Outline of epistemology

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

Epistemology (aka theory of knowledge) – branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge.^[1] The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).^[2] Epistemology asks questions such as: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", and "What do people know?"

Core topics of epistemology

Knowledge
- Sources of knowledge (Pramana in Sanskrit)
- Types of knowledge
  - Descriptive knowledge – "Knowledge that"
  - Procedural knowledge – "Knowledge how"
  - Knowledge by acquaintance
- A priori and a posteriori
- Analytic–synthetic distinction
- Gettier problem
Justification
- Regress argument
- Theories of justification
  - Foundationalism – Basic beliefs justify other, non-basic beliefs.
  - Coherentism – 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 – Beliefs are justified by infinite chains of reasons.
  - Foundherentism – Both fallible foundations and coherence are components of justification—proposed by Susan Haack.
  - Internalism and externalism – The believer must be able to justify a belief through internal knowledge (internalism), or outside sources of knowledge can be used to justify a belief (externalism).
  - Innatism – The mind is born with knowledge.
  - Reformed epistemology – Beliefs are warranted by proper cognitive function—proposed by Alvin Plantinga.
  - Evidentialism – Beliefs depend solely on the evidence for them.
  - Reliabilism – A belief is justified if it is the result of a reliable process.
  - Infallibilism – Knowledge is incompatible with the possibility of being wrong.
  - Fallibilism – Claims can be accepted even though they cannot be conclusively proven or justified.
  - Non-justificationism – Knowledge is produced by attacking claims and refuting them instead of justifying them.
- Falsification (Falsifiability)
- Proof (truth)
  - Standard of proof
Truth
- Criteria of truth
Belief
- Belief revision
Virtue epistemology
- Unity of knowledge and action

Schools of thought

Domains of inquiry in epistemology

Formal epistemology – subdiscipline of epistemology that uses formal methods from logic, probability theory and computability theory to elucidate traditional epistemic problems
- Computational epistemology
Historical epistemology – study of the historical conditions of, and changes in, different kinds of knowledge
Meta-epistemology – metaphilosophical study of the subject, matter, methods and aims of epistemology and of approaches to understanding and structuring knowledge of knowledge itself
Social epistemology – study of collective knowledge and the social dimensions of knowledge

Related fields

References

^ Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 3, 1967, Macmillan, Inc.
^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007

Annis, David (1978). "A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification". American Philosophical Quarterly. 15: 213–219.
Ayer, Alfred Jules. 1936. Language, Truth, and Logic.
BonJour, Laurence. 2002. Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bovens, Luc & Hartmann, Stephan. 2003. Bayesian Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Butchvarov, Panayot. 1970. The Concept of Knowledge. Evanston, Northwestern University Press.
Cohen, Stewart (1998a). "Contextualist Solutions to Epistemological Problems: Skepticism, Gettier, and the Lottery". Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 76 (2): 289–306. doi:10.1080/00048409812348411.
Cohen, Stewart. 1999. "Contextualism, Skepticism, and Reasons", in Tomberlin 1999.
Dancy, Jonathan. 1991. An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Second Edition). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-631-13622-3
DeRose, Keith (1992). "Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 15: 213–219.
DeRose, Keith. 1999. "Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense Archived 15 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine", in Greco and Sosa 1999.
Descartes, Rene. 1641. Meditations on First Philosophy
Feldman, Richard. 1999. "Contextualism and Skepticism", in Tomberlin 1999, pp. 91–114.
Gettier, Edmund. 1963. "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Analysis, Vol. 23, pp. 121–123. Online text Archived 19 August 2005 at the Wayback Machine.
Greco, J. & Sosa, E. 1999. Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Blackwell Publishing.
Harris, Errol E. 1970. Hypothesis And Perception, George Allen and Unwin, London, Reprinted 2002 Routledge, London.
Harwood, Sterling (1989). "Taking Skepticism Seriously – And In Context". Philosophical Investigations. 12 (3): 223–233. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9205.1989.tb00275.x.
Hay, Clare. 2008. The Theory of Knowledge: A Coursebook, The Lutterworth Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-7188-3088-5
Hawthorne, John. 2005. "The Case for Closure", Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Peter Sosa and Matthias Steup (ed.): 26–43.
Hendricks, Vincent F. 2006. Mainstream and Formal Epistemology, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1781. Critique of Pure Reason.
Keeton, Morris T. 1962. "Empiricism", in Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, pp. 89–90.
Kirkham, Richard. 1984. "Does the Gettier Problem Rest on a Mistake?" Mind, 93.
Klein, Peter. 1981. Certainty: a Refutation of Skepticism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Kyburg, H.E. 1961. Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Korzybski, Alfred. 1994 (1933). Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Fifth Edition. Ft. Worth, TX: Institute of General Semantics.
Lennon, Kathleen; Whitford, Margaret, eds. (2012-10-12). Knowing the Difference : Feminist Perspectives in Epistemology. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203216125. ISBN 978-1-134-87791-1.
Lewis, David (1996). "Elusive Knowledge". Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 74 (4): 549–567. doi:10.1080/00048409612347521.
Morin, Edgar. 1986. La Méthode, Tome 3, La Connaissance de la connaissance (Method, 3rd volume : The knowledge of knowledge)
Morton, Adam. 2002. A Guide Through the Theory of Knowledge (Third Edition) Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-4051-0012-5
Nelson, Quee. 2007. The Slightest Philosophy, Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 296 pages.
Niiniluoto, Ilkka. 2002. Critical Scientific Realism, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Plato. Meno.
Popper, Karl R. 1972. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Preyer, G./Siebelt, F./Ulfig, A. 1994. Language, Mind and Epistemology, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Russell, Bertrand. 1912. The Problems of Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press.
Russell, Bertrand. 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Nottingham: Spokesman Books.
Santayana, George. 1923. Scepticism and Animal Faith, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons – London: Constable and Co.
Spir, African. 1877. Denken und Wirklichkeit: Versuch einer Erneuerung der kritischen Philosophie (Thought and Reality: Attempt at a Renewal of Critical Philosophy), (Second Edition) Leipzig: J.G. Findel.
Schiffer, Stephen (1996). "Contextualist Solutions to Skepticism". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 96: 317–333. doi:10.1093/aristotelian/96.1.317.
Steup, Matthias. 2005. "Knowledge and Skepticism", Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Peter Sosa and Matthias Steup (eds.): 1–13.
Tomberlin, James (ed.). 1999. Philosophical Perspectives 13, Epistemology, Blackwell Publishing.
Turri, John (2016). Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion: An Essay in Philosophical Science. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Open Book Publishers. doi:10.11647/OBP.0083. ISBN 978-1-78374-183-0. Archived from the original on 10 June 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
Wagner, Pierre (2002). "Introduction". In Pierre Wagner (ed.). Les Philosophes et la science. Folio-essais (in French). Paris: Éditions Gallimard. pp. 9–65. ISBN 9782070416257.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Frank P. Ramsey and C.K. Ogden (trns.), Dover. Online text Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine.

External links

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles

"Epistemology" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Bayesian Epistemology" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Evolutionary Epistemology" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Naturalized Epistemology" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Social Epistemology" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Virtue Epistemology" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Knowledge How" entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles

Encyclopædia Britannica

Epistemology by Avrum Stroll and A.P. Martinich

Other links

The London Philosophy Study Guide Archived 23 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject: Epistemology & Methodology Archived 1 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine
Outline of epistemology at PhilPapers
Knowledge-How at Philpapers
Outline of epistemology at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
What Is Epistemology? – a brief introduction to the topic by Keith DeRose.
Epistemology Introduction, Part 1 and Part 2 by Paul Newall at the Galilean Library.
Teaching Theory of Knowledge (1986) – Marjorie Clay (ed.), an electronic publication from The Council for Philosophical Studies.
An Introduction to Epistemology by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
A Summary of Sunni Epistemology A concise and accessible introduction to epistemology in the Muslim world for laymen

[1] Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 3, 1967, Macmillan, Inc.

[2] Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007

[1]

[2]

v t e Epistemology
Epistemologists	Thomas Aquinas Augustine of Hippo William Alston Robert Audi A. J. Ayer George Berkeley Laurence BonJour Gilles Deleuze Keith DeRose René Descartes John Dewey Fred Dretske Edmund Gettier Alvin Goldman Nelson Goodman Paul Grice Anil Gupta Susan Haack David Hume Immanuel Kant Søren Kierkegaard Peter Klein Saul Kripke Hilary Kornblith David Lewis John Locke G. E. Moore John McDowell Robert Nozick Alvin Plantinga Plato Duncan Pritchard James Pryor Hilary Putnam W. V. O. Quine Thomas Reid Bertrand Russell Gilbert Ryle Wilfrid Sellars Susanna Siegel Ernest Sosa P. F. Strawson Baruch Spinoza Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Nicholas Wolterstorff Vienna Circle more...
Theories	Coherentism Constructivism Contextualism Empiricism Evolutionary epistemology Fallibilism Feminist epistemology Fideism Foundationalism Holism Infinitism Innatism Naïve realism Naturalized epistemology Phenomenalism Positivism Rationalism Reductionism Reliabilism Representational realism Skepticism Transcendental idealism
Concepts	A priori knowledge A posteriori knowledge Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction Belief Common sense Descriptive knowledge Exploratory thought Epistemic injustice Epistemic virtue Gettier problem Induction Internalism and externalism Justification Knowledge Objectivity Privileged access Problem of induction Problem of other minds Perception Procedural knowledge Proposition Regress argument Simplicity Truth more...
Related articles	Outline of epistemology Faith and rationality Formal epistemology Metaepistemology Philosophy of perception Philosophy of science Social epistemology Virtue epistemology
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