Overview of Epistemology (part 1)

Part 1 of 2, Overview of Epistemology in Academic Philosophy. This is an overview of unit 2 in Philosophy 101 (Introduction to Western Philosophy). In this video we briefly look at the three basic questions in Epistemology: 1) What is knowledge?, 2) Can we have knowledge?, and 3) How do we get knowledge.

[@juliusorelus6219]

Technology makes it all occurs. Thank you so much for this amazing explanation. ❤

[@sisyphus645]

I just discovered this channel. Can't wait to binge watch your videos!

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Thanks! I hope you find them useful.

[@jacquelinewolf-xw8cs]

I love these videos. Thank you. Your ability to see relationships is amazing.

[@jerYacoub]

I appreciate the basic and clear lesson. If someone like me can walk away understanding what you're saying then you've aced it. Cheers!

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Thanks for the kind comment, and thanks for watching!

[@alonthekiller]

This is AMAZING.

[@josephrudel]

What a channel!!Excellent work

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Thanks for the very kind comment! Please share with those who may have an interest in learning some of the basics of Philosophy.

[@josephrudel]

@@ALittleBitofPhilosophy ok I will

[@havenbastion]

Knowledge is justified belief. Faith is Unjustified belief. Opinion is just belief.

[@aspen7836]

Thank you for your great videos! Can you make a brief overview of Postmodernism😊🥺I think it would be great. Anyway Thanks for your effort!

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

It's a bit outside of my area of specialization, but I will put it on the queue along with many others I want to get done. Since I teach full-time, I don't have tons of time to churn out new content, but thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for watching!

[@samuelrech1999]

Hello! Love your videos and working my way through. Quick question if I may - where is the video on Plato's apology you briefly refer to in the beginning? I went through the videos on Socrates' historical backdrop, but was then led to here - not sure if I'm missing something? Thank you for posting these.

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Hi Samuel! Sorry so long in getting back to you but I'm super busy teaching my Spring classes. The reference to the "earlier" discussion is one from a live class session on Plato's Apology which was recorded during lock-down. You can find a recorded version of that full-class discussion on the "Class Notes" page of my website (barryfvaughan.org, PHI 101, Class Notes). I hope to have a more KZbin-friendly, condensed version like this video coming soon. So many videos to make, so little time. Thanks so much for watching!

[@notsure855]

Question: is the triangle not itself understood through sensory experiences. e.g. you are taught what a triangle is, you learn its features and are able to identify it. Being born and having no idea about geometry you would not be able to identify it as a triangle let alone a shape . How does is then become an innate belief? thank you ;)

[@notsure855]

your videos are great by the way

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Thanks! Well, this is part of the debate between Rationalism and Empiricism. IF innate ideas exist, then mathematical ideas could be among them. An empiricist, on the other hand, would argue that the idea, 'triangle' is an abstraction from particular sensory experience (e.g., seeing objects that are roughly triangular in shape). Today, we are educated in an intellectual paradigm that takes Empiricism as its starting point, so it's a little weird to think of anything that isn't "learned". Hope that helps!!!

[@notsure855]

@@ALittleBitofPhilosophy thank you for taking the time to reply. Yes, you have helped clarify my question. ;)

[@mohdhussain4604]

Can we expect detailed lecture on hermeneutics. bless

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Hi Mohd! Alas, I'm more in the Analytic School of Philosophy and feel PROFOUNDLY unqualified to offer insights on the subject at this point in my life. Thanks for watching!

[@mohdhussain4604]

@@ALittleBitofPhilosophy reflects intel'ual humility... Impressed!. Thanks,

[@havenbastion]

It's not possible to believe something you don't think is justified. "I know x but i don't believe it." really means "I know other people believe x but I don't." The point when you believe a piece of information is justified is the point when you start to believe it is true, whether or not it's compatible with the logic or data available now or in the future. Cognitive dissonance is ignorance where knowledge is appropriate, not understanding the conflict between your beliefs sufficiently to settle the disjunction.

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

You may be correct about this, but I'm not sure. If we take as a starting point that belief is not binary (either I believe or I don't) but rather a continuum, I think we get a better picture of things. It seems that people often believe things without any significant reflection on whether they are justified or not, hence it would be possible to hold a belief in the absence of believing that the belief is justified. Of course, in Philosophy, we want people to engage in the analysis of their beliefs, and to consider what kind of evidence they have for their beliefs as well as whether that evidence is appropriate, relevant, etc. So, I think we're probably on the same page here.

[@havenbastion]

Those divisions are somewhat arbitrary. Axiology, aesthetics, ethics, and politics are all contingent. Metaphysics and epistemology are distinctive but inseparable and ought to be combined. Logic is a sub-set of science (rigor) that always replicates and is closer to math than philosophy. And history of philosophy is just history - academic. These are my divisions, which seen to be more intentionally distributed; a) Truth Wisdom - epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, mereology... b) Practical Wisdom - what ordinary people think philosophy is; what we want and how to get it; aesthetics, ethics, politics, etc. c) Academic Philosophy - people, history, jargon.

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Thanks for your comment. I hope I haven't given the impression that the videos on this channel are the final say about anything in academic Philosophy. They are merely an attempt to introduce some of the most basic questions in Western Philosophy to an audience that has not had the opportunity to access academic Philosophy in the traditional venue of a college or university. It is academic Philosophy from my professional point of view which is, without question, limited and defined by my own experience studying and teaching Philosophy for the past 35 years. Based on the comments you have left thus far, it seems that your are far more advanced in your own study of Philosophy than the audience these videos are aimed at. All the best to you as you continue in your quest.

[@havenbastion]

You lost me at JTB. The truth of a proposition is what knowledge is a pointer Toward, and cannot even be known with the ultimate certainty that "true" implies. Justified true belief could never be recognized as true or not true, because the final settled truth of it will never actually be available to anyone. The recognition of truth is always relative to the best information available Now, and it's also always limited to the actual minds in the scenario; what is it even possible for them to know?.

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Thanks for the comments, Kaiser! First, these videos are only meant as the most preliminary introduction to various philosophical problems and are therefore going to be elementary in nature. The formulation of knowledge as JTB is long established in analytical epistemology and not my own formulation. In fact, it goes back to Plato's attempt to define what knowledge is (e.g., what we find in "Meno" and "Theatetus"). But even Plato seems to have thought this formulation may be incomplete. E. Gettier's now classic work furthers those concerns. But we still use the formulation of JTB as a starting point for teaching the basic problems of Epistemology. I think your comment suggests a conflation of a deeper problem, which is quite genuine: the difference between what is true and our ability to access what is true. But this is, of course, the very heart of the problem of skepticism.

[@peterharkness2211]

Kaiser Basileus - First, the notion that knowledge requires truth (which you deny) is probably the most uncontroversial thing in all of epistemology. Second, you're wrong that knowledge defined as JTB implies "ultimate certainty", because on most accounts knowledge is "fallible", which doesn't mean that it can be false (since knowledge entails truth), but it means that we, in order to know something, don't need epistemic justification enough to be absolutely certain that what we think we know is true.

[@havenbastion]

@@peterharkness2211 Knowledge is a pointer toward Truth. Therefore it cannot contain truth as part of itself.

[@joshuafritz1386]

The materialistic bias presented is not consistent with metaphysics. Trueness is independent of the material world. The first error made, is that a theory of knowledge is presented. Knowledge is not a theory. That is what distinguishes it from opinion. Knowledge is a pre exisiting Energy. This is a D minus.

[@ALittleBitofPhilosophy]

Hi @joshuafritz! Thanks for commenting. Sorry you didn't like the video, but perhaps you are a bit more advanced for this very basic introduction to epistemological terminology. I would, in the spirit of philosophical conversation, suggest that you may be conflating ontological claims with epistemological ones. Of course they ARE related since knowledge is OF something, so whatever that something is will be determinative of knowledge. Or put another way, the truth just IS whatever IS the case. It may turn out that that is material in nature, perhaps mental, perhaps a combination of both (those are ontological questions). So to claim that "trueness is independent of the material world" is to beg the question about the nature of being, and that's a different philosophical conversation.

[@joshuafritz1386]

@ALittleBitofPhilosophy of course we are discussing the ontology of knowledge. What is it? That is the question. I've already explained its an energy. So, the Person contains that energy. Again, its not a theory. Energetically, that is incorrect to say its a conversation. It is a pre existing energy. Data is not knowledge. Most universities make this error. Perhaps you are conflating knowledge with data.