Part 5: Epistemology

I. Epistemology

1. Definition

The term “epistemology” comes from the Greek words

“episteme” and “logos”. “Episteme” can be translated as

“knowledge” or “understanding” or “acquaintance”, while

“logos” can be translated as “account” or “argument” or “reason”.

Although the term “epistemology” is no more than a couple of

centuries old, the field of epistemology is at least as old as any in

philosophy. In different parts of its extensive history, different

facets of epistemology have attracted attention.

Plato’s epistemology was an attempt to understand what it was to

know, and how knowledge (unlike mere true opinion) is good for

the knower.

Locke’s epistemology was an attempt to understand the

operations of human understanding,

Kant’s epistemology was an attempt to understand the conditions

of the possibility of human understanding, and

Russell’s epistemology was an attempt to understand how modern

science could be justified by appeal to sensory experience.

Basically, epistemology is the explanation of how a person thinks.

It helps a person differentiate between truth and lie. Epistemology

makes use of four different sources to gather knowledge, namely,

intuitive, authoritative, logical, and empirical.

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

2. A priori/ A posteriori

Where does knowledge come from? It’s clear that some

knowledge, at least, comes from perception. You might find out

that the coffee cup is in front of you, that it’s snowing outside, and

that your dog is barking by seeing or otherwise perceiving these

facts, that is, through sense-experience. Much of what you know

by remembering it, or by relying on the testimony of what others

have experienced, also ultimately depends on your sense-

experience, or at least on somebody’s. But a major topic for

philosophical debate throughout all of the recorded history of

philosophy has been about knowledge that doesn’t ultimately

depend on the senses. Philosophy has often considered this kind

of knowledge: what sort it is, how extensive it is, and how to

account for it.

Knowledge that depends on sensation is called a posteriori

knowledge. This means, in Latin, from afterwards – after (that is,

dependent upon) sense-experience. Knowledge that doesn’t

depend on sense-experience is called a priori knowledge, Latin

for from beforehand – prior to (that is, independent of) sense-

experience. The questions in this chapter are: what kinds of a

priori knowledge are there? And how do we know that sort

of thing? The answer to the second question is not obvious: how,

after all, could you find out anything other than by using your

senses?

3. Rationalism and Empiricism

Basis of Rationalism Empiricism

Comparison
Definition Rationalism is the term used Empiricism is the term used
in philosophy to refer to the in philosophy in which the
knowledge that is derived main source of knowledge
from reason and logic. is experience and exp

Belief Rationalists believe that The empiricists believe that

reason can explain the evidence through
working of the world. experimentation can
explain reality.

Principles Rationalism is related to Empiricism is related to

mental processes and sensory experience and
organizing principles. association principles

History The history of rationalism The history of empiricism

goes far beyond the goes to the era between 600
Pythagoras’ time that is 570– to 200 BCE.
495 BCE.

Examples Mathematics is an example Experimental Science is an

of rationalism. example of empiricism

4. The Belief Condition

This requires that anyone who knows that p (where p stands for

any proposition or statement) must believe that p.

If, therefore, you do not believe that minds are brains (say,

because you have not considered the matter at all), then you do

not know that minds are brains.

A knower must be psychologically related somehow to a

proposition that is an object of knowledge for that knower.

Proponents of the standard analysis hold that only belief can

provide the needed psychological relation. Philosophers do not

share a uniform account of belief, but some considerations supply

common ground.

Beliefs are not actions of assenting to a proposition; they rather

are dispositional psychological states that can exist even when

unmanifested. (You do not cease believing that 2 + 2 = 4, e.g.,

whenever your attention leaves arithmetic.) Our believing that p

seems to require that we have a tendency to assent to p in certain

situations, but it seems also to be more than just such a tendency.

What else believing requires remains highly controversial among

philosophers. Some philosophers have opposed the belief

condition of the standard analysis on the ground that we can

accept, or assent to, a known proposition without actually

believing it. They contend that we can accept a proposition even

if we fail to acquire a tendency, required by believing, to accept

that proposition in certain situations. On this view, acceptance is

a psychological act that does not entail any dispositional

psychological state, and such acceptance is sufficient to relate a

knower psychologically to a known proposition. However this

view fares, one underlying assumption of the standard analysis

seems correct: our concept of knowledge requires that a knower

be psychologically related somehow to a known proposition.

Barring that requirement, we shall be hard put to explain how

knowers psychologically possess their knowledge of known

propositions. Even if knowledge requires belief, belief that p does

not require knowledge that p, since belief can typically be false.

This observation, familiar from Plato’s Theaetetus, assumes that

knowledge has a truth condition. On the standard analysis, if you

know that p, then it is true that p. If, therefore, it is false that minds

are brains, then you do not know that minds are brains. It is thus

misleading to say, e.g., that astronomers before Copernicus knew

that the earth is flat; at best, they justifiably believed that they

knew this.

5. The Truth Condition

This condition of the standard analysis has not attracted any

serious challenge. Controversy over it has focused instead on

Pilate’s vexing question: What is truth? This question concerns

what truth consists in, not our ways of finding out what is true.

Influential answers come from at least three approaches: truth as

correspondence (i.e., agreement, of some specified sort, between

a proposition and an actual situation); truth as coherence (i.e.,

interconnectedness of a proposition with a specified system of

propositions); and truth as pragmatic cognitive value (i.e.,

usefulness of a proposition in achieving certain intellectual

goals). Without assessing these prominent approaches, we should

recognize, in accord with the standard analysis, that our concept

of knowledge seems to have a factual requirement: we genuinely

know that p only if it is the case that p. The pertinent notion of

“its being the case” seems equivalent to the notion of “how reality

is” or “how things really are.” The latter notion seems essential to

our notion of knowledge, but is open to controversy over its

explication.

6. The Justification Condition

Knowledge is not simply true belief. Some true beliefs are

supported only by lucky guesswork and hence do not qualify as

knowledge. Knowledge requires that the satisfaction of its belief

condition be “appropriately related” to the satisfaction of its truth

condition. This is one broad way of understanding the justification

condition of the standard analysis. More specifically, we might

say that a knower must have adequate indication that a known

proposition is true. If we understand such adequate indication as

a sort of evidence indicating that a proposition is true, we have

reached the traditional general view of the justification condition:

justification as evidence. Questions about justification attract the

lion’s share of attention in contemporary epistemology.

Controversy focuses on the meaning of ‘justification’ as well as

on the substantive conditions for a belief’s being justified in a way

appropriate to knowledge. Current debates about the meaning of

‘justification’ revolve around the question whether, and if so how,

the concept of epistemic (knowledge-relevant) justification is

normative. Since the 1950s Chisholm has defended the following

deontological (obligation-oriented) notion of justification: the

claim that a proposition, p, is epistemically justified for you

means that it is false that you ought to refrain from accepting p.

In other terms, to say that p is epistemically justified is to say that

accepting p is epistemically permissible – at least in the sense that

accepting p is consistent with a certain set of epistemic rules. This

deontological construal enjoys wide representation in

contemporary epistemology A normative construal of justification

need not be deontological; it need not use the notions of

obligation and permission. Alston, for instance, has introduced a

non-deontological normative concept of justification that relies

mainly on the notion of what is epistemically good from the

viewpoint of maximizing truth and minimizing falsity. Alston

links epistemic goodness to a belief’s being based on adequate

grounds in the absence of overriding reasons to the contrary.

Some epistemologists shun normative construal of justification as

superfluous. One noteworthy view is that ‘epistemic justification’

means simply ‘evidential support’ of a certain sort. To say that p

is epistemically justifiable to some extent for you is, on this view,

just to say that p is supportable to some extent by your overall

evidential reasons. This construal will be non-normative so long

as the notions of supportability and an evidential reason are non-

normative. Some philosophers have tried to explicate the latter

notions without relying on talk of epistemic permissibility or

epistemic goodness. We can understand the relevant notion of

“support” in terms of non-normative notions of entailment and

explanation (or, answering why questions). We can understand

the notion of an “evidential reason” via the notion of a

psychological state that can stand in a certain truth-indicating sup-

port relation to propositions. For instance, we might regard non-

doxastic states of “seeming to perceive” something (e.g., seeming

to see a dictionary here) as foundational truth indicators for

certain physical-object propositions (e.g., the proposition that

there is a dictionary here), in virtue of those states being best

explained by those propositions. If anything resembling this

approach succeeds, we can get by without the aforementioned

normative notions of epistemic justification

Robert Audi - How Belief Systems

Affect Believers
Why do people believe the things they do? We like to think that
we are rational, that what we believe is true. But often we come
to our beliefs, unknowingly, as a product of our particular
‘belief systems’. How do belief systems work their credulous
magic? What principles enable belief systems to influence
individuals and commandeer groups?

Robert I've been interested in belief systems in examining why

we believe what we believe particularly about people who believe

in God or people or atheists who don't believe in God that there's

a certain whether it's a cultural psychological evolutionary

psychologist all these things that are built in to belief systems uh

you have a book and it focused on the concept of rationality and

religious commitment many people would think those contradict

each other and so in building a belief system how do you that that

is entails a religious commitment what's the role of rationality

you're asking about belief systems with a particular subsystem in

mind I think the religious ones but let's remember that that

interacts with the scientific belief system if one has it but the

common sense and ethical belief system which just about

everybody has of course now one thing to note is that belief is a

narrow term for cognition if I hope that somebody is going to

survive cancer that's a cognition but I don't believe it I hope so the

probability level if I were to assign a probability would be a lot

lower now I think when you look at a theistic commitment you

can find very often a great deal of difference among the cognitions

somebody may be certain that if God is perfectly good and created

beings of the complexity of you and me then God cares about us

you couldn't be good and create beings with our capacity for joy

and suffering and not care okay but one might have only hope that

God is going to save everybody from uh ultimate dissolution upon

bodily death right so the belief system actually contains

cognitions of different levels of conviction remember too that

you're asking about the relation to behavior and desire comes in

as well because Behavior comes from belief which guides it and

desire which energizes it so where is the will in what you're

calling a belief system I think that faith that something is so faith

for example that God God is Sovereign involves a positive

attitude toward its being so so faith has a kind of positivity about

it and it implies a position of the will to act in the positive ways

that go with the content of the faith so certainly a religious

Outlook where there's commitment is going to involve ordinary

behavior and interpersonal relations I'm looking at myself yes I

would I would have a hope that God exists the kind of God that

would ensure for all Humanity myself included life after death

and all of those things I have that hope but I I wouldn't I don't

have I certainly don't have the belief in terms of the the conviction

but I don't even have the faith uh that too strong that's too so I'm

at hope I haven't gotten to Faith certainly not to believe so so how

does that work because I have these words but I'm not sure what

they really mean that I have this hope but I don't have faith and I

certainly don't have right maybe you're disturbed by as many are

the problem of evil there are terrible things in human history and

we have the lines in Macbeth did Heaven look on and would not

take their part said by McDuff about his murdered wife and

children that outcry runs through human history and it takes a

great deal of sophistication to deal with the problem of evil I think

there are many things that can be said and here as in many cases

you can have hope that there is no gratuitous evil that all evil is at

least counterbalanced by a greater good you can have faith that

that is so you can have conviction that that is so okay now you're

asking also about the rationality of a system of cognitions I

distinguish rationality from justification rationality is contrasted

with irrationality justification with being unjustified it's the fate

of all of us sometimes to be unjustified in what we hold but many

of us do not suffer irrationality at least not often so you could be

unjustified but rational that is correct and so what's an example of

that well um you can be unjustified in believing you're right in the

solution to a problem but you're not irrational because you've got

evidence you did careful thinking you just made a mistake so

mathematicians doing careful proofs can be uh Justified or

unjustified but not irrational so justification implies rationality

but rationality doesn't imply justification being that link between

belief and and the truth of that well it's characteristically an

element in knowledge let's put it that way okay so what I'm

getting at is that it's easy to set the Baseline for irrational religious

commitment too high to set it at the level of justification where

you've got evidence of a kind that would convince a skeptic or at

least somebody neutral if you're rational then you have a

permissible view that's consonant with being an overall rational

person you're not a candidate for an asylum you're not just being

stupid so I have more categories of normative assessment for a

world view than some people do I also have more gradations

among religious cognitions and attitudes than many do so take a

life it'll have certain experiences negative and positive it will have
a certain exposure or none to Arguments for the existence of God

there will be lives in which non-theism is rational and lives in

which theism is rational and I think there are people who have

justification they have a really good case and experiences that go

with it so we have a lot of variety here what are your aggregations

and compare to others in this this hierarchy from Hope to

knowledge well suppose you have religious experience uh in

nature in um the uh hearing of certain Sacred Music in Reading

scripture suppose you have a Mastery of some of the best

Arguments for the existence of God so you have a cumulative

case suppose two that you find the kind of life that you're led to

by your religious commitment a very attractive kind of life and

one of the kinds of confirmation you feel in your world view

comes from interpersonal relations of a very positive kind so

overall pursuing that sort of life can be rational no two that

somebody who regards ethics as epistemically independent of

theology as I do will often be able to say I'm not forced to do

anything interpersonally that I can't justify from a secular point of

view so that helps to make the overall commitment rational in

terms of a pluralistic human life but you don't have to be justified

you can be rational but not justified that's correct though

pragmatically to say you're unjustified implies you ought to give

up the cognition so I want to say not justify doesn't imply being

patently unjustified just failing to have that strong position in

terms of evidence does not imply lacking rationality and it does

not imply anything to be ashamed of if I get myself where I

believe in God and I can be close at times and it turns out that

there is no God I was wrong yeah I'm still I was still rational when

I thought that and it was just not justified because the fact well

you might have been Justified too but you didn't have knowledge

because knowledge entails truth justification doesn't Okay so

we'd have to look at how much grounding you had to decide

whether you had justification or not and look there are degrees of

justification I'm talking about being justified simplicitor it's a

strong episode steaming position and I'm saying that it's easy to

think and Skeptics will want us to think that you shouldn't believe

it all and you shouldn't even have hope maybe unless you have

this strong epistemic position right that's a little narrow it seems

to me especially if the position isn't going to lead you to do um

immoral things so one of the beautiful things about a good

rational religious commitment is that it leads people to tend to do

and to prove of things that from a secular point of view are

admirable so that has to be fitted into the picture.

Robert Audi - Epistemology: How Do

We Know What We Know?
What do we know and how do we know it? What is knowledge?
What is belief? How is belief justified? What justifies us in
believing what we believe? Is justified belief knowledge? These
questions constitute “epistemology” – the theory of knowledge.

Robert, Closer to Truth is my passion, and for years we've been

exploring the cosmos—cosmology, consciousness, the brain, the

mind, and the nature of meaning. Is there a God? What about

God? We've had discussions with some of the top thinkers in the

world. But if I step back from that, there’s a deeper question: how

do I know what I know? What is knowledge? What is belief in

something? This is epistemology, which I’m eager to explore

more deeply. So, orient me to epistemology so I can understand

how I know what I know.

You're talking about epistemology as the theory of knowledge. I

think it should be construed as the theory of knowledge and

justification. Usually, what you know, you're justified in

believing, but there are exceptions. Maybe I'll mention one or

two. In any case, philosophy, in my view, should, when possible,

defend common sense, correcting it where necessary. So, I think

I know a lot about my surroundings right now, perceptually. I also

remember how I got here, and I hope I remember things from way

before that. I’m sure you feel the same way. I think I know

something about the future—immediately, I'm going to raise a

hand to give an illustration—but even the distant future.

How do we know? Knowledge is belief connected with the fact

known in the right way. Philosophers spend a lot of time on what

constitutes the "right way." When you see a hand, the hand affects

you, and if it does so in the right way, you know there’s a hand

before you. But it could do it in the wrong way, for example, by

activating a machine that causes you to hallucinate a hand even

when there’s a lead shield between you and me. So, we have to
understand how the world affects us to know if we truly know.

I’m taking knowledge to be constituted by belief. Knowledge is

always of truths or realities, while belief is not. One of our

problems is to decide when we merely believe and when we truly

know.

For example, if two years ago, I told you I believed Donald Trump

would be President of the United States, and now, two years later,

Donald Trump is indeed President, when I said that two years

ago—when everyone would have laughed—what was the nature

of my thought?

You had a belief, and you were lucky to be right. I would assume

you weren't justified in that belief.

Okay, so I had a belief, and the fact that it turned out to be true

didn't change the character of the belief at the time. That would

have been backwards causation, right?

Sure, sure. So, if you do know the future, presumably it’s because

something that causes the future event also causes your belief in

the right way.

Right, so in that case, it would be knowledge. You can have

knowledge of the future when the evidence that connects causally

with the future event also leads you to believe what that event will

be, which was not the case in this example.

Exactly. If I intend to raise my hand, my intention is a kind of

evidence that feeds into my belief, making it knowledge that I'm

going to raise my hand. Skeptics will say, "Yes, but there could
be interference with the causal chain." Well, there could be, but

normally there isn’t. As I said, I'm defending common sense.

You could also have some "evil demon" manipulating things, so

it seems causal, but it’s not. That’s a possibility philosophers deal

with, but in common-sense cases, we’re more concerned with real

counter-evidence, not hypothetical possibilities that we’re in

error.

Of course, we also have self-knowledge, but it can be limited. For

instance, you can’t be in pain without knowing you’re in pain, but

that doesn’t mean you’re right about everything you believe.

Some people may even whitewash their self-descriptions, taking

themselves to have beliefs that their behavior suggests they don’t

actually have.

What's an example of that?

Well, a person might think he’s utterly egalitarian, but in reality,

his treatment of people shows he’s not. Rationalization and

defense mechanisms come into play, as we see in both philosophy

of mind and psychology. One challenge in epistemology and

philosophy of mind is understanding the limits of self-knowledge.

So, we started with belief, knowledge, and justification.

Justification is what makes a belief knowledge, correct?

Well, no, because, unfortunately, you can have justified true

beliefs that are not knowledge. Bertrand Russell gave the example

of someone entering a room, expecting the clock to be accurate.

It happens to be noon, and the clock, though stopped, reads noon.

The person has a justified true belief that it’s noon, but they don’t

actually know, because the clock was stopped.

So, how do you define justification in this context?

It’s a controversial matter, but broadly, justification for a belief is

having some ground that supports the proposition, which you can

derive from memory, perception, or reasoning. I haven’t

mentioned reasoning yet because I’ve been talking about

empirical knowledge of the world. There’s also a priori

knowledge, which comes from reflection and reasoning. We have

a priori knowledge in logic, pure mathematics, and, I believe, in

basic moral principles. Some argue we don’t have moral

knowledge at all, or that it’s empirical. I think some moral

knowledge is empirical, but basic moral principles, I believe, can

be known a priori.

You describe your understanding of epistemology as "fallibilistic

foundationalism." Could you explain that?

We arrive at foundationalism by noting that we can't base a belief

on an endless chain of other beliefs—this would lead to an infinite

regress. Circular reasoning is also problematic. Foundationalism

posits that some beliefs, such as those based on experience, don’t

require further justification. For instance, when you see a hand,

you believe it’s there based on visual experience, not on another

belief. Skeptics might ask how you know, but your visual

experience is the starting point.

Visual experience is fallible, though. Is that what you mean?

Yes, exactly. You need a foundation for knowledge, but it doesn’t

have to be infallible or absolutely perfect.

How about ethics? Where would you find a foundation there?

Well, everyone agrees that if you're in pain, you have a reason to

change things to reduce the pain. It's also easy to agree that once

you recognize others are like you, you’ll see there's a reason not

to cause them pain either. Through our natural inclination toward

altruism, we move from self-interest to caring about others. This

foundation for moral reasoning doesn’t seem to be merely

empirical—it’s grounded in the nature of pain and human

relationships.

Avoiding pain is key to moral standards, and another foundational

principle is that if you make a promise, you have an obligation to

fulfill it. It’s not an absolute reason, but most people who

understand human relations agree that promises come with

obligations. That’s a basic principle of interpersonal relationships,

and I argue it can be known through reason.

Optional Video- Robert Audi -

Theological Epistemology: How Can We
Know God?
Can we know God? If so, how? We can we believe in God. But
is such belief justified? How to apply the principles
of epistemology to knowledge of God and belief in God? What
would make belief in God justified true belief?

Robert, the question of whether God exists and what God is like

is a question that all human beings grapple with. I certainly have

throughout my life, and I've approached it analytically, trying to

discern answers through natural theology or logic. Some people

suggest that understanding God requires more of an experiential

factor, while others argue that only personal experience will

suffice. Stepping away from these perspectives, we can turn to

epistemology, the theory of knowledge, to explore what can be

learned about this question, particularly through religious

epistemology—the epistemology of religion and theology.

First, we must consider whether we're discussing God as a

personal figure known through the Bible, or the God of "perfect

being theology"—the omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good

God of the philosophers. Epistemology considers which being we

are referring to when we ask how we might know God. In my

work, I've emphasized that there can be knowledge without belief.

For example, consider a "meteorological knee" that acts like a

barometer, accurately predicting weather. The person might know

it's going to rain but wouldn't necessarily be justified in their

belief. This idea suggests that knowledge can exist without

justification.

If God is possible, and if God is omnipotent, it’s conceivable that

some people might have knowledge of God that is implanted in

them, as theologian Alvin Plantinga suggested with the concept

of a sensus divinitatis, as John Calvin also proposed. However,

this kind of knowledge might lack justification, which is what

many philosophers and skeptics demand. It’s important to

recognize that someone who believes in God could know God

exists without being justified in their belief. When someone

claims to have religious knowledge from experience, the

challenge shouldn't be that it's impossible to know but rather that

it lacks justification.

Now, there are many arguments for the existence of God, and if

these arguments form the basis for a person's belief, then the

belief is not "basic" but rather built upon evidence. However, if

belief in God comes from something like a sensus divinitatis, it

may be basic and akin to quasi-perceptual knowledge that arises

directly from experience, not inference. This experiential

knowledge could combine with various philosophical arguments

to create a cumulative case for belief in God. Theistic belief can

thus become rational for a person based on both experience and

reason.

There is a significant distinction between philosophical

arguments for God and personal experience. Philosophical

arguments are third-person communicable, while personal

experiences are subjective and cannot be easily conveyed to

others. For instance, if you tell me you've had a religious

experience, it might not have any effect on me. However, even in

something like art, those who are trained to appreciate it may have

perceptual experiences that others don't. Similarly, someone who

has had a religious experience might be able to argue that the

experience offers something meaningful, though it doesn't

directly prove God’s attributes like omniscience or omnipotence.

Arguments for God's existence, such as the ontological or

cosmological arguments, are intellectually stimulating, and I

enjoy them despite understanding their critiques. Yet, if I had a

religious experience, I might not trust it because of the potential

for emotional or physiological influences. I don’t think anyone

should rely solely on a single experience as intellectually

compelling without further evidence. However, hope can offer

another way forward. You can hope that God exists and is

sovereign in the universe, and hope doesn’t require as much

evidence as knowledge or firm belief.

In fact, you can move from hope to faith, which entails trusting in

God, even without strong evidence. This trust can motivate a

person positively without requiring certainty. The progression

from hope, to faith, to belief, and finally to knowledge reflects

different levels of engagement with the idea of God. Some theistic

beliefs might aspire to knowledge, but even those who hold firm

faith without extensive justification can live meaningful lives

based on that hope. Philosophers like Plantinga and Swinburne

have provided an array of arguments, each with some weight,

leaving individuals to discern the strength and significance of

these ideas for themselves.

Rationalism vs Empiricism Debate
Hello and welcome to Philosophy Vibe, the channel where we

discuss and debate different philosophical ideas. Today, we're

going to be discussing the difference between rationalism and

empiricism and looking at which approach is the preferable

explanation of attaining true knowledge.

Fascinating! Rationalism and empiricism have often been seen as

two opposing views within the subject of epistemology. I will

give a brief overview of each, and then John and I will look into

a number of different areas of life to determine which of the two

provides a better foundation for the discovery and source of

knowledge. Great, let's begin.

Rationalism Explained

Okay, so starting with rationalism, this is the idea that reason is

the main source of all knowledge. True knowledge is not just

discovered by empirical evidence or sensory experience, but in

fact, it can be discovered by the abilities of our rational minds.

The intellect alone is able to understand and discover true

knowledge.

I see. For rationalists, the main components for attaining

knowledge derive firstly from intuition—a built-in mental faculty

that allows us to recognize and understand what is true. This can

be described as a rational insight. Secondly, there's deduction,

which involves arriving at true knowledge based on logical, valid

premises. For example, we understand the concept of a triangle

and that it has three sides, so if we were to hold a triangular object,

we can deduce that the object we would be holding would have

three sides. Thirdly, there's the concept of innate knowledge or

innate concepts. This is the idea that the human mind is created

with certain types of knowledge already programmed. It can be

seen as a priori knowledge—it is knowledge we do not need

experience of to know, although experience may trigger the

knowledge into consciousness or awareness. Ultimately, it is part

of our nature and is there since birth. Innate knowledge can be

seen as coming from God, from another life, or even from a higher

reality, like Plato's world of forms. Nonetheless, all humans have

a certain innate knowledge.

Empiricism Explained

Interesting! Now, on the opposite side, we have empiricism. Quite

simply, this is the theory that all knowledge must derive from

sensory experience. The only way we can ever gain knowledge is

through experience; all knowledge is a posteriori and solely relied

upon the senses. Empiricists deny the existence of any innate

knowledge or innate concepts and hold that when we are born, we

are tabula rasa—we are a blank slate. There is no programmed

knowledge, ideas, concepts, or intuition; this is all gained over the

years via our sensory experiences within the empirical world.

Sense experience is therefore our only source of knowledge, and

nothing else.
Yes, yes, I understand. So, that is the brief but general overview

of rationalism and empiricism. So, I would ask you: which

approach would you see as the source for knowledge? Based on

the definitions, I would see myself as an empiricist.

Problems with Innate Knowledge

Why? I guess the main problem I see with rationalism is around

the belief in innate knowledge. I tend to agree with the idea of

tabula rasa for the simple fact that if we had innate knowledge

from a previous life, from God, or from a greater reality, then why

do we not carry this when we are born? Why do we have to learn

how to speak if we could once speak in a previous life? Why do

we have to learn how to go to the toilet or how to use cutlery or

how to ride a bike, and so on? Surely, if we had innate knowledge,

we would be born with all this knowledge already programmed;

we wouldn't need to learn it, but we do. To me, a baby seems more

like a blank slate rather than having innate knowledge.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. Although rationalists may

differ quite a lot in their beliefs around innate knowledge, I think

it's fair to say that no rationalist would argue that all knowledge

from another life or another world is with us as innate knowledge.

Only some core concepts or principles that we can recognize. And

even this may need to be brought to the forefront of our

consciousness by an empirical experience.

Problems with Tabula Rasa

Secondly, I would argue that tabula rasa, as a concept, is a lot

more problematic than innate knowledge. Think about how

different people are. Think about how some people excel in

certain areas compared with others, even though they have had

the same empirical experiences. How can two people attend the

same school, yet one is fantastic at writing while the other is a

gifted musician? This is definitely down to some innate ability.

We also see how different people have different interests; they

like different things. I, for example, enjoy country music, while

you enjoy heavy metal. I enjoy literature, while you enjoy

football. How, if we do not have an innate disposition, can we

differ so much? Surely if we were born blank slates, we would be

more similar than not. It seems people have their own natural

desires and interests, and these are with us from birth. These are

innate; we come stocked with these from birth. We are not blank

slates.

Rationalism vs. Empiricism for Scientific Knowledge

Okay, but still, all scientific discoveries—everything we have

developed in medicine, in technology—all of this is down to our

empirical observations. We rely on our understanding of the

empirical world, and our scientific laws are discovered a

posteriori via sense perception. This, for me, shows that the

empirical method of discovering knowledge is the only concrete

approach.

Again, I disagree with this point. We just need to look at

mathematics as concrete a priori truths developed from the

rationalist approach. Mathematics is a major part of science, of

all physics and technology. Mathematical concepts do not rely on

our experience—they are purely a rational game. Their truths

exist in our intellect, not in our five senses. You do not need

empirical experience to understand the concept of one and two

and to understand that one plus one equals two.

Really? I'm not so sure about that. Yes, we do use our intellect for

mathematics, but this is also grounded in sense experience. We

actually experience the concept of one; we see single objects, we

also see multiple objects. So, I can see one tree, and I know if I

see another tree, then this would make two trees. I think the

concepts of numbers need sensory experience to understand the

concepts.

No, I have to disagree here. We understand the concept of pi

without seeing a physical representation of 3.1415, etc., etc. I

would argue numbers are purely a rational a priori game, and so

to dismiss rationalism as having nothing to do with scientific

truths is a mistake.

Rationalism vs. Empiricism for Ethical Knowledge

Okay, so outside of science, I would say rationalism is a better

approach to ethical truths. How come?

Because an intuition and innate knowledge explains why we can

recognize good and evil, moral and immoral, instinctively.

Although we may struggle to exactly define what morality is and

come up with a universal behavioral code, we can still recognize

morality. We understand it. We know when something is good,

and we know when something is evil. And it is just our intuition

guiding us. We cannot use our senses to determine whether

something is right or wrong; our senses cannot determine justice,

loyalty—these are larger concepts. We just recognize them when

we see them; these are our innate concepts.

Well, assuming morality is realist and does exist external to an

individual's personal emotions, it can be argued that it can be

discovered through the senses. We can see when people are hurt,

when people are suffering, we can feel this as well, and we usually

judge pain as being morally wrong. This is enough to say that

moral truths can be discovered by the empirical method.

Without getting into an ethical debate, I would say that morality

is a lot deeper than pain and pleasure, so I don't think the

empiricist position is sufficient in discovering ethical truths.

Beyond the Empirical Knowledge and the Problem of

Induction

Very well, moving on. I would say rationalism is our only

approach to any metaphysical discussions. Empiricism cannot

shine any light on anything beyond the empirical world. Meaning

any conversation or discussion that goes beyond what we

perceive with our senses needs a rationalist position.

Okay, but you must agree the empiricist approach is much

simpler. It is grounded in the empirical world that we all perceive

and feel. Rationalism needs almost a mystical, spiritual, or

religious belief to accompany it. We all prefer to work with that

in which we can verify with our senses, rather than blind belief.

Occam's Razor would say the simplest theory is the better theory,

and empiricism is definitely a simpler theory as it does not rely

on unobservable concepts such as intuition or innate knowledge.

But empiricism falls into a dead end once we realize that how we

perceive the empirical world is not necessarily what truly exists.

We all know and are aware that our senses are fallible; they

deceive us, they lie to us, and they do not represent what actually

exists. We also understand that our senses are inconsistent—not

only with other people's senses, but with our own previous

experiences at different times of our lives. Now, how can we

honestly say the empirical method is the only way of attaining

true knowledge if we know that our senses deceive, misrepresent,

and are inconsistent?

Yes, I see. If we only use the empiricist approach, then we come

to see that our sense experience can only offer us deductive

knowledge at best. If I visit a pond for the first time in my life and

I see five white ducks, I can reach the empirical conclusion that

all ducks are white. This is based on my sense experience, but it

is obviously wrong. All sense experience offers is predictions

based on what we have experienced; it does not offer concrete

absolute truth. This leads us to the problem of induction, where

we cannot have
Justified True Belief & The Gettier
Problem (Epistemology)

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Vibe, the channel where we

discuss and debate different philosophical ideas. Today we're

going to be focusing on some epistemology and looking into the

theory of justified true belief.

Interesting. Now, epistemology is the philosophical study of

knowledge. It looks into the very nature of knowledge: what is

knowledge and how can it be defined? The justified true belief

theory was devised as an answer to the philosophy of

epistemology. In this video, we will explain what justified true

belief is and look into the objection raised against the theory,

known as the Gettier problem.

Excellent. So, justified true belief has been widely accepted as the

criteria for knowledge, some say as far back as the works of Plato.

When looking into the nature of knowledge, one can be said to

know something, or have knowledge of something, if it is justified

true belief. Meaning, someone has a belief, is justified in having

that belief, and that belief is actually true.

So, let's say I know X. I have a belief in X, I have justification in

believing in X—meaning my belief in X is well-supported based

on good evidence and reason—and X is, in fact, true. This would

classify as my knowledge of X.
Can you frame this in a specific example? Okay, so let's say I have

knowledge that there is a tree at the bottom of my road. Yes, this

can only be considered knowledge if it meets the justified true

belief criteria. So, I have a belief that there is a tree at the bottom

of my road. Now, I have seen this tree with my own eyes, I have

seen it at different times of the day, for months on end. Other

people have also seen this tree and have discussed it with me. So,

I am justified in having this belief. The belief that there is a tree

at the bottom of my road is perfectly justified, and finally, the

belief I have is true. There is a tree at the bottom of my road. If

we went there now, the tree would be there, or if we got live

images by satellite of the road, we would see the tree. This then

becomes knowledge. It is knowledge because my belief is

justified and true.

I see. Take out any of the criteria, and it does not become

knowledge. You could have a belief, and it could be true, but if

it’s not justified, it is not knowledge—just a guess. For example,

I have a belief that there is a tree at the bottom of my road, and

the reason is because I saw a tree there 10 years ago, but I haven’t

traveled to the bottom of my road since. Let us say it is true, the

tree is still there. My belief is true, but my belief was not justified.

In 10 years, the tree could have been chopped down. My belief

was not justified; it was just a guess. So, even though it is true,

my belief is not knowledge.

Yes, I understand. Likewise, even if your belief is justified but

false, this would obviously not be knowledge. Let’s say I saw the

tree two minutes ago, left the scene, and it was immediately cut

down. My belief that there is a tree at the bottom of the road is

entirely justified, but it is false, and so it is not knowledge.

Yes, that makes sense. So, the only way we can be said to know

something is if we have a belief, we are justified in having this

belief, and this belief is, in fact, true. Only then can we say we

have true knowledge. This makes perfect sense and is a

reasonable and logical approach to epistemology. However, when

we dig a little deeper, we do find problems with the justified true

belief approach.

Explain.

So now, I want to bring up the Gettier problem. This problem was

named after the philosopher Edmund Gettier, who came up with

some scenarios in a 1963 paper to show how having justified true

belief could still result in not having knowledge.

Go ahead. In the first scenario, Gettier asks us to imagine Smith

and Jones, who have both applied for the same job. Jones

interviews first, then Smith has his interview. At the end of

Smith’s interview, the CEO of the company tells Smith that he

will be hiring Jones. Smith also remembers that Jones has exactly

10 coins in his pocket; he saw Jones counting them earlier. So,

based on all of this, Smith forms the following belief: the person

who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket. This is Smith’s
belief, and based on the evidence, Smith is perfectly justified in

having this belief.

Correct.

However, the CEO comes out of his office and loudly claims that

the job will be going to Smith, not to Jones.

Okay, so Smith’s justified belief was, in fact, false.

No. See, Gettier asks us to imagine that Smith himself actually

does have 10 coins in his pocket. He just completely forgot about

them, but after the CEO congratulates him, he puts his hand in his

pocket and realizes he has 10 coins. Okay, so think about it:

Smith’s belief was justified, and Smith’s belief was true, as the

person who got the job did have 10 coins in his pocket. However,

Smith did not know he would be getting the job. He had justified

true belief that was not knowledge. This scenario shows that

justified true belief cannot be a universal condition for

knowledge.

I see. Gettier then had a second scenario. Upon leaving the

interview, Smith sees Jones driving off in a Ford. At the same

time, Smith remembers his friend Brown, who once owned a

Ford, but now Smith has no idea where Brown is. So, Smith

develops the following belief: either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown

is in Barcelona. Smith is justified in this belief as he has seen

Jones driving off in the Ford. As it happens, Jones is just hiring

the Ford; he does not own it. And, by coincidence, Brown actually

is in Barcelona. So, Smith’s justified belief is again true. Only,

Smith had no knowledge of where Brown was, and he had no

knowledge that Jones did not own the Ford. Once again, this

shows problems with the justified true belief approach.

Yes, yes, I see. From this, many more scenarios have been

developed showing the problems with the JTB approach.

I do see how the Gettier problem poses a flaw for the justified true

belief approach. However, in the two scenarios, Smith’s beliefs

are based on incorrect information and incorrect premises. Even

though the belief was justified and true, it was reached based on

a falsehood, namely that Jones would get the job and that Jones

owns a Ford. We may be able to salvage the JTB theory if we

change it slightly.

In what way? We could say that any belief based on a false

premise or even based on fallible information cannot be

considered justified. Even though the belief is true and the

justification seems right, the method in which the justification

was met was based on false information. In order for the belief to

be justified, it must be provided by infallible support; it cannot

have any errors or falsehoods.

This seems like too much of a rigid and narrow path to

knowledge. What exactly do we mean by infallible supports, and

how can we know what is false information while we are forming

our beliefs? How many true beliefs have we developed as

knowledge throughout our lives, even though we may have

reached them through some false information? And surely, all

justification for beliefs will have some element of fallibility. Even

our senses are not infallible, so evidence we see with our eyes or

hear with our ears would then not qualify as justification for

belief. This would pretty much render all beliefs unjustifiable, and

all knowledge will be thrown out the window, opening the door

to extreme skepticism.

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