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Epistemology- part 2
Philosophy and Contemporary Ideas (Liberty
University)
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Epistemology: From Science to Pragmatism
Knowledge defined: knowledge JTB
•Justified
•True
•Belief
You have a lot of beliefs but if they’re not true, it’s not really
knowledge
•If your belief is not justified, then you’re just guessing and that doesn’t
count as knowledge either
•Belief: acceptance of or assent to the truth of some proposition
•The content of the proposition that is accepted or assented to
The Correspondence Theory of Truth:
•Truth is a state of correspondence between the content of
a proposition and the reality that it describes
Two Approaches to Justification:
•Existentialism: beliefs are justified by the volitional act of the one
who chooses to believe them
•Evidentialism: beliefs are justified by the evidence that supports them
Four Common Versions of Evidentialism:
•Foundationalism: a belief is justified when it is deduced from
another justified belief
•Descartes: cogito ergo sum- “I think therefore I am” Descartes
started with the foundation of cogito ergo sum
•Coherentism: a belief is justified for the one believing it when it fits
with the rest of his/her beliefs and thus forms a coherent belief
system
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•Not a pyramid like foundationalism but more like a spider-web
or network
•Ideas that don’t cohere with current justified ideas in ones network
or web
•Pragmatism: a belief is justified by its success in helping you
resolve problems or understand your world
-more scientific approach
-testing beliefs or hypotheses to see results
•Scientism: a belief is justified only when it is the result of a
careful scientific investigation
•*Commits the self-referential coherence fallacy*
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