SUMMARY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

SUMMARY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

Note: check my yr1 note on intro. To Phil. To get the meaning of epistemology and types of knowledge.

NOTE: always support your work with some proponents of any school of thought. Always evaluate your work by showing the strengths and weaknesses of any school of thought. Precision is highly recommended.

1.      Is justified true believe knowledge? (Elmond Gettier problem)

Is knowledge the same as opinion, judgement, persuasion and belief even if they eventually turn out to be true? In his books, Meno and Theatetus Plato considers all these and dismisses them as inadequate characteristics of knowledge. In epistemology, the traditional requisite for knowledge is justified true belief. This implies that for one to claim that one knows something, one ought to believe in it, and this belief ought to be true and justified. However, In the year 1963, an article, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, was published by Edmund L. Gettier in a bid to demonstrate that the three conditions, posited by traditional epistemologist are not sufficient conditions for knowledge. He noted these two points: first, that it is possible for a person to be justified in believing a proposition that is in fact false, following the same conditions stipulated traditionally. Second, he proffered a possible solution that for any proposition P, if S is justified in believing P, and P entails Q, and S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing Q.

Gettier’s refutation has received several reactions both positive and negative. To be justified in holding a belief means to have evidence for the belief. Where the evidence in question is not conclusive, the belief could turn out to be false. A man acquires a time belief as to the time of day, but cannot be said to have knowledge. But even if it turns out to be true, it still does not qualify to be knowledge, because his evidence is not conclusive. The belief just happens by chance to be true. For instance, according to Bertrand
Russell, someone may look at a clock which is not going, though he thinks it is, and who happens to look at it at the moment when it is right. From the different attempt made by epistemologists like A.J. Ayer, Roderich Chisholm and Drehea, it is obvious that the problem in the traditional definition or analysis of knowledge as “Justified true belief” hinges on the word “justified”. How is belief justified? Or what is the necessary and sufficient condition for justification of any knowledge claim? Is it when it has ‘good evidence’ as claimed by Drehea? Is it when one’s belief is acceptable or reasonable as claimed by Roderich Chisholm? Is it when one he is sure as claimed by A. J. Ayer? Or is it when one has conclusive evidence? Certainty is one of the conditions of knowledge. Before a person can claim to know anything, it must be sure that that thing is really the case. That is why opinion is not knowledge for it involves uncertainty and instability. Consequently, belief is not the same as knowledge because knowledge must be based on conclusive evidence and certainty. Belief is however not based on conclusive evidence, but on inconclusive evidence or on assumption. If I read in the News Papers, for example, that somebody has died I cannot  say that I know that the person has died. I can only say that I believe that he has died because the evidence I have for it is the News Paper report. I am only assuming that the Newspaper report is true. However, it could be false. Therefore, my evidence is inconclusive.

However, knowledge involves belief in the sense that a person cannot say that he knows something but that he does not believe it. ‘I know it but I don’t believe it’ “I know that I am a living being, but I don’t believe it”. These are absurd and self contradictory. If you know something then you cannot say you don’t believe it. This is because knowledge implies certainty, and nobody can refuse to believe what he knows to be certain. But it makes sense to say, “I don’t know it, but I believe it”, “I don’t know what tomorrow will turn out to be, but I believe in it”. Finally, belief can pass into knowledge when justified. Thus the traditional characterisation of knowledge as justified true belief still stands in spite of Gettier’s contention. His examples in support of his contention are those of inconclusive evidences.

2.      Write short note on the following kinds of knowledge:

i.                    Empirical knowledge: it is the knowledge acquired through sense-perception, that is , through any of the five senses. It is knowledge of an individual object, a particular object, not knowledge of a class or category of objects. This is because the sense organs can only present us with particular concrete objects. There are three things involved in the act of sensation: the object perceived which is material, the sense-organ with which it is perceived, and the subject that interprets what is perceived and gives it a meaning. The senses in themselves cannot give maning to the objects of sense-perception without reason. Again, senses can be influenced by our habit, our environment, prejudices, emotions, prior conceptions etc. it is pertinent to note that for a proper perception of things, the subject’s psychological and physiological conditions must be in order.

ii.                  Inferential knowledge: it is the type of knowledge that is acquired by inference. It could be immediate inference or mediate. Whereas in immideiate inference implications are drawn from what is said, e.g. to say that a lady is a spinster is to imply that she is not married; in mediate inference a conclusion is drawn from a set of premises in the form of syllogism:

All human beings are mortal

All Nigerians are human beings

Therefore, all Nigerians are mortal

Inferential knowledge can be by demonstration or by argumentation. While demonstration moves from given premises to a conclusion, in argumentation there is first a conclusion and second the justification of the conclusion. It can also be by deduction or induction. Whereas deduction draws particular conclusion from general principles, induction draws general principles from particular cases. Induction is the method of modern science.

iii.                Intuitive knowledge: it is knowledge gained by intuition. It is knowledge acquired diriectly by an immediate contact of the mind with the object without going through the process of reasoning. It comes as a flash into the mind. It occur in different forms: first, empirical internal intuition, that is, through introspection and reflection by which we become aware of what is going on in us, e.g. that we are becoming angry, tired, feeling happy etc. second, emotional intuition e.g when were feel that something bad or good well occur without its rationale. Third, inventive intuition which has to do with having intuitive vision. Fourth, intuitive knowledge can also come in the form of innate ideas. Fifth, it can come in the form of the intuition of being, as in the case of metaphysicians. Finally, it occurs in the form of mystical intuition, as in the case of mystics. In intuitive knowledge, we do not prove or even acquire what we know, we simply discover it without labouring for it or reasoning about it. It comes simply and suddenly as an insight uneexpectly.

iv.                A posteriori knowledge: it is the knowledge that is gained through empirical experience. It is the knowledge acquired by means of the senses. It is important to note that reason is needed for the right judgment of the sense experience. When a blind man touches something, the sense of touch does not tell him what he is touching. It is his reason that interprets his experience and tells him what he is touching. So the senses alone, without reason cannot furnish us with knowledge.

v.                  Synthetic knowledge: see synthetic a priori knowledge

vi.                A priori knowledge:  it is the knowledge acquired prior to experience and independently of experience. Hence, it is the knowledge that is acquired by reason without experience. That is the argument of the rationalists. They reject empiricism by positing that there is a kind of knowledge that is acquired without experience. Example of such proponents are Plato, John Scotus, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Hegel.

vii.              Analytic knowledge: see synthetic a priori knowledge

viii.            Synthetic a priori knowledge: it is knowledge that is both a priori and synthetic as well. This was Kant’s contribution to epistemology. Prior to Kant, it was generally believed by philosophers that only analytic propositions could be a priori, while a synthetic proposition was always a posterior. Analytic proposition is a proposition in which what is affirmed in the predicate is already contained in the subject. Hence, the predicate adds nothing to what is already contained in the subject, and so knowledge is not increased. For instance, if I tell you that a bachelor is an unmarried man, what information am I giving you? Hence, analytic propositions are tautological. On the contrary, synthetic proposition is a proposition I which the predicate adds something new to the subject. What the predicate affirms, in other words, is not contained in the subject so it adds something new to it  and gives information. For instance, if I tell you that I am a Nigerian, and that I am a professor of philosophy. I have given you information. Since the fact of being a Nigerian does not imply being a professor of philosophy, the predicate adds something new to the subject, the proposition gives information. Whereas, an analytic proposition is necessarily true and cannot be denied without self contradiction, a synthetic proposition is not necessarily true and it can be denied without self-contradiction. It may be true or false. Before Kant, it was generally believed that a proposition could not be both a priori and synthetic at the same time. Kant debunk this view by positing synthetic a priori propositions. He argues that in Ethics, Mathematics and Physics, propositions like, “The moral law obliges man to perform his duty” “2 + 3=5)” “every event has a cause” are synthetic a priori propositions. They are prior to experience, yet they are not tautological. They are, on the contrary, synthetic. They cannot be contradicted by experience, they are not derived from experience, yet they give information. In his “Copernican Revolution”, Kant shows how synthetic a priori is possible. During his time, the common belief was that in the process of acquiring knowledge, objects imposed themselves on the human mind which passively received them. Kant rejected and reversed the view by positing that it is the mind that imposed itself, its own structure, on objects, and makes them conform to it. It makes objects appear to us according to this structure. This imply that we do not know things in themselves (noumena) but the way they appear to us (phenomena).  And the way they appear to us is the way our mind makes them appear to us. The implication of this is that knowledge( of the phenomena ) is subjective and relative. If this is the case, then his theory is neutral; it is neither true nor false. It is what the mind makes out of it is what is true for that individual.

ix.                Conceptual knowledge: it is the knowledge in terms of universal concepts, acquired through the process of abstraction; hence it is also known as abstract or intellectual knowledge. Abstraction is the process whereby abstract ideas (universal concepts) are abstracted from particular concrete objects. This is what Edmund Husserl calls “eidetic reduction” in his phenomenology, a process whereby the particular traits, individual characteristics, of an object are set aside in order to get at the essence of the object. The mind plays the major role in Abstraction through the process of separation. The mind analyses and synthesises what is particular so as to get the general- that which cut across all the differences in a class of a thing that makes them what they are, the essence. For instance, despites the differences that exist among human being- height, weight, colour, size, sexes, etc., it is the universal idea or concept of man that is our unifying factor. Same is applicable to other things like trees, houses, cars etc. however, the pertinent question is, what is the ontological status of the universals? Are they entities? Are they physical or non-physical? For instance in man, what is the essence of man. Is it something that can be pin point or not? This is the problem with this kind of knowledge. Basically, there are three positions that proffered solution to this problem. One is Ultra-realism or exaggerated realism that admits that essence or universals are real ontological entities existing on their own as immaterial entities independently of material things. its proponents include Plato, John Scotus Eriugena, St Anselm. Two is moderate realism or conceptualism that affirm the universals as being real but not as separate entities existing on their own independently of individual things. Rather they exist in individual things from which the mind abstracts (extracts) them and forms them into concepts. Thus the universals exist as concepts in the mind but with objective foundation in things. its exponents include Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and Boethius. Three is nominalism that denies the existence of essences or universals by arguing that universals are nothing but mere names designating similarities between things. nominalists include Roscellinus, William of Ockham. From the foregoing, it appears that the moderate realism is more tenable than the other extremes. Because as Aristotle would say in his Metaphysics, that there are tow ways of knowing things. first, as particulars, we may know them as individual things as we perceive them. second, as universals, we may also know things, not exactly as we perceive them with the senses, but conceptually in terms of their universal nature or essences. This is conceptual knowledge.

x.                  Self-knowledge and the knowledge of others: this is knowledge of self awareness, the awareness of one’s existence which every conscious man has. It is the foundation for the awareness of other things. for nobody can be conscious or aware of anything without being conscious at the same time of his or her own existence. Self-awareness is spontaneous, intuitive and indubitable. The knowledge of others is however, not intuitive like self-awareness. George Berkeley argues that our knowledge of others is by inference. For him, I know that other people exist as I am, when I see them doing similar things that I do. So this similarity of actions make me to infer or conclude that the other persons exist as I do. On the contrary, Jean-Paul Sartre and Heidegger reject this view of Berkeley by positing that our knowledge of others is part of our self-knowledge. For them, man discovers himself and becomes aware of himself in the midst of others. This existentialists position seems to be more tenable than that of Berkeley because man is by nature a social being who is essentially linked with others. Hence, he cannot be conscious of his  being in isolation, without at the same time being conscious of others. This makes Descartes’ cogito ego sum untenable.

3.      What are the idols of Francis Bacon?

4.      Differentiate between rationalism and empiricism and give two knowledge theories of each of their proponents.

What is rationalism? Rationalism is the philosophical view that emphasizes the ability of human reason to grasp fundamental truths about the world without the aid of sense impressions.[1] It is an epistemic theory, which boldly emphasises that the mind is the only source of true knowledge. Conversely, empiricism is a theory that claims that knowledge is obtained solely from sense experience.[2]It is the theory that experience is the source of all knowledge, hence, it denies that human beings possess inborn knowledge or that they can derive knowledge through the exercise of reason alone.[3] By and large, it is very pertinent to note that the  disagreement between rationalists and empiricists is primarily based on the sources of our concepts and knowledge. Each of them primarily tries to respond to the question: How can we know? Whereas the rationalists claim that knowledge is gained through reason, the empiricists claim that it is by means of experience or sense perception.

Among the exponents of rationalism are Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Let us consider the theory of Descartes. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a scientist, mathematician and a philosopher who is popularly known as the father of Modern philosophy. Being unsatisfied and worried about the uncertainty and confusion rooted in philosophy owing to doubtful and shaky foundation, Descartes resorted to the mathematical method as the only reliable path to attaining clear, certain and distinct indubitable truth. In addition to this, he employed the method of systematic or methodic doubt. Consequently, he realised and developed 3Ds namely, Distance, Dream and Devil, which he employed in doubting everything he ever knew in order to reconstruct philosophy on a firm and solid foundation on which the epistemological and philosophical edifice would be erected. Thus, he despised Aristotelian logic and adopted the principles of intuition and deduction as the only rational and reliable procedure to the attainment of knowledge, hence, he rejected sense experience. After series of doubt, he confirmed his existence as a thinking being (res Cogitans). This is because, for him, if I doubt, I think and if I think therefore I exist- cogito ergo sum. Hence, the cogito became the underlying absolute principle and the only fundamental and indubitable truth upon which Descartes rested his epistemology and the development of other principles such as innate principle and the existence of God.

John Locke is the founding father of modern British empiricism. In his epistemology, he begins by rejecting Descartes’ doctrine of innate ideas and affirms sense experience as the source of knowledge. For him, before sense experience, our mind is like “a white paper”[4] (tabular rasa) on which nothing is written. He divided experience into two: sensation and reflection. Sensation refers to the experience of our external sensations which provides us with primary and secondary qualities,[5] whereas, reflection is the notice the mind takes of its own operators which enables us to get new ideas. He posits two kinds of ideas namely simple and complex. The former are impressions directly caused by things outside our minds, hence, simple ideas are nothing but copies or representations of things.

Strengths and Weaknesses cum Point of Convergence

It is pertinent to note that both rationalism and empiricism contribute tremendously in the development of Epistemology. However, each of   them has its weaknesses. For instance, in refuting the rationalism of Descartes, Kant posits that the ability to be aware of one’s existence presupposes the real existence of the external world. Again, Kant argues that the method of the rationalists leads to insoluble contradictions (or as he called them antinomies) – such as the universe is limited and limitless. Those antinomies are intractable because the rationalist epistemology takes for granted a kind of pure knowledge of external objects independent of any sensational experience.[6]On the other hand, empiricism has been critiqued in a number of ways.

Phenomenologically, Hume's notion of "impression" does not account for the way that we actually do experience colours and qualities. When I see a red house, for instance, I do not just have an impression of red by itself, but the redness “of” something. A "secondary quality" such as colour cannot be abstracted from the thing to which it belongs. In this way, empiricism is no more faithful to experience than rationalism. Similarly, empiricism does not acknowledge that experience is contextual. When I see a thing, I do not see it in isolation from the world. It is always given in a context: the chair is on the floor, next to a table, in a room, etc. There is always a "background" against which a thing appears.[7]

Furthermore, Descartes and Locke have remarkably similar views on the nature of our ideas, even though Descartes takes many to be innate, while Locke ties them all to experience. Nonetheless, there is a concern here which we have to raise. Where does the activity of the creation of both impressions and ideas take place? What is it that reflects on the impressions to give rise to the faint images of ideas? Usually, such activities would be explained in terms of the faculties of a mind but Hume does not allow for such an entity. According to Hume, the mind belongs alongside the ideas it purportedly creates, in the realm of fiction. A mirage, for instance, on a tarred road in a hot afternoon which the senses perceive from a distance as a large pool of water disappears on getting closer. Therefore, sense perception alone without reason as Kant would affirm in his Critique of Practical Reason (1788) cannot be relied on. To affirm that sense perception is all that is means to affirm that, nothing else can be except that which is accessible to the senses. Plato,  and later supported by Descartes, faulted the evidence of sense experience alone on the grounds that though it is relevant, it is not exclusive criterion for looking at reality.

Conclusion

Rationalism and empiricism are two main epistemic doctrines, which are opposing to each other. The former involves the following theses: intuition, deduction and  innate knowledge which provide us with knowledge a priori, that is, knowledge gained independently of sense experience. In contrast, the latter offers us knowledge a posteriori, which is knowledge that is dependent on sense experience. Thus, whereas rationalism claims the indispensability and superiority of reason as a source of knowledge, empiricism claims the indispensability and superiority of sense experience as the source of knowledge. However, neither of them can fully account for the phenomenon and universal knowledge. Because, while rationalism provides the form without content, empiricism provides content without form. Hence, only in their synthesis is knowledge possible.[8] For knowledge is partly a priori and partly a posteriori. Thus, the two theories- rationalism and empiricism are needed for proper understanding and acquisition of knowledge.    

i.                    Rene Descartes

ii.                  John Locke

iii.                David Hume

iv.                George Berkeley

5.      What are the theories of Truth?

There are three traditional theories of truth, namely, the correspondence theory, the coherence theory and the pragmatic theory.

i.                    Correspondence theory of truth: it makes two claims; first, a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts. Second, a proposition is false if and only if it fails to correspond to the facts. This implies that the truth of a proposition or belief is dependent on the facts or upon the way, the world is. Hence, the truthfulness of our proposition does not depend just on what we believe about that thing, but on what is really is in reality. For this theory truth is not relative.

ii.                  The Coherence Theory: it comprises the consistence between what is said and all other enunciation or judgements which are previously known  and accepted to be true. In other words, it presupposes the principle of non contradiction. For an assertion to be true, it has to be in harmony with already known facts. It holds that a statement is true if there is a coherence between the statement and a systematic body of statements already know to be true. If a proposition coheres with prior propositions that are known to be true, then the proposition is true. On the other hand, if a proposition is in conflict with other propositions already known to be true, then the statement in question is false.

iii.                The Pragmatic theory: it holds that a statement or theory is true if it works in practice. An idea is true if it works and leads to beneficial results. This theory was propounded by C. S. Peirce and William James.

iv.                The dialectical theory: it holds that truth is a process of becoming, since reality itself is in the state of becoming.

6.      What is scepticism?

Scepticism is doubt or the denial of the possibility of knowledge. Knowledge implies certainty. To claim to know something implies being sure or being certain about that thing. However, some philosophers have doubted the possibility of certainty. In fact epistemology developed through the ages in a bid to respond to the challenges of the sceptics. It has grown in its bid to address the following questions posed by the sceptics: Does knowledge exist? If yes, in what form does it exist, what is its nature? Is it subjective or objective? How do we know that we know (that is the justification of our knowledge claim)? What is the source of our knowledge? Is knowledge inherent in us or given? Can we actually obtain a certainty of knowledge? How can we gain knowledge? To what extent can we know? In what sense or degree can we say that we know in this changing world as posited by Heraclitus? Scepticism is of different kinds namely, universal scepticism which is the doubt of every possible knowledge. it claims that nobody can be sure of anything since certainty or knowledge is beyond human mind. The sophists were the first group of sceptics in Western philosophy. They were sceptical and critical about traditional beliefs and knowledge claims. One of them by name Gorgias argues that nothing exists, that even if anything were to exist, it could not be known, even if such a thing could be known, it could not be communicated to others. Therefore, knowledge is impossible. Again Protagoras posits that man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are and things that are not that they are not. Hence, for him knowledge is subjective and relative that is the way an individual sees it. Pyrrho of Elis with his disciple Timon of Philus, another sophists, denied the possibility of certain knowledge since for him the human mind cannot penetrate into the inner nature of things. hence, we can only know the phenomena and not the noumena. Furthermore, Carneades of Cyrene, founder of the New Academy,  was sceptical about the possibility of proving anything through syllogistic argument since the premises of any syllogism are based on assumption which would require to be proved first before being used to prove anything else. But to prove them would require prior premises also based on assumption which required to be proved before being used, this process would continue to infinity.

David Humes’ scepticism is derived from his determination to push empiricism to its logical conclusion. Hume’s philosophy shows clearly that the logical conclusion of empiricism is scepticism. The root of Hume’s scepticism is his criticism of the principle of causality. He denied the necessary connection, universality and uniformity of nature since they are not empirically provable. For him, that one thing causes another is not part of our empirical experience because we do not see empirically the necessary connection between the two. Necessity and universality are not part of our empirical experience, hence, any knowledge based on them is unreliable and invalid. That the future will resemble the past is nothing but assumption and is unprovable. Thus he denies the necessary connection between cause and effect since the connection is synthetic than being necessary. Thus, Hume’s denial of principle of causality leads to complete scepticism.

Critique: like st Augustine, anybody who claims to know that all knowledge is doubtful is contradicting himself. This is because the very fact that scepticism is true as claimed by the sceptics is a clear proof that there is possibility of certain knowledge. so it is self-contradictory for a sceptic to say that he knows that nobody can know anything or that he is sure that nobody can be sure of anything. Augustine went further to argue that universal scepticism is impossible because the person who says that nothing can be known for certain knows for certain at least that he exists. To the objection that a person could be deceived into thinking that he exists whereas he does not really exist.  Augustine replies that to be deceived is a proof of one’s existence. Thus, if I am deceived, then I exist -si fallor sum. Conversely, scepticism gave rise to the development of epistemology and in that sense it has helped epistemology to grow. Thus, scepticism has been, and will always remain an indispensable part of epistemology. The big challenge to scepticism is how to account the fact that no knowledge is built on a vacuum. For every knowledge has a starting point by which we reason. For there must be something that we must take for granted for one… again we have reasons to believe that our premises are true.

However, scepticism is very relevant because it makes philosophy self-critical and keeps it honest and ree of dogamatism.

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[1] Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.1994), p. 938.

[2]William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2004) P. 574.

[3] Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.1994), P.936.

[4] J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by J. A. St. John (London, 1898), p. 205.

[5] Ibid., pp. 243-244.

[6] http://thelycaeum.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/immanuel-kant-a-critique-of-rationalism-and-empiricism/ (24 Nov. 2014).

[7] Fluxedup https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090509120001AAkHtfb (24 Nov. 2014)

[8] Cf. R. Scruton, Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 18.