Epistemology: Core Theories and Philosophical Stances

The Essence of Knowledge

Knowledge represents the relationship between a subject and an object. The fundamental problem of knowledge is to discern the relationship between the subject and the object.

For this, there are three main attempts at a solution:

• Premetaphysical Solutions
• Metaphysical Solutions
• Theological Solutions

Premetaphysical Solutions

1. Objectivism

   The object determines the subject; the subject assumes in a certain way the properties of the object, reproducing them. This is evident in the words of Plato and his theory of ideas, and in Husserl's phenomenology.

2. Subjectivism

   There are no objects independent of consciousness; instead, all objects are creations of consciousness, products of thought.

Metaphysical Solutions

1. Realism

   We understand this as the epistemological stance asserting that real things exist independently of consciousness. This position is found in Democritus, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Dilthey, and Scheler.

2. Idealism

   There are no real things independent of consciousness. For Berkeley, the being of things is to "be perceived." For Avenarius and Mach, the only source of knowledge is sensation (a form of Empiricism).

3. Phenomenalism

   Kant attempts a mediation between realism and idealism. Under this theory, we do not know things as they really are, in themselves, but as they appear to us. The world is presented through an a priori organization of consciousness, not as things in themselves ("supreme concepts" or categories).

Theological Solutions

1. Pantheistic and Monistic Solution

   There is only an apparent duality between subject and object, thought and being, consciousness and things; in reality, it is a unity. This position is found developed in Spinoza and Schelling.

2. Dualistic and Theistic Solution

   Finally, the object and subject, thinking and being, lead to a final principle common to them, which resides in divinity. Leibniz, for example, speaks of pre-established harmony.

The Origin of Knowledge

1. Rationalism

   This epistemological stance argues that thought, reason, is the main source of human knowledge. Its older approaches are found in Plato, Plotinus, and later in St. Augustine, Malebranche, Descartes, and Leibniz.

2. Empiricism

   This argues that knowledge comes from experience, direct contact with reality. It gained prominence in the modern age with Locke and Hume, Condillac, and John Stuart Mill.

Philosophical Stances on the Nature of Truth

3. Subjectivism and Relativism

   One believes that something can be true for one person but not for others (Subjectivism), and the second thinks that knowledge is relative to cultural context (Relativism), as seen in Protagoras and Spengler.

4. Pragmatism

   Human knowledge only makes sense in practical terms; truth is the congruence between practical purposes and thoughts, as proposed by W. James, Schiller, Nietzsche, and Simmel.

5. Critical Philosophy

   This proposes confidence in human knowledge in general, while also distrusting any particular knowledge, as exemplified by Kant.