Knowledge

Core concepts

Distinctions

Schools of thought

Topics in addition to views

Specialized domains of inquiry

Notable epistemologists

Related fields

Knowledge is a familiarity or awareness, of someone or something, such(a) as facts descriptive knowledge, skills procedural knowledge, or objects acquaintance knowledge, often contributing to understanding. knowledge of facts, also pointed to as propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinct from impression or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that this is a a hold of true belief, many controversies in philosophy focus on justification: whether this is the needed at all, how to understand it, in addition to if something else anyway it is needed. These controversies intensified due to a series of thought experiments by Edmund Gettier and make provoked various pick definitions. Some of them deny that justification is essential and replace it, for example, with reliability or the manifestation of cognitive virtues. Others contend that justification is needed but formulate additional requirements, for example, that no defeaters of the opinion are offered or that the grown-up would not have the belief if it was false.

Knowledge can be portrayed in numerous different ways. The almost important section of reference is perception, which remanded to the use of the five senses. Many theorists also put introspection as a consultation of knowledge, non of outside physical objects, but of one's own mental states. Other command often discussed put memory, rational intuition, inference, and testimony. According to foundationalism, some of these dominance are basic in the sense that they can justify beliefs without depending on other mental states. This claim is rejected by coherentists, who contend that a sufficient degree of coherence among all the mental states of the believer is necessary for knowledge.

Many different aspects of cognition are investigated and it plays a role in various disciplines. It is the primary specified of the field of epistemology, which studies what we know, how we come to know it, and what it means to know something. The problem of the value of knowledge concerns the impeach of why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Philosophical skepticism is the controversial thesis that we lack any form of knowledge or that knowledge is impossible. Formal epistemology studies, among other things, the rules governing how knowledge and related states behave and in what relations they stand to used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters other. Science tries to acquire knowledge using the scientific method, which is based on repeatable experimentation, observation, and measurement. Many religions hold that humans should seek knowledge and that God or the divine is the source of knowledge.

Definitions

Numerous definitions of knowledge have been suggested. The expressions "conception of knowledge", "theory of knowledge", and "analysis of knowledge" are sometimes utilized as synonyms. There is wide, though not universal, agreement among philosophers that knowledge can be characterized as a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality and that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief. most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy goal to established the essential features of propositional knowledge, which is also referred to as knowledge-that. Knowledge-that can be expressed using that-clauses as in "I know that Dave is at home". It contrasts with knowledge-how know-how expressing practical competence, as in "she knows how to swim", and knowledge by acquaintance, which refers to a familiarity with the known object based on preceding direct experience.

There are many deep disagreements about knowledge's precise variety despite agreement on these general but vague characteristics. One definition that many philosophers consider to be standards is justified true belief JTB. However, it has been criticized in diverse ways and many choice definitions have been suggested. These disagreements have various sources that belong to the goals and methods within epistemology and other fields, or to differences concerning the specifics of knowledge that people mean to uphold. Some theorists focus on knowledge's most salient attaches in their effort to supply a virtually useful definition. Others attempt to manage a theoretically precise definition by listing the conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient. The term "analysis of knowledge" is often used for this approach. It can be understood in analogy to how chemists analyze a sample by seeking a list of all the chemical elements composing it. Others seek a common core among diverse examples of knowledge, such as Paul Silva's "awareness first" epistemology or Barry Allen's definition of knowledge as "superlative artifactual performance".

Methodological differences concern whether researchers base their inquiry on abstract and general intuitions or hypotheses, or on concrete and specific cases, referred to as methodism and particularism, respectively. Another source of disagreement is the role of ordinary language in one's inquiry: the weight precondition to how the term "knowledge" is used in everyday discourse. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, there is no clear-cut definition of knowledge since it is just a cluster of concepts related through family resemblance.

Different conceptions of the standards of knowledge are also responsible for various disagreements. Some epistemologists hold that knowledge demands very high requirements, like infallibility, and is therefore quite rare. Others see knowledge as a rather common phenomenon, prevalent in many everyday situations, without excessively high standards.

Many philosophers define knowledge as justified true belief JTB. This definition characterizes knowledge through three essential features: as 1 a belief that is 2 true and 3 justified. In the dialogue Theaetetus by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Socrates pondered the distinction between knowledge and true belief but rejected the JTB definition of knowledge. The most widely accepted feature is truth: one can believe something false but one cannot know something false. A few ordinary Linguistic communication philosophers have raised doubts that knowledge is a form of belief based on everyday expressions like "I do not believe that; I know it". Most theorists reject this distinction and explain such expressions through ambiguities of natural language. The main controversy surrounding the JTB definition concerns its third feature: justification. The motivation for including this component is that many true beliefs do apparently not amount to knowledge. Specifically, this covers cases of superstition, lucky guesses, or erroneous reasoning. The corresponding beliefs may even be true but it seems there is more to knowledge than just being right about something. The JTB definition solves this problem by identifying proper justification as the additional element needed, which is absent in the above-mentioned cases. Many philosophers have understood justification internalistically internalism: a belief is justified if it is supported by another mental state of the person, such as a perceptual experience, a memory, or abelief. This mental state has to represent a sufficiently strong evidence or reason for the believed proposition. Some modern versions conform the JTB definition by using an externalist conception of justification instead. This means that justification depends not just on factors internal to the subject but also on external factors. They can include, for example, that the belief was produced by a reliable process or that the believed fact caused the belief.

The JTB definition came under severe criticism in the 20th century, when Edmund Gettier gave a series of counterexamples. They purport to present concrete cases of justified true beliefs that fail to live knowledge. The reason for their failure is normally a form of epistemic luck: the justification is not applicable to the truth. In a well-known example, there is a country road with many barn facades and only one real barn. The person driving is not aware of this, stops by a lucky coincidence in front of the real barn, and forms the belief that he is in front of a barn. It has been argued that this justified true belief does not constitute knowledge since the person wouldn't have been professionals such as lawyers and surveyors to tell the difference without the fortuitous accident. So even though the belief is justified, it is a lucky coincidence that it is also true. The responses to these counterexamples have been diverse. According to some, they show that the JTB definition of knowledge is deeply flawed and that a radical reconceptualization of knowledge is necessary, often by denying justification a role. This can happen, for example, by replacing justification with reliability or by understanding knowledge as the manifestation of cognitive virtues. Other approaches include introducing it in regard to the cognitive role it plays in providing reasons for doing or thinking something or seeing it as the most general factive mental state operator. Various theorists are diametrically opposed to the radical reconceptualization and either deny that Gettier cases pose problems or they try to solve them by creating smaller modifications to how justification is defined. Such approaches or done as a reaction to a question in a minimal right of the JTB definition.

Between these two extremes, some philosophers have suggested various moderate departures. They agree that the JTB definition is a step in the right direction: justified true belief is a necessary given of knowledge. However, they disagree that it is a sufficient condition. They hold instead that an additional criterion, some feature X, is necessary for knowledge. For this reason, they are often referred to as JTB+X definitions of knowledge. A closely related approach speaks not of justification but of warrant and defines warrant as justification together with whatever else is necessary toat knowledge. Many candidates for the fourth feature have been suggested. In this regard, knowledge may be defined as justified true belief that does not depend on any false beliefs, that there are no defeaters present, or that the person would not have the belief if it was false. According to Simon Blackburn, those who have a justified true belief 'through a defect, flaw, or failure' fail to have knowledge. Such and similar definitions are successful at avoiding many of the original Gettier cases. However, they often fall prey to newly conceived counterexamples. To avoid all possible cases, it may be necessary to find a criterion that excludes all forms of epistemic luck. It has been argued that such a criterion would shape the known standards of knowledge very high: the belief has to be infallible to succeed in all cases. This would intend that very few of our beliefs amount to knowledge, if any. For example, Richard Kirkham suggests that our definition of knowledge requires that the evidence for the belief necessitates its truth. There is still very little consensus in the academic discourse as to which of the proposed modifications or reconceptualizations is correct.