Epistemology
"Knowledge is a justified belief that is surviving."
On my Philosophy 101 page, I wrote that epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (including limitations) of knowledge. It addresses four main questions. 1) What is knowledge? 2) How is knowledge acquired? 3) What do people know? 4) How do we know what we know?
Once life emerged on this planet, organisms began gaining knowledge about their environment. This is crucial for survival. The more you know, the better you can act. Yet there have always been limitations as to what an organism can know. For example, there are limitations in sensory inputs, limitations in storage, and limitations in processing capacity and capability. Because of these, there have always been things we don't know, and as far as we can tell, there always will be things we don't know. Therefore, we may never claim to know an eternal truth, but we can still build knowledge from the bottom up in ways that have reliably proven to produce more and more robust beliefs.
The most important piece I've written about evolutionary epistemology (so far) is this one:
Knowledge Cannot Be Justified True Belief
In summary, Plato laid down the most influential definition of knowledge as "justified, true, belief." But this has proven to be untenable and I propose that it ought to be replaced with an understanding that knowledge can only ever be justified beliefs that are currently surviving our best tests.
Once life emerged on this planet, organisms began gaining knowledge about their environment. This is crucial for survival. The more you know, the better you can act. Yet there have always been limitations as to what an organism can know. For example, there are limitations in sensory inputs, limitations in storage, and limitations in processing capacity and capability. Because of these, there have always been things we don't know, and as far as we can tell, there always will be things we don't know. Therefore, we may never claim to know an eternal truth, but we can still build knowledge from the bottom up in ways that have reliably proven to produce more and more robust beliefs.
The most important piece I've written about evolutionary epistemology (so far) is this one:
Knowledge Cannot Be Justified True Belief
In summary, Plato laid down the most influential definition of knowledge as "justified, true, belief." But this has proven to be untenable and I propose that it ought to be replaced with an understanding that knowledge can only ever be justified beliefs that are currently surviving our best tests.
Further Reading
For more details on my evolutionary epistemology, here are some other essays I have written:
- Evolving Our Trust in Science — A review in The Philosopher of Why Trust Science? by Naomi Oreskes
- The Bayesian Balance — An essay I co-authored with Zafir Ivanov for Skeptic magazine, which proposes a new way of thinking about our credences rising and falling as evidence comes in from different types of sources.
- Doing Philosophy: Thought Experiments and the Truth about Truth — A commentary on Timothy Williamson's book Doing Philosophy that was published in The Philosopher and discussed in an event with Tim in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
- My six-part blog series giving overviews of some important books on epistemology:
- Overview of Kindly Inquisitors by Jonathan Rauch
- Overview of Knowledge and Its Limits by Timothy Williamson
- Overview of How to Talk to a Science Denier by Lee McIntyre
- Overview of Mental Immunity by Andy Norman (Part 1 of 2)
- Overview of Mental Immunity by Andy Norman (Part 2 of 2)
- Review of Truth and Generosity by Weiner & Forsee
- The summary section on epistemology in What I Learned From 100 Philosophy Thought Experiments.
- Each individual thought experiment from that series that dealt with epistemology:
- #1 The Evil Demon
- #62 I Think, Therefore?
- #41 Getting the Blues
- #13 Black, White, and Red All Over
- #63: No Know
- #73 Being a Bat
- #47 Rabbit!
- #74 Water, Water, Everywhere
- #23 The Beetle In The Box
- #59 The Eyes Have It
- #19 Bursting the Soap Bubble
- #3 The Indian and the Ice
- #40 The Rocking-Horse Winner
- #28 The Nightmare Scenario
- #51 Living in a Vat
- #81 Sense and Sensibility
- #93 Zombies
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© 2012 Ed Gibney
