Epistemology can be divided into two parts: one being traditional epistemology and the other being naturalized epistemology. The difference between the two is that traditionalists simply accept what they think they know whereas naturalists put what they think they know to empirical tests. When I say empirical, I mean methodologies of the natural science. In other words meaning putting things we think we know to practical tests to find out if it is true, scientifically. Or to even better understand what I mean by empirical, it is essentially another way of saying naturalized epistemology. In this essay I will establish the reasons why naturalized epistemology is a better choice over traditional epistemology.
Firstly I will establish how naturalized epistemology is not the better choice. Thomas Kuhn discusses the effects of scientific paradigms in his essay The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). A scientific paradigm is a set of forms such as experimental assumptions and theoretical principles, for example: journal articles. Kuhn says that paradigms can help verify an empirical matter in epistemology but once a scientist loses faith in a paradigm, it becomes unreliable. To solve this problem, scientists would create a new paradigm. For example: the theory of phlogiston became unreliable, so Lavoisier created Lavoisier’s chemistry. What Kuhn discovered is that when you jump from one paradigm to the next, it is not rational because paradigms decide what is rational. Therefore there is no unbiased way that we can look at paradigms, meaning that paradigms, being a type of empirical epistemology, are not reliable. But Kuhn soon brought up the idea of paradigm-shift, thinking that this would solve the problem. A paradigm-shift ...
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...justification can seem to be a good way to undertake epistemology. But as I have mentioned examples from Quine, we can now see that naturalized epistemology can be a better way to undertake epistemology because it is more precise and accurate than knowledge achieved by other means.
Works Cited
Kim, Jaegwon. “What is ‘Naturalized Epistemology’?” Epistemology. 2nd Ed. Ernest Sosa, Jaegwon Kim, Jeremy Fantl, and Matthew McGrath. USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 538-551. Print.
Quine, W. V. “Epistemology Naturalized.” Epistemology. 2nd Ed. Ernest Sosa, Jaegwon Kim, Jeremy Fantl, and Matthew McGrath. USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 528-537. Print.
Feldman, Richard, "Naturalized Epistemology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .
In the works of Linda Zagzebski, On Epistemology, the question of what is meant by an epistemic virtue and how does open-mindedness qualify as virtue. In Epistemology, there is a binding relationship between self-trust and self-knowledge. Zagzebski raises the question of what the relationship is and clearly explains that we cannot have one without the other. Riggs, another philosopher of Epistemology, wrote an article speaking about open-mindedness. Riggs explains how he understands the virtue of open-mindedness and the qualifications and limitations that he places on the virtue of open-mindedness. In this paper, I will address what is meant by epistemic virtue and how does open-mindedness qualify as a virtue. I will then discuss the relationship
I will show that Kelly's response to the question of epistemic significance of peer disagreement is not compelling. In my explanation of Kelly's argument, I will show that it is contradictory of him to assert the first persons perspective and the right reasons view. I will then examine the third person perspective, and show that this is more compatible with the right reasons view. Nevertheless I will propose an objection in the form of a question. Specifically, why should the difference between first person and third person change my thinking skeptically? Would this view only be attractive from the third person view? The third person perspective, the right reasons view as Kelly explains it, plus what I will call external Validation of a belief makes a more compelling argument.
Though it is agreed that epistemologists need to account for the role social factors play in inquiry, developing a viable social epistemology has proved to be a difficult task. According to Longino, it is the processes that make inquiry possible that are social, requiring a number of people to sustain them. These processes, she claims, not only facilitate inquiry, but also ensure that the results of inquiry are more than mere subjective opinions, and thus deserve to be called "knowledge." Here, I want to both explain and defend Longino's epistemology.
The type of research conducted often depends on the epistemology of the researcher. Epistemology is considered the justification of knowledge; it is about the relationship between the researcher, knowledge, and how knowledge is created (Carter...
8 Some philosophers have referred to this idea as the Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access (COREA)
Almost all epistemologists, since Edmund Gettier’s 1963 article, have agreed that he disproved the justified-true-belief conception of knowledge. He proposed two examples
Moore, Brooke Noel., and Kenneth Bruder. "Chapter 6- The Rise of Metaphysics and Epistemology; Chapter 9- The Pragmatic and Analytic Traditions; Chapter 7- The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." Philosophy: the Power of Ideas. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.
...osyncratic individualities and to normalize knowers and knowledge. Epistemology of particular knowledge demands consideration to distinctions and codify for admittance and for examination the perspicacity of knowers. Once knowledge is comprehended as being distinctive to and established by the knower, it surrenders its standing and converts to plural. This leads to the knowers’ comprehension distinct to themselves. While also an individuals knowledge develops the epistemological substance that produce an bionetwork of knowing which notifies and incorporates social groups, organizations and associations. When accepting comprehensively and bearing in mind the interconnection of knowers, the grander epistemological network is a societal or epistemological illusory. One that recommends the parameters of how it can be known, what can be known, and what becomes knowledge.
This essay starts with definition of traditional epistemology, followed by an explanation of how class, gender, and race can affect what one can know. Traditional epistemology can be defined as all knowers, regardless of who you are or what your social situation is, are bound by the same cognitive norms. (lecture) Charles Mills however, in the article “Alternative Epistemologies”, argues that who you are and your social situation change your access to knowledge. He criticizes that traditional epistemology fails to consider how an individual’s social situation can affect what he can know. Those in non-dominant social groups have epistemic access especially for knowing about oppression. In this essay I will attempt to explain Mills argument
Empiricists and rationalists have proposed opposing theories of the acquisition of knowledge, which appear unable to coexist. Each theory holds its own strengths but does not demonstrate a strong argument in itself to the questions, “Is knowledge truly possible?” and “How is true knowledge obtained?”. Immanual Kant successfully merged the two philosophies and provided a convincing argument with his theory of empirical relativism, or what some may call constructivism. His theory bridges the gap between rationalism and empiricism and proves that empiricists and rationalists each present a piece of the full puzzle. In order to truly understand Kant’s epistemology, one must first review and understand both empiricism and rationalism on an impartial basis.
Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed that this knowledge is a “Gift of God” and enough for an individual to build his own opinion but a man “shall be forced to take with shame his own opinion from another [citizen] (pg.55)”.
Hollis, M., & Lukes, S. (1982). Apparently Irrational Beliefs.Rationality and relativism (pp. 149-180). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Interpretive epistemology, which stems from idealist ontology, asserts that the world is made up of ideas: about oneself, others, society, or nature (Giacomini, ...
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much of the debate in epistemology centers on four areas: the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification, various problems of skepticism, the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses such questions as "What makes justified beliefs justified?", "What does it mean to say that we know something?" and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"
Truth and beliefs contribute in building the knowledge of a person. Cogent reasons for the beliefs convert the beliefs into knowledge. However, sometimes the beliefs are actually assumption, so they may be wrong. Truth is the facts known from different sources. Something can be considered as knowledge, only if it is true. The word epistemology refers to studying the source of knowledge. The epistemology helps in understanding the process of development of knowledge, sources of knowledge and makes distinctions between belief and actual truth. I critically examined and analyzed the origin and the process of acquiring the knowledge for the two essays I wrote earlier. One essay, an analytical one, was written on the subject of increasing prison population and improper justice system. The second essay was written on the subject of human resource management. To develop the knowledge and understanding I demonstrated in the essays, I had to search for resources, rationalize the information gained and evaluate it in conjunction with my personal beliefs.