Talk:Epistemology/Archive 2

message: My apologies in advance to the authors of the article. The article is spoiled by having been edited and added to in an ad hoc fashion. It lacks structure, and so gives a confused account of the topic. Much of it looks like a list of links, rather than an attempt to explain the key issues. 
The promotion of subjectivism and objectivism is unusual in an article on Epistemology. These two categories are more commonly used to differentiate two approaches to ethics rather than to knowledge. Also, running through the article is confusion between knowledge, the proper subject of epistemology, and truth, which is only indirectly relevant.  There is a desperate need for a discussion of the relationship between knowledge and truth – and why not drop in justification and belief?
It is far more common to start with the rationalist/empiricist distinction, as this article once did. Since this follows more closely the historical development of epistemology, this also makes it far easier to introduce new material into the article. 
The second paragraph is strange. It does not seem to have a content that is relevant to the article. Several other paragraphs have similarly lost their apparent relevance – no doubt as a result of editing since they were written.  Several paragraphs are about truth, not knowledge – which would be fine, provided the distinction had been spelled out earlier. The taxonomy introduced in the middle of the article is also puzzling. For instance, few constructivists would consider themselves to be subjectivists, as is claimed. Again, the subject appears to be truth rather than knowledge. 
A comment on style - much of the article is also written in the first person. Surly this is inappropriate?
The article needs editing and re-writing from top to bottom, with an eye towards consistence and completeness. 
Banno 13:23, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: And leave out the fallacious conflation of knowledge and belief, two entirely different things. --207.200.116.7 22:44, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Oldest changes

message: And its not just because the subject matter is itself difficult, either. After all, other wiki articles dealing with similar subject matter (on "knowledge," for example, or "phenomenalism") do so in an orderly, transparent manner.
In this case, the person who conceived of the central section wanted to create a list of five approaches to epistemology and to explain why they are all inclusive.  He came up with: nihilism, subjectivism, objectivism, mysticism, and skepticism.  Or did he?  It looks as if he intended to include "phenomenalism" but declined to cross-reference that so it wouldn't end up a list of six.  But why NOT six then? Or twenty?  What principled distinctions are behind this list?  I can't tell. 
I've tried to clean up this article, introducing a couple of subheads and my own definitions of some of the key terms, and adding a transition at the end of that second paragraph so it won't look so out of place.  
But I won't go any further, fearing as some have mentioned that 'too many cooks' may be part of the problem here.
--Anonymous
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Somehow rationalism and empiricism have gotten snowed under.
There's so much *ELSE* going on that the 2 main schools in epistemology are snowed under. Eep. -- 80.126.238.189 22:06, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks much tidier! But now the strong influence of empiricism (specifically this small subschool known as "science" :-P ) is still snowed under. This article seems to follow some kind of yearly cycle. :-) Kim Bruning 14:50, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: fair enough. My intent had been to say the terms were first used in this way by Kant.Banno 05:34, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A very confusing article  

message: I just speed read this, but I didn't see any mention of information as defined by the bit. The bit is a building block of information. Our main fuzzy area of the nature of epistemology then is how exactly brains handle information; whether with some form of bits or something else.
:That’s because epistemology is about knowledge, not information. In the olden days, before the invention of the bit, they still knew things.  Banno 09:07, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)
: Eh? I thought the building block of information was the base. (Hint: perhaps the bit is not the basic unit of information ;-) )Kim Bruning 13:34, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  information (bit) 

message: The article misses a great chance when mentioning illness as an example. The human immune system does not operate independantly of the central nervous system at all. For instance, the CNS-generated hormone cortisol is a great example of an immunosupressant. This means that a persons' state of mind can influence the course of an illness to some degree. 
This would make a really nice example of observer effect. Kim Bruning 13:28, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illness and observer influence 

message: I’ve moved this stuff from the main page because it has a few problems.  It claims to be offering a definition of knowledge, but instead just cites a few philosophers. In doing so it breaks the flow of the article. That is, there is no reason to give primacy to Descartes and Locke. Perhaps the author would like to place the material in the appropriate place in the article. 
Also, it misuses the phrase “begs the question”.
Banno 03:32, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)
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Epistemology begs the question: from "where" or "what" does human knowledge derive? The "theory of knowledge" comes to us in the modern age by the arguable father of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes (1596-1650). It is Descartes, in his attempt to start upon a firm logical ground, who first employs the concept of methodical doubt: the concept that whatever is not provable must be discarded. It is from Descartes that the famous: "Cogito ergo sum" derives. What is irrefutable to Descartes, is this previous statement, which boldly asserts that the most basic knowledge is (in English this time), "I think, therefore I am."
John Locke (1632-1704) was considerably influenced by Descartes. It was Locke however, who stood forth against the idea that there are "innate" ideas or thoughts, but declared rather, that all are born with naught - a blank slate, (tabula rasa), and that all we truly know is that which we experience. Today John Locke is widely considered the father of 
empiricism, and is followed by Berkley, Hume, Russell, and others of the current era.
Juxtaposed directly opposite the empiricist, is the rationalist. Typified by philosophers including Plato, Aquinas,  and Kant, the rationalist asserts that there exists knowledge without experience. This knowledge is said to be "a priori" -   or knowledge existant that is known without experience. A rationalist might state: ". . .nowhere in nature can one find, let's say, a contradiction, an imaginary number, or mathematical concepts in the altogether." 
Yet, their usage is commonplace.
Epistemology then, is about knowledge and its origins.
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--172.191.126.235 17:22, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wrong. Conflation is not a form of equivocation. To conflate two things is to speak of them as if they were the same thing. (Sometimes they are, so it is not always wrong to conflate. E.g. The Morning Star and The Evening Star should be conflated.) To equivocate is to shift the meaning of a word in an argument as the argument progresses. --63.231.15.66 23:16, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from article 

message: The most influential writing on knowledge is the Theaetetus account written by Plato, in which he further develops the definition of knowledge. We know that, for something to count as knowledge, it must be true, and be believed to be true. Plato argues that this is insufficient, and that in addition one must have a reason or justification for that belief.  
Plato defined knowledge as justified true belief. 
 
One implication of this definition is that one cannot be said to "know" something just because one believes it and that belief subsequently turns out to be true. An ill person with no medical training but a generally optimistic attitude might believe that she will recover from her illness quickly, but even if this belief turned out to be true, on the Theaetetus account the patient did not know that she would get well, because her belief lacked justification.
Knowledge, therefore, is distinguished from true belief by its justification, and much of epistemology is concerned with how true beliefs might be properly justified. This is sometimes referred to as the theory of justification.
The Theaetetus definition agrees with the common sense notion that we can believe things without knowing them. Whilst knowing p entails that p is true, believing in p does not, since we can have false beliefs. It also implies that we believe everything that we know. That is, the things we know form a subset of the things we believe.
____ 
--172.191.126.235 17:22, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wrong. Conflation is not a form of equivocation. To conflate two things is to speak of them as if they were the same thing. (Sometimes they are, so it is not always wrong to conflate. E.g. The Morning Star and The Evening Star should be conflated.) To equivocate is to shift the meaning of a word in an argument as the argument progresses. --63.231.15.66 23:16, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Justified true belief

message: I think Paul Feyrabend should be present in this article. He wrote a lot of epistemology and is well known. May be many people do not like him, but he stated interesting questions. 
In any case, he is in the Italian version (stub) of the article and will remain.
Truman Burbank from it.wiki 
--213.156.54.194 17:09, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  where is Paul Feyrabend?