Epistemology: Understanding Knowledge, Truth, and Reality

Epistemology: Understanding Knowledge, Truth, and Reality

Epistemology is in charge of analyzing knowledge, determining its source and limits. From the 17th century, it acquired importance for two reasons: the importance of natural sciences, and because before beginning an investigation, we must know if we can reach the end.

Distinguishing Belief, Opinion, and Knowledge

• Opinion: We are not sure, nor can we prove it.
• Belief:
  • Uncertainty: We are not really sure of what we affirm.
  • Assertive: We are sure of something, but we cannot prove it.
• Knowledge: A belief of which we are confident and can prove.

Types of Knowledge

• Theoretical Knowledge: Formed by information describing the world. It arises from the desire to know. It consists of:
  • Describing and verifying what happens, analyzing it.
  • Explaining: Determining the causes of what happens.
  • Predicting: Anticipating what will happen.
• Study: Not an explanation of the world, but an act of knowing it.

Language and Knowledge

Three types of language:

• Animal
• Natural Human Language
• Artificial Language: Created by humans, it replaces human language.

Characteristics of Language

Language is a human capacity to communicate through a system of signs.

Types of Signs

• Index: Cause-effect with what it represents.
• Icons: Resemblance between the symbol and reality.
• Symbol: Arbitrary. The sign does not resemble the reality it represents.

Characteristics of Symbols

• Arbitrary and conventional
• Articulate and creative

Connection Between Language, Thought, and Reality

• Significant: The linguistic sign.
• Meaning: An idea or thought.
• Reference: Object, scope of reality.

Propositional Knowledge

A proposition is a sentence that asserts or denies something.

• Empirical: Affirm or deny something about the world.
• Formal: Talk about the relationship between symbols.

Truth and Reality

Aristotelian definition of truth: "Truth is an attribute of a thought or statement."

• Truth of facts:
  • Authentic reality: Objects and facts in the world as they are.
  • Apparent reality: How reality appears to us.
• Truth of propositions:
  • Truth of empirical propositions:
    • Truth as correspondence: A proposition is true when it adapts to reality (Aristotle).
    • Truth as coherence: A proposition is true if it does not conflict with other accepted propositions (Hegel).
    • Truth as success: A proposition is true if its implementation has positive results.
  • Truth of formal propositions: Truth as coherence.

The Limits of Knowledge

• Dogmatism: Knowledge can be acquired, and we can have absolute certainty (Descartes).
• Skepticism: Denies or doubts the existence of sure knowledge, and even refuses knowledge (Pyrrho).
• Criticism: Knowledge is possible, but it should be revised to avoid errors (Kant).
• Relativism: Denies the existence of absolute truth. There are only opinions, and they depend on many valid points (Sophists).
• Perspectivism: Denies the theoretical possibility of a single truth. We have a partial view of reality. All perspectives together form absolute knowledge.

The Problem of Good and Evil

The Nature of Good and Evil

• Realistic Position: Western philosophy states that good is an existing reality, and evil would be the absence of good.
• Plato: Something good is part of an immutable and eternal reality, the idea of good. This idea is part of the world of ideas. Evil cannot be an idea, since it implies the absence of good, something indeterminate.
• Nominalistic Position (Positivists): Adjectives "good" and "bad" do not indicate a natural quality of things. They commit a fallacy, confusing the essence of what is good with the effects on things that feel good to us.

How is the Existence of Evil Possible?

• Evil is necessary for a higher good.
• Leibniz: The world we live in is the best of possible worlds. This would not be possible if not at the expense of lesser evils.
• The problem of evil is only apparent, a result of the limitations of human understanding.
• Stoics: Evil is only evil to us. Our limited understanding cannot comprehend that apparent damage is a reality, a good for everything.
• Evil is a consequence of the imperfection of the world.
• Neoplatonists: The world is inevitably imperfect because it is made up of matter. In the imperfection of matter lies the origin of evil.