Talk:epistemology
Latest comment: 16 years ago by Daniel Polansky in topic Definitions
Definitions
[edit]No. | Definition | Dan's Notes | WikiPedant's Comments (12 Sep/08) |
---|---|---|---|
1. | The branch of philosophy dealing with the study of the limits of knowledge. | Original entry in WT. | Too specific. Epistemology also studies the kinds and uses of knowledge. No good reason to emphasize "limits." |
2. | The branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge; theory of knowledge, asking such questions as "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?". | Current entry in WT. | Accurate and just about right, I think, for a good dictionary entry. Any more would be encyclopedic. |
3. | A branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. | W:Epistemology, as of now. | Also OK, but pretty much equivalent to the WT entry, and I think the WT entry is clearer with the questions Dan added to it. |
4. | The theory or science of the method or grounds of knowledge. | “Epistemology”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC. | Has a dated ring. "Science" is here used in the old-fashioned sense of "area of learning." |
5. | The theory of cognition; that branch of logic which undertakes to explain how knowledge is possible. | “epistelomogy”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC. | Also quite dated. "Logic" now means all that symbolic stuff logicians do. Here it is used in an older sense, closer to the Greek root term "logos." |
6. | The study of what distinguishes the knowledge of a proposition from mere belief in it, and related questions. | Self-made, based on terminological contrast found elsewhere ("knowledge" vs "mere belief"). | Not good. This defn is tied to a particular school of thought. I'm not quite sure what "knowledge of" a proposition means, but many philosophers would maintain that there are more kinds of knowledge than propositional knowledge (such as, say, intuitive knowledge). |