This document provides an introduction to epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It discusses key questions in epistemology such as what knowledge is, the difference between knowledge and belief, and the historical evolution of theories of knowledge in Western philosophy. Specifically, it examines the contributions of early Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides to the development of epistemological thought.

1. EPISTEMOLOGY -
Introduction to Issues about Knowledge

2. • A branch in Philosophy, studying
KNOWLEDGE
• (episteme = knowldge; logia = logical
discourse)
• Can be said to be:
–Knowledge of knowledge
–What is knowledge
–science of knowledge
–theory of knowledge (a popular
understanding!)

3. • Of course, related to Hermeneutics…
–Focus of Hermen: Meaning &
Interpretation
–Focus of Epist: Truth & knowledge
• We know that we know…
• But sometimes, we don’t know
that we know

4. • “It is very good for a man to talk
about what he doesn’t
understand, as long as he
understands that he does not
understand it”- G. K Chesterton.

5. What is Knowledge?
• Confucius: When you know a
thing, to recognize that you
know it,
• And when you don’t know a
thing, to recognize that you
don’t know it!

6. What is Education?
• Daniel J. Boorstin: Education is learning what
didn’t even know that you didn’t know.
• So in and through this course on Epistemology,
you will come to know many things you didn’t
know and you didn’t even know that you didn’t
know!
• (after all, we will never know how much we
don’t know, because, all that we know is what we
know! ()

7. Several important questions…
• What is knge?
• What is to know?
• What do we actually do when we know – before /
during / after knowing?
• Can we have knge at all?
• Can we be certain that we know?
• Under what conditions can be said to know?
• How is knge different from belief/opinion/doubt?
• The sources of knge? How to distinguish valid/invalid
sources?
• What is the role of memory in acquiring knge?

8. • 2. Common sense knge
• ( - why is it so uncommon? – slides…)

9. Isaac Newton…
making a new door for the small cat…

17. The Importance of Epistemology
• Epist. is so very important that many consider
it as ‘root of philosophy’ and they identify
Philosophy with Epistemology.
• Various types of sentences we come across,
which give knge directly or indirectly:

18. 1. There are 10 books on the table
2. I am now going to have coffee
3. Shut the door
4. What is the time? (What is time?)
5. Heavenly Father, have mercy on me!
6. 10 + 2 = 12
7. There will be a storm tomorrow
8. Congress Party will win in the next elections
9. ‘Logic’ means the science of reasoning.
10. Epistemology - What an interesting subject!

19. • all of it is based either directly or indirectly on
knowledge.
• 1, 2 and 9 are direct, straight forward
knowledge claims.
• 3 is a command. Apparently it has nothing to
do with knowledge. But reflection would show
that this command assumes there is another
person
• 4 and 5. Question 4 assumes that you have a
name,
• 5 assumes that there is God, that He is
merciful.

20. • The whole of human life is based on knge, and
that is why, Philosophy is identified with
Epistemology
• (our sense of morality/ ontology /Religion /
social constructs / constitution etc. - all are
based on knge.

21. Relation between
Epistemology and Logic
• closely connected
• Epistemology is also known as Major Logic
while the other is called Minor Logic
• Logic deals with rules and methods of
arguments, deals with the form or the
propriety of arguments, whether it is licit or
not
• Major Logic deals with the Truth of the
conclusion thus drawn.

22. Universality of Truth
• Can we comfortable with contradictory
statements?
• Natural desire for truth…
• Of course, we cannot know all that is true or
possess all knge, but we expect that what we
know must be true…
• Truth – not relative to place and time
• But a truth of a statement – can it change over
the years?

23. • “No human person has set one’s foot on the
Moon” –
• is it true?
• Was it true? (yes, before 1969!)

24. • Epist is needed to settle the cognitive disputes…
• (= two competing descriptions about the same
person/situation, in the same perspective… but
are mutually incompatible…
• To have a cognitive dispute, there must be a
cognitive difference… in those two descriptions…
• How to settle it?:
– a) to show, the subject matter is not the same
– b) to show, the perspectives differ
– c) to show that one of was wrong
– D) to dissolve it by showing that there was no issue

25. • As we look for truth, we look for certainty too.
• when sb says sth, often we ask:
– How do you know?
– It implies to know the source & reliability of the
information
– It is actually a demand for certitude and reliability

26. Relation between Knowledge and
Belief
• To be counted as knowledge it must be true
and it must be believed to be true
• Socrates: justified true belief - reason or
justification for that belief.
• Epistemology is concerned with how true
beliefs might be properly justified
• We must believe everything we know, but
cannot say that everything we believe is true

27. • Knowledge is different from belief and opinion
• Some of the beliefs can be superstitious
• For something to count as knowledge, it must
be true.
• The knowledge which is true, has to be
believed.
• “I know P, but I don’t think that P is true.” If I
say so, I contradict myself profoundly.

28. • Epistemology is truly a philosophical enquiry
• The very act of knowing is questioned:
• How and why do we know?
• When is that we know or what happens to us
when we say ‘we know’?
• Am I absolutely certain that I know?
• What is the criterion of truth or certainty?
• What about first-hand knowledge and second-
hand knowledge?
• Is knowledge purely a product of our mind or
is it purely from outside our mind?

29. • Are there different types of knowing and
therefore several kinds of knowledge?
• What about different, sometimes altogether
contrary solutions to the same or identical
problems or questions?
• How reliable is or can be our knowledge and
what makes it reliable?

30. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF WESTERN
EPISTEMOLOGY
• Epistemology: the study of knowledge; what
we know and how we know it.
• To do with justifying our knowledge.
• tripartite definition of knowledge is that
“knowledge is justified, true, belief.”
• epistemology tries to examine and establish
the conditions for certain knowledge.
• and also to establish the conditions for
knowing a statement is justifiably true.

31. Eepisteme
• the root of epistemology :
• inquiry of truth and knowledge.
• quest for true and scientific knowledge as
opposed to opinion or belief.
• an organized body of thought about reality.
• branch of philosophy that studies knowledge
• What distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge
from false (inadequate) knowledge?

32. Historical Evolution of Greek
Epistemology
• 1. The Pre-Socratic Philosophers
• Thales (624-545 B.C.)
• all things are full of the gods, and that by some
nature or principle all things come into being.
• the principle of a magnet
• The prime mover or arche of everything,
according to Thales, was water because the
“seeds of everything have a moist nature.”
• Thales plants the seed that develops into the
quest for knowledge, both scientific and divine.

33. Anaximander (610-540 B.C.)
• universe originated from the apeiron or the
boundless.
• the arche, or ultimate underlying substance of all
things, must be something other than the four
elements of earth, fire, water, and air.
• If any one of these were limitless it would destroy
the other.
• So the apeiron cannot be any one of these four.
• Anaximander was laying the foundation for the
search for the boundless, that is, theology and the
quest to identify with the divine.

34. Pythagoras
• doctrine of metempsychosis or belief that the
soul is immortal.
• believed the ordering of the natural world was
in accordance with mathematic relationships
and harmony.
• promoted a strict way of life including a strict
vegetarian diet since his ideology incorporated
that each human and animal soul is reborn

35. Heraclitus
• arche was fire and that the flux in nature
allowed the contraries of hot and cold to
change each element into other.
• According to him without strife there is no
justice or without war there is no king.
• Conflict is Justice, and that all things come to
pass in accordance with conflict.”
• logos is an underlying organizational principle of the
universe
• “hidden and perceptible only to the intelligence.”

36. Parmenides
• being is neither changeable nor divisible and
can be neither created nor destroyed.
• only one original being and everything else is
illusory. Thus, everything is actual or
perceived, likewise either true or false, a
conclusions highly contested by Plato later on.
Therefore, the reality is one and
unchangeable.