RI Derose – What is Epistemology 2023

RJC KI JC1 Term 1/Week 3 Asking Questions 1 Reading (Optional): What is Epistemology? A Brief Introduction to the Topic Keith DeRose, Yale University Dept. of Philosophy I suppose many are in the position of knowing that epistemology is a branch of philosophy, but not knowing anything beyond that. (Well, not knowing anything further about what epistemology is -- let's not get into general skepticism just yet!) The standard very short answer to our title question is that epistemology is the theory of knowledge. In fact, so far as I can tell, "epistemology" and "theory of knowledge" are 5 used interchangeably in, for instance, college course catalogues. Epistemology, then, is the branch of philosophy that deals with questions concerning the nature, scope, and sources of knowledge. In what follows, I'll briefly describe a few of the issues epistemologists deal with. That should give you a bit better idea of what epistemology is, and, for those considering taking an epistemology class, what to expect from such a 10 class. For those interested in further reading, there are links at the bottom of this page to articles that are introductory in nature (mostly from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a great on-line resource) on particular topics in epistemology. 1. Under what Conditions Does One Know?: The Analysis of Knowledge. 15 Since epistemology is the theory of knowledge, a central question of the area is: Under what conditions does a subject know something to be the case? Most general epistemology classes (as opposed to specialized advanced courses that zero in on a particular epistemological topic) spend at least some time on this question, and many begin with it. 20 A very important paper on this topic -- perhaps the most commonly assigned paper in

RJC KI JC1 Term 1/Week 3 Asking Questions 2 epistemology classes -- is Edmund Gettier's short classic, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (Analysis 23 (1963): 121-123 [in the journal Analysis, volume 23, published in the year 1963, on pages 121-123]), available on-line here. Gettier's target is an initially tempting account of knowledge: the "JTB" account, as it's often called, which 25 analyzes knowledge as justified true belief. According to such an account, a subject S knows that P if and only if (Gettier uses the common philosophical abbreviation of IFF for "if and only if"): 1. P is true, 2. S believes that P, and 30 3. S is justified in believing that P. According to this account, then, you know that it's raining outside, for example, if and only if it is true that it's raining outside, and you believe that it's raining outside, and you are justified in so believing. To refute such accounts, Gettier advanced two examples, each of which involve (or at least intuitively seem to involve) instances of justified true 35 belief that nonetheless fail to be instances of knowledge. One