Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is the philosophical study of its nature and scope. The study of epistemology in philosophy is important because it helps us evaluate what we see or perceive. It helps us determine the true from the false and helps us gain productive knowledge i.e. knowledge that we can actually use to benefit oneself and others. With improper epistemological knowledge we would just be perceiving a bunch of images flashing in our mind. We would not be able to think itself. Therefore epistemology is an important part of philosophy and thus is related to many other areas of study in philosophy. Epistemology relates to other fields of philosophy like metaphysics in the fact that it helps discern whether the concepts that
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Duncan Pritchard from the University of Edinburgh defines epistemology as the “Theory of Knowledge”. He says that true knowledge can be defined as when you believe something and that belief of yours is actually true (Pritchard, 2016, p. 4). He decides to break the problems faced by epistemology or knowledge into three classifications to help determine what epistemology really is the study of. He describes the first as perception of knowledge meaning most of the knowledge that we gain is from what we see. However the problems with perception is the fact that sometimes what we perceive is not always true. For example take the case of optical illusions. There are so many optical illusions like parallel lines that don’t appear parallel, etc. All this is leads us to believe that what we see is not always true. Pritchard tackles this problem in his writing and concludes that epistemology is important for understanding and resolving these problems. He even tackles the sources of knowledge which then goes into the dispute between rationalists and …show more content…
He describes two types of knowledge – a priori and a posteriori. The former is a form of analytical knowledge like knowledge that we know is true or knowledge that comes from reason. Take for example, “how many sides does a triangle have?”, “how many trees are at a particular place that we are familiar with?”, etc. The latter on the other hand deals with perceptual knowledge. Here we can give examples like bird watching, learning to swim, etc. We can also divide knowledge into four sub categories – which are basis of the rationalists vs empiricists debate. There can therefore be different kinds of ways knowledge can be obtained – the study of epistemology. But there is a huge historical debate between what is genuine knowledge. That is where great philosophers like Descartes and Hume come into play and the rationalists vs empiricists war
Duncan Pritchard from the University of Edinburgh defines epistemology as the “Theory of Knowledge”. He says that true knowledge can be defined as when you believe something and that belief of yours is actually true (Pritchard, 2016, p. 4). He decides to break the problems faced by epistemology or knowledge into three classifications to help determine what epistemology really is the study of. He describes the first as perception of knowledge meaning most of the knowledge that we gain is from what we see. However the problems with perception is the fact that sometimes what we perceive is not always true. For example take the case of optical illusions. There are so many optical illusions like parallel lines that don’t appear parallel, etc. All this is leads us to believe that what we see is not always true. Pritchard tackles this problem in his writing and concludes that epistemology is important for understanding and resolving these problems. He even tackles the sources of knowledge which then goes into the dispute between rationalists and …show more content…
He describes two types of knowledge – a priori and a posteriori. The former is a form of analytical knowledge like knowledge that we know is true or knowledge that comes from reason. Take for example, “how many sides does a triangle have?”, “how many trees are at a particular place that we are familiar with?”, etc. The latter on the other hand deals with perceptual knowledge. Here we can give examples like bird watching, learning to swim, etc. We can also divide knowledge into four sub categories – which are basis of the rationalists vs empiricists debate. There can therefore be different kinds of ways knowledge can be obtained – the study of epistemology. But there is a huge historical debate between what is genuine knowledge. That is where great philosophers like Descartes and Hume come into play and the rationalists vs empiricists war