Epistemology

Feminist philosophy of science and its related epistemology, concerns scientific inquiry and the extent to which theories and knowledge are influenced and shaped by bias within the scientific community, and the means to rectify this. There are three main distinctions of feminist philosophy of science; empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism. I am to be comparing and contrasting two of the three; namely feminist standpoint theory and postmodernism. Both of these distinctions are…

Augustine Against Academic Skepticism: An Analysis of the Concept of the “Testimony of Knowledge” in the Epistemology of St. Augustine This philosophical study will analyze the reliability of “testimony of knowledge” as a foundation for St. Augustine’s epistemology. Augustine seeks to refute the traditional aspects of Platonic philosophy by arguing against the skeptic view of knowledge. The ”academic” (aka. Platonic perspective) of the skeptic is founded on the principles of doubt, which…

ethics and epistemology, among others (Kessler 65). Socrates did not consider himself to be wise, yet his understanding of the world has had a very profound and lasting impact on the development of Western society. Under Athenian law, all males where required to serve in the military, Socrates was influenced later in life by his experience serving as a hoplite during the Peloponnesian war. He was known for his bravery and…

437358 Dr. Schechter Philosophy of Mind Final Paper Absolute Uncertainties: An Argument in Knowing that we Cannot Absolutely Know Anything One philosophical quandary that’s worth discussing is the certainty of truth and whether humans will ever be able to ascribe absolute certainty to truth and its conditions. In considering both the empirical and theoretical dangers of positing absolute conclusions to complex philosophical questions, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to absolutely reject or…

The most significant argument drawn from Eve Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet is the harmful effects a binary view of topics like sexuality and gender could have. The most concerning aspect of the subject of binary viewership is that it applies to more subjects than what was previously listed. Society has an incredibly long history of categorization and lessening people to one of few groups, which only sets up barriers for those who do not fit into them. This process may have worked…

Theory of ‘Justified True Belief’ and E. Gettier problem The epistemology, or simply theory and concept of the knowledge, is one of the most important topics in philosophy. Different philosophers proposed different meanings and interpretations of knowledge. Plato introduced one of the most important philosophical works on knowledge ‘Theaetetus’. The ‘Theaetetus’ is a set-piece discussion of the question “What is knowledge?”(S. Chappell, 2013). In this dialogue, Theaetetus proposes three…

The medieval thinker Algazali states that the “sun and moon, stars and elements, are in subjection to His command. There is none of them whose activity is produced by or proceeds from its own essence” (272). Algazali wrote this as a criticism of the philosopher’s postulated theory of cause and effect. His reason for this polemic was to uphold the omnipotence of God, for if necessary causal effects could be found in nature, the effects would not be acts of Gods will. Below, this paper will…

Plato, Descartes, and the Matrix There are many philosophical questions that come to mind when thinking about life, and human existence. “Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of our knowledge.” (Dew & Foreman, 7) Epistemology is one of the branches of Philosophy that helps us dive deep into thought about many question that are in question. One question that may present itself is, what is reality? Another one is are we truly living in a dream and can’t escape it?…

We aspire to omnipotence. We imagine we have the capacity to know, without limits, doubt, reservation. We hope to create boundaries around knowing and to breed from that truths, altogether universal and timeless. And so we do research, so that we may discover, uncover and recover what has eluded, but so much escapes us still. We see shadows of truths and hear echoes of history and it baits us into the pursuit of the absolute: the perfectly symmetrical ordered reality we see glimpses of.…

There is a clear distinction between rationalism and empiricism–two theories of epistemology, which focuses on the theory knowledge through a philosophical lens. Rationalism centers around the ability to use knowledge with reasoning and that knowledge comes from innate ideas. Others believe that our senses could actually lead to true knowledge, as opposed to relying on innate ideas and reasoning. Many criticize rationalism and whether innate knowledge exists or is even pertinent. In this paper,…