Epistemology is the arm of philosophy concerned with the study of knowledge and beliefs. The study

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.

Kant credited both empiricism and rationalism movements. He believes that they both contributed to human’s knowledge and should not reject neither one of them. So, he keeps some parts of those principles and defines empiricism a posteriori knowledge and rationalism as a priori knowledge. His goal is to explain and then justify the possibility of scientific knowledge.

This author ascribes to the empiricism paradigm. This paradigm is similar to empirical knowing in that it is based on the premise that what is known can be verified through the senses, or

The pursuit of truth: Epistemology provides understanding for the reader to gain insight to the way that humans process and react to truth. Epistemology is the pursuit of intellectual virtue. It wants to provide an evidentiary basis for belief, rather than one of just opinion. Entwistle then brings up another important topic which is Metaphysics. Metaphysics can be defined as the philosophical investigation of the nature, constitution and stature of reality. Philosophical anthropology attempts to validate assumptions made by theologians and psychologists about human nature and behavior (Entwistle, pp119).

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

Throughout my journey I am discovering the epistemological tradition that best fits my own perspective. There are many ways in which a person learns; learning can be defined as a change in behavior due to past experiences. As well, there are different approaches to learning such as; behaviorism, cognitivism, connectivism and constructivism. Many aspects of my life have formed my epistemological assumptions such as family, friends, community, education and my own experiences. Epistemology is defined as the theory of knowledge, with respect to its methods, validity, and scope; it is the inquiry of what discerns acceptable belief from opinion (Bates, 2015, section 2.2.1, para 1). I feel that I connect best with experiential cognitivism since I prefer to experience information before internalizing and relating it with what I know to be true. I will draw upon my past experiences to illustrate my position as I have come to understand myself as an experiential cognitivist, which situates within the epistemology of pragmatism. Pragmatism is defined as a practical approach to problems or matters. As William James states in his book Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking “He (pragmatism) turns towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power” (para 12, Lecture II What Pragmatism Means).

People read from an abundant number of sources and retain the information presented. However, if people forgot the source of the information, would they be justified in the knowledge they have gained? Having a justification for knowledge is a necessary condition to have epistemic justification. According Earl Conee and Richard Feldman epistemic justification could be gained through internalism. Internalism should be understood as a person’s beliefs that are justified only by ideas that are internal to oneself.

While I agree with you that the use of reason is in important in order to best reach the truth, it is difficult to have access to a vast quantity of knowledge without observation or experiencing the external world. This it likely why I have a preference to subscribe to transcendental idealism which in many ways combines the rationalism and empiricism. Transcendental idealism, like rationalism, uses reason and critical evaluation, but transcendental idealism focuses on the observations and puts into account that our experiences may not be accurate accounts of the external

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

Empiricist philosophers such as John Locke believe that knowledge must come from experience. Others philosophers such as Descartes believe that knowledge is innate; this way of thinking is used by rationalist. In this paper I will discuss the difference between Descartes rationalism in his essays "The Meditations" and Locke's empiricism in his essays "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding". I will then lend my understanding as to what I believe as the ultimate source of knowledge.

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.

Epistemology- Epistemology is the division between empiricism and rationalism in different ways of thinking about how we reason and rationalise that knowledge and how it is reliable and certain, epistemology gives us our professional theories, beliefs and practices and how we differentiate between what is true and false. (Scott, 2014).

Empiricism is based from sensory experience and observed facts. This view emphasizes that “scientific knowledge can be derived only from sensory experience” (Alligood, 2014, p. 15). Examples of sensory experience are seeing, feeling and hearing facts. This approach is labeled the research-then-theory strategy. An example that Alligood provides is that “formulating a differential diagnosis requires collecting the facts and then devising a list of possible theories to explain the facts” (2014, p. 16). Empiricists believe that reason alone does not give knowledge (Markie, 2017).

Epistemology is purposed with discovering and studying what knowledge is and how we can classify what we know, how we know it, and provide some type of framework for how we arrived at this conclusion. In the journey to identify what knowledge is the certainty principle was one of the first concepts that I learned that explained how we, as humans, consider ourselves to know something. The certainty concept suggests that knowledge requires evidence that is sufficient to rule out the possibility of error. This concept is exemplified in cases like The Gettier problem in the instance that we suppose (S) someone to know (P) a particular proposition. As Gettier established the Justified True Belief as a conceptual formula for knowledge, certainty

Empiricism is an approach to philosophical thinking assuming that all human knowledge arises originally from sense-experiences. John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume are most notably known for the branch of empirical philosophy. Philosopher David Hume discusses what he believes are “bundles of perception.” He argues that we can never experience the objective world and alternatively only observe patterns. According to Hume, there are two methods used to detect these patterns, unit and continuity and causality. Casualty is defined as a relationship between ideas that allows you to infer knowledge beyond your immediate experience. Ultimately, Hume’s argument identifies the flaws and limitations involving casualty. Hence, the limitations surrounding casualty deal with the problem of induction, necessary connection and ultimately how it can lead to circularity and infinite regress.