Man always seeks to know life in the whole breadth of its manifestations. Having come a long way, mankind is increasingly penetrating the essence of being. And epistemology came to help man in this difficult way. What is this teaching and what is it about?
Gnoseology is a philosophical doctrine of knowledge, of the possibility of knowledge, and its nature, about boundaries and much more.
The very word epistemology came to us from the Greek language “gnosis” - knowledge and “logos” —the concept, teaching, that is, the teaching (concept) of knowledge. An important place in epistemology is the study and study of the subject in relation to the object, the structuring of their relations, what truth is and how to determine where it is. However, one thing is certain in the center of this teaching is man.
Gnoseology, the theory of knowledge, or another teaching about life, has come a long way in evolutionary development, as a person developed, and his understanding of the world on this path of evolution has changed, so gnoseology has developed and expanded its methods of cognition.
In antiquity, epistemology, this philosophical doctrine of knowledge regarded the subject as a whole with knowledge about it, and much attention was paid to focusing attention on the functional transformation of the subject in knowledge. And only in the Middle Ages epistemology - this doctrine of life begins to expand and deepen, and closer to the design of the classical theory of knowledge. And the combination of the teachings of Aristotle and Christian dogmatic postulates led to the appearance of dual truth.
With the advent of experimental science in the 17-18 centuries, the question becomes acute how to determine the truth, in what way. At this time, the opposition “empiricism-realism”, “sensualism-realism”, etc. appear. Then the subject’s activity in the process of cognition becomes relevant.
In the 19th century, epistemology of this philosophical doctrine of knowledge was directed by Kant to identify the subjective basis of knowledge, which led to a reassessment of the principles of natural philosophy, which was focused on the knowledge and identification of absolute truth. As a result of the rapid development of the natural sciences and the rejection of metaphysical knowledge, a cognitive attitude to life is at the center of philosophical research.
Cognitive activity of the subject of classical epistemology was associated with its isolation and was decisive. However, the consciousness of this subject was transparent to itself and therefore was not a criterion of reliability.
Modern epistemology is the doctrine of the problem of relationship to science. Scientific research has led to the emergence of the social nature of cognition. Understanding that the growth of science is ineffective, it was concluded that science does not develop formally socially, but at the expense of researchers and their personal resources, and the organization of conditions for communication in which it becomes possible to advance knowledge, its constant development and updating. All further research in this area leads to the understanding that the prospects for the development of epistemology are connected in the present with studies of situations of the emergence of knowledge. And in these situations, one can trace the role in cognition and the manifestation of personal social forms of the subject in the emergence of knowledge. Based on the study of these situations, the social function of cognition is clearly emerging, that is, the acquisition and development of new knowledge and epistemology.
Joint research conducted with other disciplines enables epistemology to describe the types of human relations to the world around him. After much debate and friction, it became increasingly clear that the initial statements of epistemological philosophy are limited. An important role was played in this by the development of the humanities, where the methodology was fundamentally different from research methods in the natural sciences.
At present, epistemology is a philosophical doctrine of knowledge continues to develop and helps us in acquiring and mastering new knowledge.