Donald Rumsfeld's Lithosphere: Known And The Atmosphere

| The study of knowledge: What constitutes knowledge, the nature of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible

Where do our ideas come from? Where do our facts and information come from? What is knowledge? How do we learn? These are just a few of the questions epistemology attempts to answer and is the highlight of one of the major clashes in the history of philosophy - the difference of opinions between rationalists and empiricists. Empiricism is the theory that the inception of all knowledge is through experience sensed via the five senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Rationalism is the theory in philosophy which claims that reason is the ultimate source of human knowledge. Rationalists and empiricists take contrary ideas on how knowledge is attained. The argument between rationalist and empiricist philosophers looks at the nature of knowledge,

It is not enough to be content with what I have already known. In order to reach my maximum potential, I attempt to deepen my understanding of the world. Sometimes it can be overwhelming with all the knowledge there is in the world, so I ask myself the question “What knowledge will help me move ahead?”

Knowledge is much more than the transmitted or acquired information.  It is the awareness and understanding of facts, truths or beliefs resulting from perception, learning and reasoning.

Knowledge: It is information that has been synthesized so that relations and interactions are defined and formalized; Knowledge answers questions of “why” or “how”. It explores options.

With this lesson, we begin a new unit on epistemology, which is the philosophical study of knowledge claims. In this first lesson on epistemology, we begin by examining the question “What do we mean when we say we know something?” What exactly is knowledge? We will begin with a presentation that introduces the traditional definition of knowledge. Wood then discusses some of the basic issues raised in the study of epistemology and then presents an approach to epistemology that focuses on obtaining the intellectual virtues, a point we will elaborate on in the next lesson.

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is a branch of philosophy related to the scope and nature of knowledge. The subject focuses on examining the nature of knowledge, and how it relates to beliefs, justification, and truth. Epistemology contract with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. “Epistemology is the philosophical investigation into this question: What can we know? The question, at first, seems pretty simple: It seems pretty obvious that I know that 3+5+8, that the sun will rise tomorrow and that my chances of winning the lottery aren’t very good. I also know

     Epistemology is the nature of knowledge. Knowledge is important when considering what is reality and what is deception. The movie “The Matrix” displays a social deception in which Neo, the main character, is caught between what he thought was once reality and a whole new world that controls everything he thought was real. If I were Neo, I would not truly be able to know that I was in the matrix. However, it is rational to believe that I am in the matrix and will eventually enter back into my reality later. The proof that that I can know that I am in the matrix and that I will return to reality comes from the responses of foundationalism, idealism, and pallibalism.

As this research is exploratory in nature that is, it sought to explore and examine decision-making, morality and ‘sense-making’ amongst human participants I was naturally orientated towards an interpretivist epistemological position. The central thesis of interpretivism is that knowledge, its origin and interpretation is founded on human subjectivities and as such complemented my own world view that knowledge is indeed

During the first few weeks of class we’ve gone through various texts in order to better our understanding of human knowledge. We have talked about Christianity St. Matthew “The Sermon on the Mount”, Plato and “The Allegory of the Cave”, “The Four Idols” of Sir Francis Bacon, Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, and even Carl Jung and “The Structure of the Psyche”. All these texts may have been written in different eras and different places, but they have one thing in common, and that is their understandings of human nature and knowledge, and how they demonstrate to us epistemology (how we know) and metaphysics (what human beings know).

Theory of knowledge; often provokes big questions on the meaning and justifications of conventional knowledge.

Epistemology is the study of how we attain knowledge or why we believe stuff in the way we do. There are many branches in epistemology to explain how we learn and comprehend things, but also how we can know things for certain. Skepticism, a concept within epistemology, is a way we know the things we do with certainty. By using doubt and questioning how we perceive things, we can examine the validity of the knowledge and ideas that people seem sure of or believe must be true. By assessing things skeptically, it allows us to comprehend that

Epistemology is the nature of knowledge. Knowledge is important when considering what is reality and what is deception. The movie "The Matrix" displays a social deception in which Neo, the main character, is caught between what he thought was once reality and a whole new world that controls everything he thought was real. If I were Neo, I would not truly be able to know that I was in the matrix. However, it is rational to believe that I am in the matrix and will eventually enter back into my reality later. The proof that that I can know that I am in the matrix and that I will return to reality comes from the responses of foundationalism, idealism, and pallibalism.

Throughout time, people have always had varying views and ideas of everything. Through philosophy, these views and ideas can be put into solid words, theories, and assertions. Two very influential and famous philosophers are Plato and Aristotle. Although Aristotle was a student of Plato, they have differing views of metaphysics and epistemology. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that attempts to give a complete and systematic account of all reality and existence. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature and grounds of knowledge; epistemology asks what something is and how it came to be. One’s metaphysical position influences and affects their epistemological view by forming opinions on what is real or not and coming to knowledge through experience and/or by their metaphysical beliefs of reality.

There are two main schools of thought, or methods, in regards to the subject of epistemology: rationalism and empiricism. These two, very different, schools of thought attempt to answer the philosophical question of how knowledge is acquired. While rationalists believe that this process occurs solely in our minds, empiricists argue that it is, instead, through sensory experience. After reading and understanding each argument it is clear that empiricism is the most relative explanatory position in epistemology.