Belief and knowledge

By Luper, Steven

It is often said that for people to know that such and such is the case, they must have something like a belief that such and such is ...

Epistemology

Epistemology is one of the core areas of philosophy. It is concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. Epistemology has been primarily concerned with propositional knowledge, ...

Epistemology

By Klein, Peter D.

Epistemology is one of the core areas of philosophy. It is concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge (see Knowledge, concept of). There is a vast ...

Ethnophilosophy, African

By Karp, Ivan; Masolo, D.A.

Ethnophilosophy refers to bodies of belief and knowledge that have philosophical relevance and which can be redescribed in terms drawn from academic philosophy, but which have not been ...

Armstrong, David Malet (1926–2014)

By Jackson, Frank

David Armstrong was born in Melbourne, and studied philosophy at the Universities of Sydney and Oxford. He returned to Australia to teach at the University of Melbourne and ...

Self-deception, ethics of

By Martin, Mike W.

Self-deception is complicated and perplexing because it concerns all major aspects of human nature, including consciousness, rationality, motivation, freedom, happiness, and value commitments. In a wide sense, ‘self-deception’ ...

Knowledge, concept of

By Klein, Peter D.

The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and extent of human knowledge is called epistemology (from the Greek epistēmē meaning knowledge, and logos meaning theory). ...

Ignorance

By Peels, Rik

Until recently, epistemology has largely neglected ignorance, focusing on knowledge and what is necessary for knowledge, such as epistemic justification. However, over the last 20 years or so ...

Yoruba epistemology

By Hallen, Barry

The Yoruba of west Africa have articulated systematic criteria that are used to assign varying degrees of epistemic certainty to experience. What one views with one’s own eyes ...

Epistemic Luck

By Broncano-Berrocal, Fernando; Carter, J. Adam

In almost any domain of endeavour, successes can be attained through skill, but also by dumb luck. An archer’s wildest shots occasionally hit the target. Against enormous odds, ...

Williamson, Timothy (1955–)

By Ball, Brian

Timothy Williamson is a British analytic philosopher, who has made major contributions in philosophical logic, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of language and philosophical methodology. ...

Metaphysics of knowledge

By Kallestrup, Jesper

Epistemology has traditionally been concerned with the scope, sources and structure of knowledge and other epistemic statuses such as justified belief. Metaphysics of knowledge seeks to answer metaphysical ...

Belief

By Jackson, Frank; Braddon-Mitchell, David

We believe that there is coffee over there; we believe the special theory of relativity; we believe the Vice-Chancellor; and some of us believe in God. But plausibly ...

Epistemology, Indian schools of

By Phillips, Stephen H.

Each classical Indian philosophical school classifies and defines itself with reference to a foundational text or figure, through elaboration of inherited positions, and by disputing the views of ...

Epistemic value

By Greco, John; Pinto de Sa, Luis

Epistemic value is a kind of value possessed by knowledge, and perhaps other epistemic goods such as justification and understanding. The problem of explaining the value of knowledge ...

History of materialism

By Brown, Robin Gordon; Ladyman, James

Materialism is an ontological theory, that is, a theory about the kind of things that exist. In its simplest form, it can be understood to be making one ...

Normative epistemology

By Conee, Earl

There are three kinds of normative work in epistemology. The first is the provision of epistemic advice, which offers guidance towards improving the cognitive condition of an individual ...

Definition, Indian concepts of

By Bhattacharyya, Sibajiban

Definitions in Indian philosophy are conceived very differently from definitions in Western philosophy. In Western philosophy and logic, it is usual to define a term or a linguistic ...

Pascal’s wager

By Jordan, Jeff

Pascal’s wager is a type of theistic argument developed by Blaisé Pascal, a French mathematician of the seventeenth century. There are at least four versions of the wager ...

Knowledge, Indian views of

By Phillips, Stephen H.

Classical Indian epistemology centres on a complex of terms for knowledge, knower and the known or knowable, including pramāṇa, ‘means to knowledge’ or ‘source of knowledge’. Views ...

Burke, Edmund (1729–97)

By Hampsher-Monk, Iain

Edmund Burke’s philosophical importance lies in two fields, aesthetics and political theory. His early work on aesthetics, the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the ...

Epistemology, history of

By Pappas, George S.

Epistemology has always been concerned with issues such as the nature, extent, sources and legitimacy of knowledge. Over the course of western philosophy, philosophers have concentrated sometimes on ...

Epistemology of education

By Siegel, Harvey

Philosophical thinking about education has always been centrally concerned with epistemological matters, alongside metaphysical, moral and social/political concerns. The most basic question concerns the epistemic aims of education: ...

Experimental epistemology

By Beebe, James

Experimental epistemology is the branch of experimental philosophy devoted to the empirical study of our shared practices of reasoning and making judgments about knowledge, evidence, and justified belief. ...

African philosophy, Anglophone

By Wiredu, Kwasi

Contemporary African philosophy is in a state of flux, but the flow is not without some watersheds. The chief reason for the flux lies in the fact that ...