Enchiridion

Knowledge

Philosophy’s history of reflection upon knowledge is a history of theses and theories; but no less of questions, concepts, distinctions, syntheses, and taxonomies. All of these will appear in this article. They generate, colour, and refine these philosophical theses and theories about knowledge. The results are epistemological — philosophical attempts to understand whatever is most fundamentally understandable about the nature and availability of knowledge. We will gain a sense of what philosophers have thought knowledge is and might be, along with why some philosophers have thought knowledge both does not and could not exist. Thus, we will examine some of the general kinds or forms of knowledge that epistemologists have thought it important to highlight (section 1), followed by the idea of knowledge as a kind or phenomenon at all (section 2). Knowledge seems to be something we gain as we live; how do we gain it, though? That will be our next question (section 3), before we ask whether our apparently gaining knowledge is an illusion: might no one ever really gain knowledge (section 4)? Answers to these questions could reflect finer details of knowledge’s constituents (section 5), including the standards involved in knowing (section 6). The article ends by asking about the fundamental point of having knowledge (section 7).

Table of Contents

1. Kinds of Knowledge 1. Knowing by Acquaintance 2. Knowledge-That 3. Knowledge-Wh 4. Knowing-How 2. Knowledge as a Kind 3. Ways of Knowing 1. Innate Knowledge 2. Observational Knowledge 3. Knowing Purely by Thinking 4. Knowing by Thinking-Plus-Observing 5. Sceptical Doubts about Knowing 6. Understanding Knowledge? 1. The Justified-True-Belief Conception of Knowledge 2. Not the Justified-True-Belief Conception of Knowledge? 3. Questioning the Gettier Problem 7. Standards for Knowing

1. Certainty or Infallibility 2. Fallibility 3. Grades of Fallibility 4. Safety and Lucky Knowing 5. Mere True Belief 6....