),
pratyakṣa ("perception"),
aitihya ("communication by one who is expert", or "tradition), and
anumāna ("reasoning" or "inference").
[47][48]
In the Indian traditions, the most widely discussed pramanas are:
Pratyakṣa (perception),
Anumāṇa (inference),
Upamāṇa (comparison and analogy),
Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances),
Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof) and
Śabda (word, testimony of past or present reliable experts). While the Nyaya school (beginning with the
Nyāya Sūtras of Gotama, between 6th-century BCE and 2nd-century CE
[49][50])
were a proponent of realism and supported four pramanas (perception,
inference, comparison/analogy and testimony), the Buddhist
epistemologists (
Dignaga and
Dharmakirti) generally accepted only perception and inference.
The
theory of knowledge of the Buddha in the early Buddhist texts has been interpreted as a form of pragmatism as well as a form of correspondence theory.
[51] Likewise, the Buddhist philosopher
Dharmakirti
has been interpreted both as holding a form of pragmatism or
correspondence theory for his view that what is true is what has
effective power (
arthakriya).
[52][53] The Buddhist
Madhyamika school's theory of emptiness (
shunyata) meanwhile has been interpreted as a form of
philosophical skepticism.
[54]
The main Jain contribution to epistemology has been their theory of "many sided-ness" or "multi-perspectivism" (
Anekantavada) which says that since the world is multifaceted, any single viewpoint is limited (
naya — a partial standpoint).
[55] This has been interpreted as a kind of pluralism or
perspectivism.
[56][57]
According to Jain epistemology, none of the pramanas gives absolute or
perfect knowledge since they are each limited points of view.
The
Carvaka school of materialists only accepted the pramana of perception and hence were one of the first empiricists.
[58] There was also another school of
philosophical skepticism, the
Ajñana.
Skepticism
Skepticism is a position that questions the validity of some or all
of human knowledge. Skepticism does not refer to any one specific school
of philosophy, rather it is a thread that runs through many
philosophical discussions of epistemology. The first well known Greek
skeptic was
Socrates who claimed that his only knowledge was that he knew nothing with certainty. In Indian philosophy,
Sanjaya Belatthiputta was a famous skeptic and the Buddhist
Madhyamika school has been seen as taking up a form of skepticism.
Descartes'
most famous inquiry into mind and body also began as an exercise in
skepticism. Descartes began by questioning the validity of all knowledge
and looking for some fact that was irrefutable. In so doing, he came to
his famous dictum:
I think, therefore I am.
Foundationalism and the other responses to the regress problem are essentially defenses against skepticism. Similarly, the
pragmatism of
William James can be viewed as a
coherentist
defense against skepticism. James discarded conventional philosophical
views of truth and defined truth to be based on how well a concept works
in a specific context rather than objective rational criteria. The
philosophy of
Logical Positivism and the work of philosophers such as
Kuhn and
Popper can be viewed as skepticism applied to what can truly be considered scientific knowledge.
[59]
