Epistemology Fundamentals: Understanding Knowledge and Its Forms
The Theory of Knowledge
Introduction to Epistemology
The branch of philosophy that is concerned with the study of knowledge is called epistemology.
Cognitive Faculties and Knowledge Types
Sensitive Knowledge
Reason and sense are the two main instruments we use to experience reality. Thanks to our senses, we are aware of what is going on around us, which helps us to survive. Sensitive knowledge is the result of processing all this information in our minds.
The information that reaches our senses is made up of sensations and perceptions. Sensations are physio-physical phenomena; they occur when our sensory organs are stimulated. Perception is the interpretation of the sensations captured by our senses.
Reason as a cognitive faculty is exclusive to human beings. All animals have the ability to perceive through their senses; they all perceive the world that surrounds them to a greater or lesser extent. However, only human beings are able to think about this world in a rational manner.
Rational Knowledge
Rational knowledge works with concepts. Concepts are created by a process of abstraction, which consists of selecting the characteristics shared by a series of specific objects and ignoring those that differentiate them. The elements that comprise rational knowledge are:
- Concepts: Mental pictures that we use to understand what we perceive.
- Judgments: Sentences that may be true or false.
- Reasoning: A series of judgments that are related to one another using logical laws. This means that the truth of a judgment obtained through reasoning depends on the truth of the judgments used to arrive at that judgment.
Philosophical Positions on Knowledge
Rationalism, Empiricism, and Criticism
There are three fundamentally opposed philosophical positions on the role of the senses and reason in knowledge:
- Rationalism: States that only knowledge that comes exclusively from reason is valid. Rationalists argue that our senses are highly unreliable, and that our mind sometimes uses concepts that do not come from sensory experience.
- Empiricism: Views the senses as the only possible source of knowledge. Empiricism rejects the validity of any concept that does not come from experience.
- Criticism: Proposes an intermediate solution. Immanuel Kant, the principal proponent of critical philosophy, agrees with the empirical position that knowledge cannot be valid unless it is based on sensory experience.
Levels and Types of Knowledge
Levels of Certainty
From least to most, we must have:
- Ignorance: A total absence of knowledge.
- Doubt: The poorest kind of knowledge, coming just above ignorance.
- Opinion: A person’s confidence that something is true, even when there is no solid proof to guarantee its truth.
- Belief: Almost at the same level as opinion. The difference is that our beliefs do not come exclusively from personal conviction, but also from things that are not particular to us, such as religion.
- Solid and Certain Knowledge: The highest level in the classification.
Categories of Knowledge
- Theoretical Knowledge: Aims to understand reality and discover the truth. It comprises all accumulated knowledge in fields like physics, biology, or anthropology.
- Practical Knowledge: Aims to guide our behavior both in moral actions and in technical production. In terms of moral behavior, the objective of practical knowledge is to achieve goodness. In terms of production, practical knowledge aims to achieve benefit; it enables us to build houses, bridges, and airplanes.