Modern mankind has long been accustomed to certain philosophical ideas and teachings and takes them for granted. For example, categories such as “knowledge,” “being,” or “paradox,” have long seemed to us verified and perfectly clear.
However, there are also less well-known sections of philosophical teachings that are of no less interest both for modern philosophers and for ordinary people. One of these areas is epistemology.
The essence of the concept
The meaning of this seemingly complex term is easily revealed in its linguistic structure. You do not need to be an outstanding philologist in order to understand that "epistemology" is a word that includes two bases at once.
The first of these is episteme, which means "knowledge" as such. The second component of this term is better known to modern mankind. The most popular interpretation of the logos part is considered to be the “word”, however, according to other concepts, its meaning is defined somewhat differently - “learning”.
Thus, we can determine that epistemology is the science of knowledge as such.
Foundation of teaching
In this case, it is easy to understand that this branch of philosophy has much in common with the epistemology more known to modern mankind. Representatives of classical philosophical schools even insist on their identification, however, if we consider this concept objectively, it turns out that the identity will not be entirely true.
First of all, these sections of science differ in study positions. The interests of epistemology are aimed at determining the relationship between the object and subject of knowledge, while epistemology is a discipline of a philosophical and methodological nature, which is most interested in the juxtaposition and interaction of knowledge as such and the object.
The main issues
Any scientific or semi-scientific discipline has its own range of interests. The branch of philosophy that interests us is not an exception in this respect. Epistemology is science aimed at the study of knowledge as such. In particular, the subject of her research is the nature of knowledge, the mechanisms of its formation and its relationship with objective reality.
Researchers of this kind are working to identify the specifics of acquiring, expanding, and systematizing knowledge. The very life of this phenomenon becomes a key problem in this section of philosophy.
Chronological framework
Continuing the theme of identifying epistemology and epistemology, one more feature should be noted, namely, that the latter became available to the human mind much earlier. Issues of an epistemological nature arose even in the era of antiquity, while epistemological ideas formed a little later. As an example, in this case we can cite Platonic ideas about the reference concept of truth, which at the time served as an impetus for the development and formation of the discipline that interests us.
Correlation and mutual influence
Epistemology and philosophy (science) are closely interrelated, simply by virtue of the subject of interests of the former. Any component of the real or ideal world is known by us through reflection, obtaining knowledge about it. And knowledge, as mentioned earlier, is the main object of interest in epistemology. Most of all, it is connected with epistemology, which served as the reason for their identification by individual scientists.
Epistemology and philosophy are sciences that are in constant interaction, complementing and perfecting each other. Perhaps that is why philosophy has reached such heights by now.
Particularity and general
Like any other phenomenon, the discipline that interests us cannot exist by itself, outside the context of other components. So epistemology in philosophy is only methodological discipline, which is only a small part of the body of scientific knowledge.
Its formation was long and rather difficult. Originating back in antiquity, epistemology went through the brutal scholasticism of the Middle Ages, during the Renaissance it experienced another surge, gradually developing and reaching a much more perfect form to this day.
Classic performances
Modern scholars distinguish between traditional and non-classical epistemology. This distinction and opposition is based primarily on the difference in approaches to the study of knowledge.
Classical Epistemology based on a kind of fundamentalism, and knowledge, which is the main object of study, it is divided into two main types. To the first, the adherents of the classical version of this philosophical section include concepts and views based on the basis of other ideas, phenomena of objective reality. This kind of knowledge is quite easy to prove or disprove, turning to a simple analysis.
The second class of knowledge includes those reliability, the truth of which does not correlate with representations that are the epistemological basis. They are considered in interaction, but are not tied to each other.
Connection with Charles Darwin
As already mentioned, epistemology in philosophy is a separate discipline, inextricably linked with the rest. Due to the specifics of the object and subject of study, its boundaries expand to universal, which leads to the borrowing of not only terminology, but also the ideas themselves from other sciences.
Speaking about this branch of philosophy, we must not forget about such a scientific complex as evolutionary epistemology. Most often, this phenomenon is usually associated with the name of Karl R. Popper, who was one of the first to pay attention to the relationship between knowledge and language.
In his scientific works, the researcher approached the study of knowledge and the formation of ideas about it in the language system from the point of view of the Darwinian theory of evolution, natural selection.
Evolutionary epistemology Karl R. Popper consists, in fact, in that its main problems should be considered the change, improvement of the language and the role that it plays in the formation of human knowledge as such. Another problem the scientist calls the definition of the way by which the consciousness of mankind selects the main linguistic phenomena that determine knowledge of reality.
Another connection with biology
This section of philosophy is directly related to other areas of biology. In particular, genetic epistemology, the author of which is usually considered to be J. Piaget, is based on the psychological aspect.
Researchers at this school view knowledge as a combination of mechanisms that are based on reactions to various stimuli. By and large, this concept is an attempt to combine the currently available exact sciences and data obtained from experimental studies of an ontogenetic nature.
Knowledge and society
Naturally, the spectrum of interests of epistemology is directed not at any particular individual, but at society as a whole. The knowledge of all mankind, transmitted from generation to generation, becomes the main object of study of this science.
The correlation of individual and collective knowledge is largely responsible for social epistemology. The main subject of interest in this case is collective, general knowledge. Epistemology Issues of this kind are based on all kinds of sociological studies and observations of the cultural, religious, scientific ideas of society as such.
Doubt and comprehension
Modern science, whatever one may say, has simply made a huge number of breakthroughs in various areas of human life. What is the flight into space! Is it necessary to say that just a few centuries ago, the main method of treatment was bloodletting, and modern diagnostics can determine the likelihood of a problem long before its immediate occurrence.
All this is based on scientific knowledge obtained as a result of certain practices, experiments and actions. In fact, all the technogenic progress that we can observe today is based on ideas about certain phenomena.
That is why epistemology (the sciences associated with it, we examined above) is of particular value. The study of the mechanisms of directly scientific knowledge is especially important and interesting from the point of view of this section of philosophy, since it is they (mechanisms of this kind) that push humanity forward.
Modern epistemology constantly evolving, like any other science. The spectrum of her interests is becoming wider, the conclusions drawn as a result of the presence of a significantly larger experimental base are becoming more clear. The human understanding of knowledge as such, its characteristics, norms and mechanisms of action becomes deeper and deeper. The world in which we live more and more is cognized by man ...