What Is The Problem Of Criteric Chisholm Summary

The problem of Criterion is a problem posed by Roderick Chisholm and is a foundation problem of epistemology. The problem of Criterion is indeed a problem for the very beginning of knowledge. It’s the beginning of our process of trying to find knowledge. Chisholm claims that we can either answer the question “what do we know?” or “what are the criteria of knowledge?” but we are unable to answer both of them. Basically, if we answer the question “what do we know?” first, then we are going to be arbitrarily deciding what we do know and what we don't know without good criterion for separating them. However, if we answer the other question, “what are the criteria of knowledge?” first, then we are going to be coming up with an arbitrary criterion for separating knowledge without having specific examples …show more content…
To make this more concrete, Chisholm provided us an example of distinguish good apples and bad apples. To separate the apples, we could take a particular sample that we have already been told some of the apples are good and some are bad, and based on this particular sample, we could develop a criterion for determining which apples are good and which apples are bad. This would be a particularism solution; we could then apply the criterion into a larger set and be able to divide the apples. We could also be given a method or criterion, the apple is good “if and only if”, this would be a Methodist solution and based on this criterion we are able to separate the apples. What this leaves us with is if we are given particular cases we can devise a method and given a method we can devise particular cases. However, if we are given neither, there is no way for us to