Talk:Epistemology/Archive 4

message: From the article:
:Knowledge is distinct from belief and opinion. If someone claims to believe something, they are claiming that they think that it is the truth. But of course, it might turn out that they were mistaken, and that what they thought was true was actually false. This is not the case with knowledge. For example, suppose that Jeff thinks that a particular bridge is safe, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately the bridge collapses under his weight. We might say that Jeff believed that the bridge was safe, but that his belief was mistaken. We would not say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. For something to count as knowledge, it must be true.
Okay. Rewind a bit to back when Jeff thought that the bridge was safe and would not collapse on him. Did he have knowledge /back then/? If he did, then that means the only criterion for knowledge is being subjectively justified belief; but if he didn't, that means any justified belief which's truth is not necessitated by the justification (i.e. might be wrong) is not knowledge, and thus NOTHING is knowledge because due to strong underdetermination no body of evidence can absolutely necessitate a theory. Jeff has no useful way of differentiating between justified belief that seems to be true and IS true (eg the bridge still being there at all) and justified belief that seems to be true but is false (the bridge being safe). What gives? --AceMyth 20:03, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
:For what it is worth, in the Kirkham article listed in the references at the end of the page, Kirkham argues this same point. Knowledge requires evidence that necessitates the truth of the belief. Any less stringent justification condition is subject to some kind of counterexample or other. He seems to agree that this does imply a very sweeping skepticism. But I think he has a way of taking the sting out of that. --Nate Ladd 21:02, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
::Personally I think the appropriate way of taking the sting out of that is, in the absence of certainly true knowledge, settling for knowledge that is probably true which is perfectly acceptable for all practical purposes (see Quine's various theses and their application to instrumentalism). I'll go read the article now to see what this Kirkham fellow says. --AceMyth 21:12, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
:::Well, Kirkham's point (and yours I thought) is that there's no such thing as knowledge that is merely probable. If the belief is not certain, then it doesn't count as knowledge. --Nate Ladd 21:24, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
::::Yes, and I was talking about a new, unconventional way to define "knowledge" based on this problem - knowledge as a belief justified such that it appears to probably be true. This type of knowledge, which is the only type we can have, is fallible yet useful. --AceMyth 22:07, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
:::::This view is also apparent in F. P. Ramsey's writings, in which he attempted to replace true with various levels of probability. I think it problematic; such probabilism presents its own problems. For instance, what is the probability that 1+1=2? 
:::::For my own part - and this is personal mussing, so not eligible for inclusion in the Wiki - an amalgam of Quine's coherence theory, Wittgenstein and Austin's language as use, and Popper's falibalism is sufficient to give an account of knowledge. But unfortunately we should not discuss such things here; I'll meet you all in the forum of your choice, if you like. Banno 20:45, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
::::::"The probability of 1+1=2" thing is the well known problem of whether "Self-evident" truths exist or not. Quine said they don't; I personally think that as "1" and "2" are auxiliary concepts of our own creation, conceived precisely to fit into their role such that two "1"s would make a "2", it would be really silly to fear the universe suddenly turning on us and proving us wrong when it had nothing to do with the whole thing in the first place. --AceMyth 05:47, September 4, 2005 (UTC) 
Just for fun, let's make this a Gettier problem. Jeff believes the bridge is safe for him to walk across. The bridge in fact IS safe for him to walk across. What is his justification? He is an engineer, and he was at this spot on the river bank when the bridge was being built. He observed that it was built with up-to-date methods and should be able to hold X number of tons, etc. So there is JTB, and knowledge, right? Well, unbeknowst to Jeff, the night before a group of terrorists substituted the sound bridge that he saw being constructed with an identical paper-mache duplicate, similar enough in appearance to fool even him. It just so happens, though, that even the paper mache bridge can support Jeff's weight, and he walks across safely. Did Jeff have knowledge of the safety of the bridge or not? The conditional account addresses such problems by asking: if the bridge were not safe, would Jeff's view of its safety have been different? If the terrorists had substituted a slightly more flimsy paper mache than the one they did employ, then the bridge would not have been safe for Jeff. But that wouldn't have changed Jeff's view of it, because his view would nonetheless have been based on his observations of a year before. So it isn't knowledge. Christofurio 14:57, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
:(sideline: What interests me here is that the substitution was done by terrorists. Presumably twenty years ago it would have been communists. And prior to that, Nazis. Curious, don't you think?)
: I think there is another problem with this example - it deals with two bridges, not one. Jeff was correct in thinking that the bridge he saw built would hold his weight, but mistaken in thinking that this was the bridge on which he walked. It is  problem of identity, not epistemology. Banno 20:15, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
::Banno, my point exactly made above: so-called Gettier "problems" conflate sense-reference, as if Jeff's belief in the example above had a JTB about the bridge the entire time as if it were the same referent, BUT Jeff doesn't...it is not the same bridge/referent. —B|Talk 19:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In another twenty years, somebody will use the same hypothetical, except the substitution will be accomplished by Martians. Tricky red-planet devils.
===Problems with the Knowlege and belief section===
Moore's paradox is misdescribed in the Knowledge and belief section. It would be be better to distinguish "belief" in the sense of either belief in or understanding/comprehension of.  I can understand a proposition/concept/etc, but not believe in it.  The way the term "belief" is used in that section is confusing. —B|Talk 19:47, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

text: First, it is NOT clearly wrong to an epistemic minimalist, and second it is much better than the gobbledly gook that was there before: "believed to be true" is NOT an element of knowledge..."belief", yes, but not "believed to be true". —B|Talk 21:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More about Knowledge vs. Belief 

message: Moore's paradox is misdescribed in the Knowledge and belief section. It would be be better to distinguish "belief" in the sense of either belief in or understanding/comprehension of.  I can understand a proposition/concept/etc, but not believe in it.  The way the term "belief" is used in that section is confusing. —B|Talk 19:47, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: First, it is NOT clearly wrong to an epistemic minimalist, and second it is much better than the gobbledly gook that was there before: "believed to be true" is NOT an element of knowledge..."belief", yes, but not "believed to be true". —B|Talk 21:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with the Knowlege and belief section

message: Is this up to submission for feature article status? See Wikipedia:What is a featured article. Banno 10:11, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feature article? 

message: I eliminated the discussion about Gettier from knowledge, since it's already here in much greater detail. Here are some left-over references to articles that don't seem to exist in this article. I'll let you decide if this should be added to this article, since I'm not really qualified or interested enough to figure it out myself. Sbwoodside 07:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gettier references from the [[knowledge]] page 

message: I wonder if anyone here would be interested in Unification Epistemology as an alternative to traditional epistemologies? For example:
:Cognition is always accompanied by judgment, and judgment can be regarded as a kind of a measuring act. For measurement, standards (criteria) are necessary, and it is the ideas within the human mind that serve as the standard of cognition.
Lots more where that came from. You might not agree with it all, but after compraing Dr. Lee's explanation with what you already think, at least you'll know where you stand. Uncle Ed 21:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A "Moonie Way of Knowledge" 

message: Combining two of the comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Epistemology/archive1, I suggest we remove the long list of philosophers from the See also section to here, and re-insert them by placing citations to each at the appropriate place in the article. Banno 03:05, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epistemic philosophers 

message: Imagine a banana. Now imagine a banana sitting in a field. How do you know it is there? Is it the yellow colour? Or the green of the field. Now imagine yourself eating the banana. How does it taste? How do you know it is a bananana if all you have ever eaten is dodo meat.
It sounds funny, but it does deal with epistemology of course, so it's not vandalism like the hairtrigger reverter thought :-) I hope the editor who added it comes back and does more useful stuff.  Kim Bruning 04:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recently removed text 

message: Surely there should be some mention of John Locke within this article.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.124.75.198 (talk) 17:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Locke 

message: 218.101.17.149 03:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm very much against the Merger.  Epistemology is a theory of knowledge, the philosophical study of how human beings could have knowledge, it's not one way in which people come to know things.  The major reason I have against the merger is that epistemology is really studying a specific use of the term 'knowledge.'  If you read the beginning of Lehrer's Theory of Knowledge, he talks in there about how epistemologists are really only interested in how it's possible to have knowledge in the sense of correct information, but what the philosopher is really analyzing is something much more than the mere possesion of information.  Epistemologists aren't doing learning theory in psychology and attempting to show how people come to know things, they're trying to find the most logically possible way in which a subject could know something. --Brizimm 20:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No; if it is false, then ipso facto it is not known. Banno 10:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Michael: I am not sure what your point is. First, one need not endorse a POV by stating a theory of knowledge even if knowledge does not "exist". Pegasus does not exist, but we may define Pegasus as a mythical winged horse. By positing a definition we are in no way committed to the view that there actually is something that meets the definition.
Secondly, the Truth condition of JTB need not come "after the fact." If I were to assert the proposition that the bridge is safe, roughly speaking, that proposition is true of false before I walk across it. What might be the source of your confusion is that YOU are in a position to judge that the proposition was true only after you walk across it. But this surely does not imply that your statement became true as a result of your walking across it.
I don't believe that there needs to be any revision along the lines of that advocated by Michael.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 3milepilot (talk • contribs) 18:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Might I suggest you list the difficulties you seer with that section under a new heading at the end of this page? Banno 10:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Caption... 

message: I'd like to see this article become featured, but it's not very cohesive.  I think that a big part of the problem is the over-representation of Gettier.  While the Gettier problem is important in epistemology, I'm not sure that it has to be explained at length in three separate places (here, the Gettier article, and the Gettier problem article).  Could we just trim it down? Alienus 21:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what is meant by the term gettier. As I continue my look into knowledge i'd like to understand some more of the terminology and I haven't been able to find anything to explain a lot of these things. (The Mule 01:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Edmund Gettier is a philosopher who came up with a way of challenging the traditional (back to Plato) idea that knowledge is justified true belief, which was widely accepted before he came along.  His example showed that a belief could be a true and justified (to the believer) belief, but nevertheless was not knowledge.  This is called the Gettier problem which dates to a short article published in the 1960s.  Some philosophers disagree that it is a problem, or claim to have solved it, but for many it remains a problem.  Perhaps the explanation of the Gettier problem could use a little clarification... from the example in the article Smith's belief that ‘a person with ten coins in his pocket will get the job’ is justified and true, but arrived at accidentally, and therefore should not constitute knowledge, according to Gettier.  Let me know if that helped, or if it is still unclear.  WhiteC 05:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad the question was asked.  I was a little worried that I missed something in my educational process.  Evidently Gettier was just a figment of some philosophers' imaginations. - KitchM (talk) 02:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gettier and quality 

message: I have a question: what is an "epistemological" something? The article explains what Epistemology is, but I'm having a rather hard time grasping the meaning of things like "epistemological confrontation" or "epistemological subject". What are those? --Eqvinox 19:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An epistemological confrontation is a confrontation about the origin or scope of knowledge. An epistemological subject is a topic centrol to epistemology, so the Gettier problem is an epistemological subject. The Rod (☎ Smith) 21:36, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  epistemological (as adjective) 

message: ===Article removed from Wikipedia:Good articles===
This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because although there is a lot of excellent content, references and external links should be in separate sections so that the sources used in writing the article can be identified.  Also, 'see also' sections are generally not necessary - relevant links should be in the main text anyway. Worldtraveller 22:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean up 

message: This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because although there is a lot of excellent content, references and external links should be in separate sections so that the sources used in writing the article can be identified.  Also, 'see also' sections are generally not necessary - relevant links should be in the main text anyway. Worldtraveller 22:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article removed from [[Wikipedia:Good articles]]

message: I just separated the references and external links section.  I also cleaned them up and alphabetized them.  They could use some more cleaning up though. The article also needs to cite the sources more and so on. There's a lot that could be done in the way of improvement. - Jaymay 00:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: References & citations clean up

message: Suggestion: Cut down the descriptions under the "Epistemological theories" section to only couple of sentences or just links to the main articles.  There are simply too many theories and many of them warrant their own articles.  We can even merge the descriptions we have with existing articles or use them to create non-existing ones. Any objections? - Jaymay 06:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Epistemological theories

message: Yes, yes, I know, there is no such distinction in English-speaking philosophy. In Italy, and apparently in several other European countries, what is called epistemology (what does on know, what is the nature of knoweldge,, justified true belief, warrant, reliabilism, etc) is called gnoseology (even among analytic-school philosophers and in the Universities). Epistemology proper, on other hand, deals with scientific knowledge and methods of achieving knowledge. Just an interesting fact that not many people are aware of.--Lacatosias 11:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting... you could list that as another meaning or refer to a separate gnoseology section I guess... Tyciol 02:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, actually I just noticed that this had already been discussed earlier. It's basically the same as in the Spanish case, I just linked this article to gnoseologia and linked philosophy of science to epistemologia. There does seem to be some very slight distinction between epistemologia, as intended in Italian, and philosophy of science, however. Once I get clear enough on exactly what the heck it is, then I can probably add some mention of this subtle distinction in one of the articles.--Lacatosias 09:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

text: You may base your research on the assumption that the etymological origin of sciences like epistemology and gnoseology is the same despite the language, for example English and French (where many words, especially relating to sciences, share common origins). However, phonems in words, by analogy, helps us to clarify (or create) meanings out of puns: for example in the french word "Épistémologie", you find the word "piste", which means "track", "trail" -which implies that there should be such puns in English. Although this is historically accidental, it creates analogies in the human mind which differ form culture to culture, especially in non-written ones, like Eastern societies. Here I assume that philosophy has a social value thus basis; perhaps two different philosophic branches could be complementary in the fact that their predominant quality is either theoretical or functional. --OllieTheKid 00:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: O.K. After some experimentation, I have arrived to the conclusion that puns don't bear the slightest philosophical value (my apologies to Freud fans, but I'm sure they'd understand). --OllieTheKid 22:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

text: So how's you research been? I cannot yet grasp how come distinction between gnoseology and epistemology is harder to fathom in English culture; maybe partly because of the the way the sacred, in this very culture, is interlaced with the prosaic, makes the use of analysis more strenuous in that particular field. The distinction is not that subtle, to my point of view. OllieTheKid 23:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epistemology and gnoseology 

message: Look, I cited one published source (Keith DeRose) and you deleted it. I will cite fifteen billison others if you give me a moment to lok them up. Why did you delete DeRose?? You ibviously know nothing whatver about philosophy, my friend!! What the hell is going on here?
--Lacatosias 09:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You and I both had the article open for editing at the same time. Your citation had not appeared when I opened it to revert. That happens sometimes. Try to be civilized about it. Feel free to add it back if you like. --Nate Ladd 09:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neologisms 

message: Frederick beleives that the sun will rise as midnight is true. Is there a problem with this sentence? Does it say "Frederick beleive that the sun.." is true OR "Frederick beleives that the sun... is true" is true? 
In order to clarify, I've reformulated this as "S beleives that it is true that the sun..." because I suspect that the de re reading was intended. --Lacatosias 19:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you seem to be on the right track. What you have identified is precisly the problem of de-re and de-dicto ambiguity in attitute attributions. But there are really two issues: the scope issue (de-re versus de-dicto) and the meaningfulness of the truth predicate itself. It's important not to confuse these. The truth-pedicate question is more a matter of truth theories than philosophy of language---see my recent article on deflationary theory of truth which discusess the main versions of deflationism and the interpretations of "it is true" or "is true" as predicate, anaphoric prosentence and so on.--Lacatosias 08:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. for readers who have no idea what the relevance of any of this is to the article on epistemology: the whole matter arose because someone kept adding "is true" and [P] with brackets to the logical statements made in the article. I interpreted this as some way to clarify that the statements were intended to be interpreted de-re and not de-dicto. But after further clarification on my talk page, it turned out that it was a simple matter of misunderstanding the standard notation for sentence variables.Now,since this has nothing to do with epistemology, if there is still any confusion please discuss on User talk:Lacatosias. --Lacatosias 08:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  De re-de dicto? 

message: I would like to request a article on Gregory Bateson's cybernetic epistemology - it was suggested that I ask here before starting an article on the topic. Just to give some view of the popularity of Bateson's epistemology:
*There are 102,000 hits for Bateson+epistemology on Google. 
*There is less than 10 results in PubMed and only a small number of articles indexed on Bateson's Double Bind theory. 
*According to Google Scholar "Steps to an ecology of mind : Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology" is cited in at least 2000 books and articles. ---=-C-=- 09:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would strongly suggest that you write up a summary of Bateson's epistemology and then add it to the main article on Bateson with a link to a more specific and detailed article on Bateson's epistemology. I don't see what objections there could be. If it IS such an important part of Bateson's work, then it should be mentioned in the article dedicated to him. If there is opposition this proposal on the Bateson page, then I personally would just go ahead and create the separate page. After all, there are infinitely more dubious or absolutely worhtless topics (e.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer) that have entire projects dedicted to them on Wikipedia.--Lacatosias 10:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're asking for someone to write it for you, I can't help you out there. I don't know anything about Bateson's epistemology nor very much about Bateson.--Lacatosias 10:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When I have some more time, I'll write an outline and first draft. I'd appreciate if I could get some feedback from experts in this area. ---=-C-=- 12:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bateson's Epistemology 

message: Epistemology is not knowledge. It is how we know what we know, not what we actually know. It should not be merged.
>> Agreed, epistemology is not at all the same as knowledge. 71.141.103.182 17:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the articles should not be merged.  "Epistemology" and "knowledge" are not the same thing.  Epistemology is the theory and study of knowledge, not knowledge itself.  For example, knowledge would deal with the results of the studies of Epistemology (such as "I am being appeared to Father-like" [Plantinga]), a rational, justified belief, studies of the theory of knowledge.  Epistemology is it's own field of study.--NWalterstorf 21:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

text: And with logic like this you managed to make it to your senior year? :^ --Otheus 14:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with knowledge 

message: I would agree that is should not be merged, and would add: Many people arive at this page quite correctly by searching for the term 'epistemological'. If this page did get merged then not being able to find this page would do them a disservice.
(From another reader): I am surprised to hear that some believe "epistemology" should not be a distinct Wikipedia article.  As any philosophy student knows, epistemology is one of the major branches of philosophy, on an equal standing with ethics and metaphysics.  It would be quite bizarre to not find a distinct article on the subject.
: I agree that the articles should not be merged.  "Epistemology" and "knowledge" are not the same thing.  Epistemology is the theory and study of knowledge, not knowledge itself.  For example, knowledge would deal with the results of the studies of Epistemology (such as "I am being appeared to Father-like" [Plantinga]), a rational, justified belief, studies of the theory of knowledge.  Epistemology is it's own field of study.--NWalterstorf 21:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging with knowledge

message: I recommend leaving epistomology in its own category because next fall i'm taking a senior level epistomology class and insist that it be in its own category for this reason.
:And with logic like this you managed to make it to your senior year? :^ --Otheus 14:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging with knowledge

message: I've noticed that some of the epistemological theories listed in the article have little to do with contemporary epistemological theories.  Specifically, one will not find empiricism, idealism, naive realism, phenomenalism, or representationalism in a book used or written by some of the leading epistemological scholars.  Instead, you find much more written about Gettier, reliabilism, skepticism, etc.  Perhaps one could argue that these are historical epistemological theories or have some use in continental philosophy.  I motion that these theories either be deleted, or even better, have a separate category.  Maybe this isn't such a great idea, but what I really want to hear are peoples opinions about whether or not these are still valid epistemological theories.
Also, while I respect that there are types of philosophers and religious people who believe that knowledge can be obtained through non-rational methods, I don't see the relvance those methods have to contemporary epistemology.  Once again, a leading contemporary scholar in epistemology (yes, of the analytic tradition), would want to talk about contextualism, Gettier, or evidentialism, for example, rather than nihilism and mysticism.
I believe a great deal of this article would be better if non-rational, Eastern Religious, continental, and analytic ways of approaching epistemology were more distinctly separated rather than oddly thrown together.  Of course, this proposal may only show my analytic ways, but it must also seem awkward for a person of a different philosophical persuasion to see their theories juxtaposed with something else that has nothing to do with it.  Maybe, there really should just be different articles on knowledge and epistemology, or at least a better introduction, or lay out, flow, and outline of the article that would be sure to not give the reader such a confusing impression.
One last thing, while the article labels foundationalism, coherentism and the like as being a part of rationality, such a label doesn't capture the essence of what these philosophies are attempting and I've yet to see such a label applied to them.  Of course, they're dealing with reasoning and are philosophies made by very rational analytic scholars, but things like foundationalism are really attempting to argue for a form of reasoning immune to the Agrippan or Pyrrhonian modes like hypothesis, and regress ad infinitum.  The label "rationality" may be the best label for them, but they're more concerned with justification and chains of reasoning rather than mere rationality. Also, "irrationalism" may be just as poor a label for the other theories.
What does the writer (unsigned) of this feel regarding the difference between two forms of reasoning:
1. Didactic reasoning.
2. Circular reasoning.
Analytic thought versus Circular thought. Eastern thought often uses Circular reasoning and often more persuasive in truth than Analytic thought, no..?
We need to begin with: How we reason anyway, without prejudice. And are we open to all forms and their cultures?
Saint John's Gospel uses, in some cases, an unfamiliar form. A different form again in the Book of Job.
Is Jung's answer to Job justified?
MacOfJesus (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epistemological Theories and Irrationalism 

message: at List of publications in philosophy, there is an ongoing editwar of inclusion/exclusion of one of rand's texts that clearly doesn't fit on the list, please comment or expand the list with enough other popular texts so the rand text would be appropriate.--Buridan 12:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  publications in philosophy 

message: I know P but I believe P to be untrue-- the article says this is a contradiction, but is it? I know the bible God, but I believe the bible god to be untrue seems a perfectly rational statement for an atheist who can know the bible god as well as any believer without believing this god to be true.Jiohdi 22:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  knowledge implies belief 

message: im lost i don't know what i want,i dt know who i am i'm totally lost.i can't believe in anything untouchable i'm so tired of reaching nowhere!!!!!!!!!
: Here's something to make you think, and perhaps help you out.  Do you "remember"?  You have memories, right?  They play through your mind day and night, images and thoughts of the past brought back to rememberance.  But these memories are not physical objects, and yet they exist.  They are a part of information stored within your mind.  While these memories lack a physical substance, they exist.  Secondly, language.  Let's say we were standing in a room with no books, no notepads or anything, and we were talking.  The words themselves would be of no physical substance.  Not all information and means of knowledge demands physical substance.--NWalterstorf 03:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Technically...I don't think you can prove that memories are not physical "objects". It may be that memories are physically encoded structures in the brain. How they are encoded is not known, arguably it is at the quantum level of the neuronic structures but -- most scientists (who happen to be materialists) would assert that memories have a physical existence. SunSw0rd 21:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

text: They would probably have about as much physical existence as does a program in a computer.WFPM (talk) 18:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  do u believe? 

message: I add something about Constructivist epistemology, an important lack actually for this article, even if the wikipédia article is not developped, there are at least links about the main proponents. Chrisdel 12:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting study, thanks for the inclusion of it.  The study seems like a cross between Empiricism and MEMEtics.  It says it's a recent development, which explains why I have heard so little about it.--NWalterstorf 14:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well the name "constructivism" might be recent but some references are old like Giambattista Vico (18th century), Gaston Bachelard "Nothing is given, everything is constructed" (1938, La formation de l'esprit scientifique ). For a quick presentation see "Le Moigne's Defense of Constructivism" by Ernst von Glasersfeld (i may create "Le Moigne"'s article soon...). Chrisdel 10:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Constructivist epistemology]] 

message: "Afterall, there's always one winner." 
This is mistaken, and depends on the type of lottery. A draw will always have a winner if there is one ticket in the hat for every player, but a lottery where players try to guess a combination of numbers that will later be drawn randomly there is not necessarily a winner.
- Actually, there is. As tongue in cheek as it may be, the organising/managing entity is always a winner in any lottery. --86.139.116.197 18:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Lottery Paradox 

message: I obtained this from the net "Some European continental philosophers will use the term gnoseology to refer to the theory of knowledge. The use of this term was introduced in the 19th century by German philosophers. Yet, epistemology is sometimes generally used instead to refer to the theory of knowledge as studied in analytic philosophy as such by American and British philosophers". Nonetheless I doubt this is a full explanation on the difference (if any) and equivalence between Gnoseology and Epistemology which deserves its part here as Gnoseology redirects here and some professors (particularly marxists one8-)) tend to define Epistemology as Theory of Science. --GTB 17/10/2006
:Episteme in Greek knowledge or science, logos in Greek knowledge or discurse. Knowledge of knowledge, discurse on science or discurse on knowledge. There are 2 questions on knowledge : what is it and how to make (or learn / teach / study / build) it. How is the methodology. Gnoseology, seen as the theory of knowledge, is what, epistemology then is both, plus the study of the knowledge's value or validity. Chrisdel 16:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gnoseology 

message: I don't see a reason for including the scepticism section - so I have removed it. Two orphaned headings and a paragraph of unsupported claims will not, I hope, be missed. Banno 21:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scepticism 

message: I believe that it would be appropriate to use all, or most, of the topics found in the so-called certainty series (which I have suggested be renamed the Epistemology series) as headers in this article, as they are all topics which touch on epistemology.
If they do not get sections of their own, they should in the very least be linked to from the article, and many of them already are. -FrostyBytes 12:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Certainty series]] 

message: "If someone claims to believe something, he or she is claiming that it is the truth. "
i believe that if someone claims to believe, someone claims to believe, and that is distinct from claiming knowing the truth.
Markmark206 06:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To believe something is to believe it to be true. To say "I believe Santa Claus brought my presents" is to say (a) Santa Claus, in fact, brought my presents, (b) I know this to be true although (c) there are probably other people who would dispute it. That's just the ordinary verncular-English sense of the phrase. --Christofurio 16:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "If someone claims to believe something, he or she is claiming that it is the truth." -- this makes no sense. 

message: I removed this interesting, but original essay from the article. Where "disputes among philosophers" are mentioned, the philosophers in dispute should be named. Elsewhere, an explanation of what definitions in the article are "rough" tends more toward editorial commentary than encyclopedic content. The phrase "This should also make it clear" raises doubt about the clarity of what is being clarified. If the sentence could stand on the assertion that "A proposition can still be said to be known a priori..." it would pass, but in this case, it doesn't stand ecause the sentence synthesizes for us what can and cannot be said. Originally synthesized knowledge is not consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for contributions. Max Werner
These definitions, though standard, are "rough" because they do not adequately make clear exactly how a priori knowledge must be independent of experience. Consider a proof of some (not immediately apparent) logical truth. Someone reading (and understanding) this proof will thereby come to know - and know 'a priori' - the logical truth. But the simple act of reading the proof involves having certain perceptual experiences which play a causal role in the subject coming to believe (and know) the logical truth. So, in one sense, the knowledge is not independent of experience. But this is not the sense of independent that features in the definition of a priori. The relevant sense is that the knowledge does not rest on any 'justificatory force' coming from the character of the subject's experience.  
This should also make it clear that a proposition can still be said to be known a priori even though perceptual experience is needed (at some stage in the subject's development) to acquire the concepts featuring in the proposition.
In addition to disputes over the nature of the distinction, there are disputes among philosophers regarding its relation to other distinctions, such as the semantic distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions and the metaphysical distinction between the necessary and contingent.
*The distinction between "editorial commentary" and "encyclopedic entry" is an important one to keep in mind. But it is  misapplied in the above comment. The clarification of the definition (as "rough") is simply not commentary. It is explaining what the concept means. That is all. Read any first rate philosophy encyclopedia - the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy or Rutledge's - and the entries are replete with discussions like this. 
*Re the remark that a proposition can be knowna priori though containing concepts requiring experience to acquire: 
**the comment is true and a simple fact about the nature of the concept a priori. It is absolutely appropriate for an encyclopedic entry. The phrase "This should make it clear that..." is meant to indicate why this simple and true fact holds. Again, I refer you to any first-rate philosophical encyclopedia for tons of examples of entrys like this. I worry that your efforts to be "encyclopedic" will make the entry very misleading. Gepstein 04:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal essay is original synthesis 

message: Removed the following:
Belief is not to be confused with Faith. Faith is "...The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1. One could say that They don't know p, but have faith that p is true. Belief may imply knowledge, but Faith does not imply knowledge.
It doesn't say why belief is not the same as faith. Perhaps an extended discussion of this might be added to the article on belief, but it is not needed here. The last paragraph is simply wrong: belief does not imply knowledge; rather  knowledge implies belief. Looks like OR. Banno 19:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faith 

message: The result was keep as separate articles. -- Anarchia 21:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Conceptually, I would say that Meta-epistemology should be a separate article, with a "See Also" link from the Epistemology page.  But the current meta-epistemology article is so weak that I'm not sure it deserves any links at this stage.  (Except for the first sentence, the meta-epistemology article does not seem to me to clearly maintain the distinction between meta-epistemology and regular old "non-meta"-epistemology.)  If I get around to doing a little research on meta-epistemology, I'll take a run at improving that article.  -- WikiPedant 16:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I too believe that Meta-epistemology ought to remain a seperate article as it desribes the study of Epistemology itself. --Martian.knight 01:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with Meta-epistemology 

message: "The distinction is between theoretical reason (knowing that) and practical reason (knowing how), with epistemology being interested primarily in knowledge of the theoretical kind. This distinction is recognised linguistically in many languages but not in English. In French, for example, admittedly not a perfect parallel, to know a person is 'connaitre', whereas to know how to do something is 'savoir'."
This statement isn't quite right, I don't think.  First, the "theoretical reason" link redirects to "pure reason," which is not the only subject of epistemology. Propositional knowledge doesn't have to be theoretical, it can also be empirical. Second, the connaitre vs. savoir distinction, it seems to me, is more akin to Russell's distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, both of which are addressed by epistemology.  For these reasons, I think the paragraph should be deleted.Aldrichio 21:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theoretical/Practical 

message: I was wondering if it might be appropriate to mention some of the modern approaches to epistemology, citing the work of Keith Lehrer for example. Just a thought. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.200.68.198 (talk) 06:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Keith Lehrer 

message: Surely Gettier must distinguish in some way between the following cases ;
I know I had ten coins in my pocket yesterday {I counted them).
I know I have ten coins in my pocket today {I counted them).
 
I know I will have ten coins in my pocket tomorrow {I can't possibly have counted them so I am guessing, not knowing).
I am making a FORECAST that I will have ten coins in my pocket tomorrow { so I am guessing, not knowing).
Given that each statement suffers in at least some way from verifiabilty worries, is it still not so that the very difference between scientific method and sociology is that in science, experiments must be carried out before conclusions are drawn, whereas in sociology, or economics, the conclusions are drawn in advance, since no experiments are able to be carried out in these soft fields. It is only on such a basis that one could be tricked into thinking that  a prediction about the future has the same evidentiary status as a conclusion drawn from the results of observations already made.
If what I suggest here is a valid response to Gettier, just asking, but where would I fit it into the article, (which does seem to wander on a bit here and there IMHO) if I find that I am able to find support in the literature and can write this up in a wiki way?
The article needs a little work maybe, but I don't want to put in Original Research, especially not amongst the heavy hitters.Newbyguesses 18:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  responses to Gettier 

message: Of course , Henry "concludes" that he has just seen barns. 
His belief is that "I, being Henry , have been before in the situation of observing things (such as barns), and (to the best of my memory) in most or many of those cases it has turned out to be the case that "the propositions that I formed and articulated given such input" turned out indubitably to contribute substantially to the proven recognition of my success in not being wrong; and, therefore, I, "think", I (again, me Henry??yoo woo??) saw some barns or...(turn left here quickly ...? .? .? . 
Henry thought he saw some barns.
He was driving his car, (fastly)
Henry wasn't paying more than a modicum of attention to the scenery.
He thought he saw some barns. (As you do)
He was probably right.
Is this a counter-example to the counter example?
Newbyguesses 14:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliabalism/ Reliability/ 

message: To discuss this proposed merge, I was directed here. I would like to endorse the view that the merge not be done, and the Article Meta-Epistemology be retained. The structure of the collected articles in Philosophy is sound. The Meta article does need expanding by someone who knows what they are talking about though. If it is deleted, someone will relist it if they come up with some souces for statements. Hope this is the right place to express IMHO this view to retain Meta-Philosophy at this time. (I have no prior experience of the Deletion process, and am not quite sure whether a decision has yet been made and the next steps in the process.Newbyguesses 08:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  proposed merge of Meta-Epistemology into Epistemology 

message: I am proposing this merger because the alethiology page is brief, in-practice orphaned, rarely edited, it is not a concept that is ever likely to develop into a decent page, and epistemology seems the most sensible page into which the information might be put. Truth or maybe Wiktionary seem the only alternatives.Anarchia 10:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the definition proposed for alethiology is the same as what is often proposed for epistemology. Chrisdel 10:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

text: As it happens I have been doing some research for a project in which the distinction between alethiology and epistemology is quite crucial, even central, to the argument. I can't give details here, since for the time being that would count as divulging the results of original research, but I personally would be very reluctant to merge the two articles simply because the potentially useful distinction has not yet been exploited (but will be exploited in the near future if I can help it) Vremya 04:30, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am going to remove the merge proposal. Anarchia 21:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal: [[Alethiology]] into epistemology 

message: I just noticed that epistemology is linked and mentioned in the lead of ontology, but not vice-versa.  For some reason, I'd like to suggest reciprocal linking.  Best, Smmurphy(Talk) 03:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure ! Chrisdel 19:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I no longer see such cross-links in the lead of either article. A popularizer I lost track of (any help?) explained that ontology asks 'what is real?' and epistemology asks 'how do you know?' If I can find the source, would it improve the lead or would it be a digression?67.130.129.135 (talk) 02:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's a relevant thing to include.  Sometimes people confuse the two, running together issues of epistemology and ontology (and anti-realism actually argues something similar to epistemology=ontology), but otherwise, it's not necessary to make the point.  Anyone reading the two articles should see how they're different.JustinBlank (talk) 03:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, just a thought. 67.130.129.135 (talk) 20:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ontology 

message: Just a note: this article needs a lot of work to become a real overview of epistemology. Any philosophy academics out there? Hgilbert (talk) 02:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overall quality 

message: Is there any differentiation between Noölogy & Epistemology? Has any author attempted putting one in subordination to the other or qualifying one as in any way different from the other? And if not, maybe the term should be mentioned as synonymous somewhere in one of the articles and a merge be created. However in the field of philosophy it is likely in my opinion that an author somewhere qualified the terms or used one to the exclusion of the other. Nagelfar (talk) 06:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Noölogy' is not a commonly used word in philosophical writings--compare the results for google searches on 'noölogy' and 'epistemology.'  I'd actually never encountered the word before seeing you link to it.  So I'd advise against any mention. JustinBlank (talk) 03:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Noology|Noölogy]] & Epistemology? 

message: Bots keep updating wrong interwiki links for de, es and fr. At meta:Interwiki synchronization/Epistemology I proposed a solution to this problem (see meta:Interwiki synchronization for the general page about such problems). Please comment there. Marcoscramer (talk) 14:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal concerning the interwiki links