In philosophical epistemology , there are two types of coherentism : the coherence theory of truth , and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism ).
123-510: [REDACTED] Look up knowing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Knowing or The Knowing may refer to: Knowledge Knowing (album) , a 2015 album by Hubert Wu Knowing (film) , a 2009 science fiction film The Knowing , an album by the doom/death metal band Novembers Doom "Knowing", a song by OutKast from the 2003 album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below "The Knowing",
246-437: A 2011 song by The Weeknd from the 2011 album House of Balloons "Knowing" as expressed by gnostic groups Knowing, a 1988 fragrance by Estée Lauder Companies See also [ edit ] Knowing Me, Knowing You (disambiguation) Knowings , a surname All pages with titles containing Knowing Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
369-407: A belief if this belief is to amount to knowledge. When the belief is challenged, the person may justify it by referring to their reason for holding it. In many cases, this reason depends itself on another belief that may as well be challenged. An example is a person who believes that Ford cars are cheaper than BMWs. When their belief is challenged, they may justify it by claiming that they heard it from
492-474: A belief is involved. The main controversy surrounding this definition concerns its third feature: justification. This component is often included because of the impression that some true beliefs are not forms of knowledge, such as beliefs based on superstition , lucky guesses, or erroneous reasoning . For example, a person who guesses that a coin flip will land heads usually does not know that even if their belief turns out to be true. This indicates that there
615-461: A broad social phenomenon that is similar to culture. The term may further denote knowledge stored in documents like the "knowledge housed in the library" or the knowledge base of an expert system . Knowledge is closely related to intelligence , but intelligence is more about the ability to acquire, process, and apply information, while knowledge concerns information and skills that a person already possesses. The word knowledge has its roots in
738-478: A building as a model for the structure of knowledge with different metaphors, such as the metaphor that models our knowledge on a ship at sea whose seaworthiness must be ensured by repairs to any part in need of it. This metaphor fulfills the purpose of explaining the problem of incoherence, which was first raised in mathematics. Coherentists typically hold that justification is solely a function of some relationship between beliefs, none of which are privileged beliefs in
861-405: A complex web of interconnected ideas that is justified by its coherence rather than by a few privileged foundational beliefs. One difficulty for this view is how to demonstrate that it does not involve the fallacy of circular reasoning . If two beliefs mutually support each other then a person has a reason for accepting one belief if they already have the other. However, mutual support alone is not
984-573: A controlled experiment to compare whether predictions based on the hypothesis match the observed results. As a last step, the results are interpreted and a conclusion is reached whether and to what degree the findings confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis. The empirical sciences are usually divided into natural and social sciences . The natural sciences, like physics , biology , and chemistry , focus on quantitative research methods to arrive at knowledge about natural phenomena. Quantitative research happens by making precise numerical measurements and
1107-488: A cup of coffee made by a reliable coffee machine has the same value as an equally good cup of coffee made by an unreliable coffee machine. This difficulty in solving the value problem is sometimes used as an argument against reliabilism. Virtue epistemology, by contrast, offers a unique solution to the value problem. Virtue epistemologists see knowledge as the manifestation of cognitive virtues. They hold that knowledge has additional value due to its association with virtue. This
1230-519: A form of inevitable ignorance that can affect both what is knowable about the external world as well as what one can know about oneself and about what is good. Some limits of knowledge only apply to particular people in specific situations while others pertain to humanity at large. A fact is unknowable to a person if this person lacks access to the relevant information, like facts in the past that did not leave any significant traces. For example, it may be unknowable to people today what Caesar 's breakfast
1353-499: A form of logical foundationalism. But otherwise, it must be assumed that a loop begs the question , meaning that it does not provide sufficient logic to constitute proof. One might conclude that there must be some statements that, for some reason, do not need justification. This view is called foundationalism . For instance, rationalists such as Descartes and Spinoza developed axiomatic systems that relied on statements that were taken to be self-evident: " I think therefore I am "
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#17327836741821476-402: A formal proof that there is no way to formalise the notion of coherence such that the coherence of a set of beliefs always increases the probability of the joint truth of the beliefs. Attempts have been made to construct a theoretical account of coherentist intuitions. Importantly, epistemologist Luca Moretti and mathematical economist Franz Dietrich have given a formal proof that in certain cases
1599-495: A given sample of a population, given our understanding of the population'), and an approach that is judged on the basis of universals, such as categorical sets. The anthropological approach belongs more properly to the correspondence theory of truth , while the universal theories are a small development within analytic philosophy . The coherentist theory of justification, which may be interpreted as relating to either theory of coherent truth, characterizes epistemic justification as
1722-477: A good reason for newly accepting both beliefs at once. A closely related issue is that there can be distinct sets of coherent beliefs. Coherentists face the problem of explaining why someone should accept one coherent set rather than another. For infinitists, in contrast to foundationalists and coherentists, there is an infinite number of reasons. This view embraces the idea that there is a regress since each reason depends on another reason. One difficulty for this view
1845-413: A justification for P', and so forth. There are three possible outcomes to this questioning process: An infinite series appears to offer little help, unless a way is found to model infinite sets. This might entail additional assumptions. Otherwise, it is impossible to check that each justification is satisfactory without making broad generalizations. Coherentism is sometimes characterized as accepting that
1968-430: A letter, a newspaper, or a blog . The problem of testimony consists in clarifying why and under what circumstances testimony can lead to knowledge. A common response is that it depends on the reliability of the person pronouncing the testimony: only testimony from reliable sources can lead to knowledge. The problem of the limits of knowledge concerns the question of which facts are unknowable . These limits constitute
2091-425: A minimum, that not all knowledge and justified belief rest ultimately on a foundation of noninferential knowledge or justified belief. To defend this view, they may argue that conjunctions ( and ) are more specific, and thus in some way more defensible, than disjunctions ( or ). After responding to foundationalism, coherentists normally characterize their view positively by replacing the foundationalism metaphor of
2214-566: A more explicit structure and is not articulated in terms of universal ideas. The term is often used in feminism and postmodernism to argue that many forms of knowledge are not absolute but depend on the concrete historical, cultural, and linguistic context. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be fully articulated, shared, and explained, like the knowledge of historical dates and mathematical formulas. It can be acquired through traditional learning methods, such as reading books and attending lectures. It contrasts with tacit knowledge , which
2337-469: A negative sense: many see it as a serious challenge to any epistemological theory and often try to show how their preferred theory overcomes it. Another form of philosophical skepticism advocates the suspension of judgment as a form of attaining tranquility while remaining humble and open-minded . A less radical limit of knowledge is identified by fallibilists , who argue that the possibility of error can never be fully excluded. This means that even
2460-489: A negative value. For example, if a person's life depends on gathering the courage to jump over a ravine, then having a true belief about the involved dangers may hinder them from doing so. Besides having instrumental value, knowledge may also have intrinsic value . This means that some forms of knowledge are good in themselves even if they do not provide any practical benefits. According to philosopher Duncan Pritchard , this applies to forms of knowledge linked to wisdom . It
2583-519: A pain or to confuse the experience of a slight ellipse for the experience of a circle. Perceptual and introspective knowledge often act as a form of fundamental or basic knowledge. According to some empiricists , they are the only sources of basic knowledge and provide the foundation for all other knowledge. Memory differs from perception and introspection in that it is not as independent or basic as they are since it depends on other previous experiences. The faculty of memory retains knowledge acquired in
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#17327836741822706-520: A person knows that cats have whiskers then this knowledge is dispositional most of the time and becomes occurrent while they are thinking about it. Many forms of Eastern spirituality and religion distinguish between higher and lower knowledge. They are also referred to as para vidya and apara vidya in Hinduism or the two truths doctrine in Buddhism . Lower knowledge is based on the senses and
2829-556: A practically useful characterization. Another approach, termed analysis of knowledge , tries to provide a theoretically precise definition by listing the conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient , similar to how chemists analyze a sample by seeking a list of all the chemical elements composing it. According to a different view, knowledge is a unique state that cannot be analyzed in terms of other phenomena. Some scholars base their definition on abstract intuitions while others focus on concrete cases or rely on how
2952-472: A practice that aims to produce habits of action. There is still very little consensus in the academic discourse as to which of the proposed modifications or reconceptualizations is correct, and there are various alternative definitions of knowledge . A common distinction among types of knowledge is between propositional knowledge, or knowledge-that, and non-propositional knowledge in the form of practical skills or acquaintance. Other distinctions focus on how
3075-468: A priori knowledge exists as innate knowledge present in the mind of each human. A further approach posits a special mental faculty responsible for this type of knowledge, often referred to as rational intuition or rational insight. Various other types of knowledge are discussed in the academic literature. In philosophy, "self-knowledge" refers to a person's knowledge of their own sensations , thoughts , beliefs, and other mental states. A common view
3198-509: A property of a belief only if that belief is a member of a coherent set. What distinguishes coherentism from other theories of justification is that the set is the primary bearer of justification. As an epistemological theory , coherentism opposes dogmatic foundationalism and also infinitism through its insistence on definitions. It also attempts to offer a solution to the regress argument that plagues correspondence theory. Brand Blanshard argues that where we seem to determine truth from
3321-459: A proposition's self-evidence, we are in fact using coherence as a criterion of truth to certify the proposition as true. For the certainty of the truth of a proposition like '2 + 2 = 4', one rather appeals "to the coherence of [one's] proposition with an enormous mass of others" whose truth must stand or fall with it. Coherentism is a view either about the structure and system of knowledge and truth, or else justified belief. The coherentist's thesis
3444-442: A proposition, one has to be acquainted with its constituents. The distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge depends on the role of experience in the processes of formation and justification. To know something a posteriori means to know it based on experience. For example, by seeing that it rains outside or hearing that the baby is crying, one acquires a posteriori knowledge of these facts. A priori knowledge
3567-536: A reliable source. This justification depends on the assumption that their source is reliable, which may itself be challenged. The same may apply to any subsequent reason they cite. This threatens to lead to an infinite regress since the epistemic status at each step depends on the epistemic status of the previous step. Theories of the structure of knowledge offer responses for how to solve this problem. Three traditional theories are foundationalism , coherentism , and infinitism . Foundationalists and coherentists deny
3690-414: A slightly different sense, self-knowledge can also refer to knowledge of the self as a persisting entity with certain personality traits , preferences , physical attributes, relationships, goals, and social identities . Metaknowledge is knowledge about knowledge. It can arise in the form of self-knowledge but includes other types as well, such as knowing what someone else knows or what information
3813-405: A specific domain and is only possessed by experts. Situated knowledge is knowledge specific to a particular situation. It is closely related to practical or tacit knowledge, which is learned and applied in specific circumstances. This especially concerns certain forms of acquiring knowledge, such as trial and error or learning from experience. In this regard, situated knowledge usually lacks
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3936-427: A sufficient degree of coherence among all the mental states of the believer is necessary for knowledge. According to infinitism, an infinite chain of beliefs is needed. The main discipline investigating knowledge is epistemology , which studies what people know, how they come to know it, and what it means to know something. It discusses the value of knowledge and the thesis of philosophical skepticism , which questions
4059-423: A that-clause. Propositional knowledge takes the form of mental representations involving concepts, ideas, theories, and general rules. These representations connect the knower to certain parts of reality by showing what they are like. They are often context-independent, meaning that they are not restricted to a specific use or purpose. Propositional knowledge encompasses both knowledge of specific facts, like that
4182-415: Is Bertrand Russell 's argument concerning contradiction. Russell maintained that a belief and its negation will each separately cohere with one complete set of all beliefs, thus making it internally inconsistent. For example, if someone holds a belief that is false, how might we determine whether the belief refers to something real although it is false, or whether instead the right belief is true although it
4305-540: Is only a property of sets of beliefs, hence ruling out any such connection through experience, then it seems that coherentism would allow for the justification of empirical beliefs in isolation from the external world. Coherentists have a variety of responses to this. One strategy is to argue that no set of beliefs held by an agent would remain coherent over time if it was isolated from the external world in this way. Another approach argues that coherentism should be modified such that empirical beliefs can only be justified if
4428-461: Is a widely accepted feature of knowledge. It implies that, while it may be possible to believe something false, one cannot know something false. That knowledge is a form of belief implies that one cannot know something if one does not believe it. Some everyday expressions seem to violate this principle, like the claim that "I do not believe it, I know it!" But the point of such expressions is usually to emphasize one's confidence rather than denying that
4551-434: Is able to pass that exam or by knowing which horse is the fastest, one can earn money from bets. In these cases, knowledge has instrumental value . Not all forms of knowledge are useful and many beliefs about trivial matters have no instrumental value. This concerns, for example, knowing how many grains of sand are on a specific beach or memorizing phone numbers one never intends to call. In a few cases, knowledge may even have
4674-411: Is already true. The problem of the value of knowledge is often discussed in relation to reliabilism and virtue epistemology . Reliabilism can be defined as the thesis that knowledge is reliably formed true belief. This view has difficulties in explaining why knowledge is valuable or how a reliable belief-forming process adds additional value. According to an analogy by philosopher Linda Zagzebski ,
4797-420: Is also referred to as knowledge-that , as in "Akari knows that kangaroos hop". In this case, Akari stands in the relation of knowing to the proposition "kangaroos hop". Closely related types of knowledge are know-wh , for example, knowing who is coming to dinner and knowing why they are coming. These expressions are normally understood as types of propositional knowledge since they can be paraphrased using
4920-401: Is also sometimes thought to be an epistemic coherentist. Both coherence and foundationalist theories of justification attempt to answer the regress argument , a fundamental problem in epistemology that goes as follows. Given some statement P, it appears reasonable to ask for a justification for P. If that justification takes the form of another statement, P', one can again reasonably ask for
5043-494: Is an awareness of facts , a familiarity with individuals and situations , or a practical skill . Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often characterized as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification . While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief, many controversies focus on justification. This includes questions like how to understand justification, whether it
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5166-564: Is an active process in which sensory signals are selected, organized, and interpreted to form a representation of the environment. This leads in some cases to illusions that misrepresent certain aspects of reality, like the Müller-Lyer illusion and the Ponzo illusion . Introspection is often seen in analogy to perception as a source of knowledge, not of external physical objects, but of internal mental states . A traditionally common view
5289-552: Is applied to draw inferences from other known facts. For example, the perceptual knowledge of a Czech stamp on a postcard may give rise to the inferential knowledge that one's friend is visiting the Czech Republic. This type of knowledge depends on other sources of knowledge responsible for the premises. Some rationalists argue for rational intuition as a further source of knowledge that does not rely on observation and introspection. They hold for example that some beliefs, like
5412-528: Is argued that there is no perceptual knowledge of the external world. This thought experiment is based on the problem of underdetermination , which arises when the available evidence is not sufficient to make a rational decision between competing theories. In such cases, a person is not justified in believing one theory rather than the other. If this is always the case then global skepticism follows. Another skeptical argument assumes that knowledge requires absolute certainty and aims to show that all human cognition
5535-512: Is at home". Other types of knowledge include knowledge-how in the form of practical competence , as in "she knows how to swim", and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity with the known object based on previous direct experience, like knowing someone personally. Knowledge is often understood as a state of an individual person, but it can also refer to a characteristic of a group of people as group knowledge, social knowledge, or collective knowledge. Some social sciences understand knowledge as
5658-401: Is based on the idea that cognitive success in the form of the manifestation of virtues is inherently valuable independent of whether the resulting states are instrumentally useful. Acquiring and transmitting knowledge often comes with certain costs, such as the material resources required to obtain new information and the time and energy needed to understand it. For this reason, an awareness of
5781-427: Is called epistemology or the theory of knowledge. It examines the nature of knowledge and justification, how knowledge arises, and what value it has. Further topics include the different types of knowledge and the limits of what can be known. Despite agreements about the general characteristics of knowledge, its exact definition is disputed. Some definitions only focus on the most salient features of knowledge to give
5904-412: Is circular and requires interpretation, which implies that knowledge does not need a secure foundation. Coherentists and infinitists avoid these problems by denying the contrast between basic and non-basic reasons. Coherentists argue that there is only a finite number of reasons, which mutually support and justify one another. This is based on the intuition that beliefs do not exist in isolation but form
6027-608: Is contained in a scientific article. Other aspects of metaknowledge include knowing how knowledge can be acquired, stored, distributed, and used. Common knowledge is knowledge that is publicly known and shared by most individuals within a community. It establishes a common ground for communication, understanding, social cohesion, and cooperation. General knowledge encompasses common knowledge but also includes knowledge that many people have been exposed to but may not be able to immediately recall. Common knowledge contrasts with domain knowledge or specialized knowledge, which belongs to
6150-460: Is controversial whether all knowledge has intrinsic value, including knowledge about trivial facts like knowing whether the biggest apple tree had an even number of leaves yesterday morning. One view in favor of the intrinsic value of knowledge states that having no belief about a matter is a neutral state and knowledge is always better than this neutral state, even if the value difference is only minimal. A more specific issue in epistemology concerns
6273-453: Is fallible since it fails to meet this standard. An influential argument against radical skepticism states that radical skepticism is self-contradictory since denying the existence of knowledge is itself a knowledge-claim. Other arguments rely on common sense or deny that infallibility is required for knowledge. Very few philosophers have explicitly defended radical skepticism but this position has been influential nonetheless, usually in
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#17327836741826396-409: Is impossible, meaning that one cannot know what is morally good or whether a certain behavior is morally right. An influential theory about the limits of metaphysical knowledge was proposed by Immanuel Kant . For him, knowledge is restricted to the field of appearances and does not reach the things in themselves , which exist independently of humans and lie beyond the realm of appearances. Based on
6519-415: Is knowledge acquired because of specific social and cultural circumstances, such as knowing how to read and write. Knowledge can be occurrent or dispositional . Occurrent knowledge is knowledge that is actively involved in cognitive processes. Dispositional knowledge, by contrast, lies dormant in the back of a person's mind and is given by the mere ability to access the relevant information. For example, if
6642-418: Is meant by truth. At this point, Coherence could be faulted for adopting its own variation of dogmatic foundationalism by arbitrarily selecting truth values. Coherentists must argue that their truth-values are not arbitrary for provable reasons. A second objection also emerges, the finite problem : that arbitrary, ad hoc relativism could reduce statements of relatively insignificant value to non-entities during
6765-553: Is more to knowledge than just being right about something. These cases are excluded by requiring that beliefs have justification for them to count as knowledge. Some philosophers hold that a belief is justified if it is based on evidence , which can take the form of mental states like experience, memory , and other beliefs. Others state that beliefs are justified if they are produced by reliable processes, like sensory perception or logical reasoning. The definition of knowledge as justified true belief came under severe criticism in
6888-795: Is needed at all, and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies intensified in the latter half of the 20th century due to a series of thought experiments called Gettier cases that provoked alternative definitions. Knowledge can be produced in many ways. The main source of empirical knowledge is perception , which involves the usage of the senses to learn about the external world. Introspection allows people to learn about their internal mental states and processes. Other sources of knowledge include memory , rational intuition , inference , and testimony . According to foundationalism , some of these sources are basic in that they can justify beliefs, without depending on other mental states. Coherentists reject this claim and contend that
7011-516: Is normally formulated in terms of a denial of its contrary, such as dogmatic foundationalism, which lacks a proof-theoretical framework, or correspondence theory, which lacks universalism. Counterfactualism , through a vocabulary developed by David K. Lewis and his many worlds theory although popular with philosophers, has had the effect of creating wide disbelief of universals amongst academics. Many difficulties lie in between hypothetical coherence and its effective actualization. Coherentism claims, at
7134-472: Is not aware of this, stops in front of the real barn by a lucky coincidence, and forms the justified true belief that they are in front of a barn. This example aims to establish that the person does not know that they are in front of a real barn, since they would not have been able to tell the difference. This means that it is a lucky coincidence that this justified belief is also true. According to some philosophers, these counterexamples show that justification
7257-430: Is not believed? Coherence must thus rely on a theory that is either non-contradictory or accepts some limited degree of incoherence, such as relativism or paradox . Additional necessary criteria for coherence may include universalism or absoluteness, suggesting that the theory remains anthropological or incoherent when it does not use the concept of infinity. A coherentist might argue that this scenario applies regardless of
7380-552: Is not easily articulated or explained to others, like the ability to recognize someone's face and the practical expertise of a master craftsman. Tacit knowledge is often learned through first-hand experience or direct practice. Cognitive load theory distinguishes between biologically primary and secondary knowledge. Biologically primary knowledge is knowledge that humans have as part of their evolutionary heritage, such as knowing how to recognize faces and speech and many general problem-solving capacities. Biologically secondary knowledge
7503-415: Is not possible to know them because if a person knew about such an idea then this idea would have occurred at least to them. There are many disputes about what can or cannot be known in certain fields. Religious skepticism is the view that beliefs about God or other religious doctrines do not amount to knowledge. Moral skepticism encompasses a variety of views, including the claim that moral knowledge
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#17327836741827626-453: Is not required for knowledge and that knowledge should instead be characterized in terms of reliability or the manifestation of cognitive virtues . Another approach defines knowledge in regard to the function it plays in cognitive processes as that which provides reasons for thinking or doing something. A different response accepts justification as an aspect of knowledge and include additional criteria. Many candidates have been suggested, like
7749-466: Is not. The Coherentist analytic project then involves a process of justifying what is meant by adequate criteria for non-dogmatic truth. As an offshoot of this, the theory insists that it is always reasonable to ask for a justification for any statement. For example, if someone makes an observational statement, such as "it is raining", the coherentist contends that it is reasonable to ask for example whether this mere statement refers to anything real. What
7872-404: Is possible without any experience to justify or support the known proposition. Mathematical knowledge, such as that 2 + 2 = 4, is traditionally taken to be a priori knowledge since no empirical investigation is necessary to confirm this fact. In this regard, a posteriori knowledge is empirical knowledge while a priori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge. The relevant experience in question
7995-446: Is primarily identified with sensory experience . Some non-sensory experiences, like memory and introspection, are often included as well. Some conscious phenomena are excluded from the relevant experience, like rational insight. For example, conscious thought processes may be required to arrive at a priori knowledge regarding the solution of mathematical problems, like when performing mental arithmetic to multiply two numbers. The same
8118-414: Is public, reliable, and replicable. This way, other researchers can repeat the experiments and observations in the initial study to confirm or disconfirm it. The scientific method is often analyzed as a series of steps that begins with regular observation and data collection. Based on these insights, scientists then try to find a hypothesis that explains the observations. The hypothesis is then tested using
8241-525: Is real about the statement, it turns out, is the extended pattern of relations that we call justifications. But, unlike the relativist, the coherentist argues that these associations may be objectively real. Coherentism contends that dogmatic foundationalism does not provide the whole set of pure relations that might result in actually understanding the objective context of phenomena, because dogmatic assumptions are not proof-theoretic, and therefore remain incoherent or relativistic. Coherentists therefore argue that
8364-436: Is taken to imply something stronger than mere consistency. Statements that are comprehensive and meet the requirements of Occam's razor are usually to be preferred. As an illustration of the principle, if people lived in a virtual reality universe, they could see birds in the trees that aren't really there. Not only are the birds not really there, but the trees aren't really there either. The people may or may not know that
8487-404: Is that inquiry should not aim for truth or absolute certainty but for well-supported and justified beliefs while remaining open to the possibility that one's beliefs may need to be revised later. The structure of knowledge is the way in which the mental states of a person need to be related to each other for knowledge to arise. A common view is that a person has to have good reasons for holding
8610-413: Is that introspection has a special epistemic status by being infallible. According to this position, it is not possible to be mistaken about introspective facts, like whether one is in pain, because there is no difference between appearance and reality. However, this claim has been contested in the contemporary discourse and critics argue that it may be possible, for example, to mistake an unpleasant itch for
8733-472: Is that self-knowledge is more direct than knowledge of the external world, which relies on the interpretation of sense data. Because of this, it is traditionally claimed that self-knowledge is indubitable, like the claim that a person cannot be wrong about whether they are in pain. However, this position is not universally accepted in the contemporary discourse and an alternative view states that self-knowledge also depends on interpretations that could be false. In
8856-414: Is that the human mind is limited and may not be able to possess an infinite number of reasons. This raises the question of whether, according to infinitism, human knowledge is possible at all. Knowledge may be valuable either because it is useful or because it is good in itself. Knowledge can be useful by helping a person achieve their goals. For example, if one knows the answers to questions in an exam one
8979-442: Is the case for the experience needed to learn the words through which the claim is expressed. For example, knowing that "all bachelors are unmarried" is a priori knowledge because no sensory experience is necessary to confirm this fact even though experience was needed to learn the meanings of the words "bachelor" and "unmarried". It is difficult to explain how a priori knowledge is possible and some empiricists deny it exists. It
9102-407: Is the most famous example. Similarly, empiricists take observations as providing the foundation for the series. Foundationalism relies on the claim that it is not necessary to ask for justification of certain propositions, or that they are self-justifying. Coherentists argue that this position is overly dogmatic. In other words, it does not provide real criteria for determining what is true and what
9225-411: Is true if and only if it is coherent with all or most of his or her other (true) beliefs. The terminology of coherence is then said to correlate with truth via some concept of what qualifies all truth, such as absoluteness or universalism. These further terms become the qualifiers of what is meant by a truth statement, and the truth-statements then decide what is meant by a true belief. Usually, coherence
9348-402: Is usually seen as unproblematic that one can come to know things through experience, but it is not clear how knowledge is possible without experience. One of the earliest solutions to this problem comes from Plato , who argues that the soul already possesses the knowledge and just needs to recollect, or remember, it to access it again. A similar explanation is given by Descartes , who holds that
9471-438: The knowledge of one's own existence and the content of one's ideas. The view that basic reasons exist is not universally accepted. One criticism states that there should be a reason why some reasons are basic while others are not. According to this view, the putative basic reasons are not actually basic since their status would depend on other reasons. Another criticism is based on hermeneutics and argues that all understanding
9594-469: The senses , is identified as the most important source of empirical knowledge. Knowing that a baby is sleeping is observational knowledge if it was caused by a perception of the snoring baby. However, this would not be the case if one learned about this fact through a telephone conversation with one's spouse. Perception comes in different modalities, including vision , sound , touch , smell , and taste , which correspond to different physical stimuli . It
9717-565: The 12th-century Old English word cnawan , which comes from the Old High German word gecnawan . The English word includes various meanings that some other languages distinguish using several words. In ancient Greek, for example, four important terms for knowledge were used: epistēmē (unchanging theoretical knowledge), technē (expert technical knowledge), mētis (strategic knowledge), and gnōsis (personal intellectual knowledge). The main discipline studying knowledge
9840-463: The 20th century, when epistemologist Edmund Gettier formulated a series of counterexamples. They purport to present concrete cases of justified true beliefs that fail to constitute knowledge. The reason for their failure is usually a form of epistemic luck: the beliefs are justified but their justification is not relevant to the truth. In a well-known example, someone drives along a country road with many barn facades and only one real barn. The person
9963-432: The abilities responsible for knowledge-how involve forms of knowledge-that, as in knowing how to prove a mathematical theorem, but this is not generally the case. Some types of knowledge-how do not require a highly developed mind, in contrast to propositional knowledge, and are more common in the animal kingdom. For example, an ant knows how to walk even though it presumably lacks a mind sufficiently developed to represent
10086-425: The atomic mass of gold is 196.97 u , and generalities, like that the color of leaves of some trees changes in autumn. Because of the dependence on mental representations, it is often held that the capacity for propositional knowledge is exclusive to relatively sophisticated creatures, such as humans. This is based on the claim that advanced intellectual capacities are needed to believe a proposition that expresses what
10209-413: The behavior of genes , neutrinos , and black holes . A key aspect of most forms of science is that they seek natural laws that explain empirical observations. Scientific knowledge is discovered and tested using the scientific method . This method aims to arrive at reliable knowledge by formulating the problem in a clear way and by ensuring that the evidence used to support or refute a specific theory
10332-411: The beliefs P", P', and P work together to achieve epistemic justification. Catherine Elgin has expressed the same point differently, arguing that beliefs must be "mutually consistent, cotenable, and supportive. That is, the components must be reasonable in light of one another. Since both cotenability and supportiveness are matters of degree, coherence is too." Usually the system of belief is taken to be
10455-433: The best-researched scientific theories and the most fundamental common-sense views could still be subject to error. Further research may reduce the possibility of being wrong, but it can never fully exclude it. Some fallibilists reach the skeptical conclusion from this observation that there is no knowledge but the more common view is that knowledge exists but is fallible. Pragmatists argue that one consequence of fallibilism
10578-409: The bird and the tree are there, but in either case there is a coherence between the virtual world and the real one, expressed in terms of true beliefs within available experience. Coherence is a way of explicating truth values while circumventing beliefs that might be false in any way. More traditional critics from the correspondence theory of truth have said that it cannot have contents and proofs at
10701-427: The coherence of a set of beliefs transmits incremental confirmation: if some evidence confirms a given belief, and this belief is sufficiently coherent with other beliefs, then the evidence also confirms these other beliefs. . Moretti has then used the same formalism to show that if an evidential set (i.e. a set of propositions used as evidence) is sufficiently coherent and a proposition in the set incrementally confirms
10824-407: The complete set of beliefs of the individual or group, that is, their theory of the world. It is necessary for coherentism to explain in some detail what it means for a system to be coherent. At the least, coherence must include logical consistency. It also usually requires some degree of integration of the various components of the system. A system that contains more than one unrelated explanation of
10947-525: The corresponding proposition. Knowledge by acquaintance is familiarity with something that results from direct experiential contact. The object of knowledge can be a person, a thing, or a place. For example, by eating chocolate, one becomes acquainted with the taste of chocolate, and visiting Lake Taupō leads to the formation of knowledge by acquaintance of Lake Taupō. In these cases, the person forms non-inferential knowledge based on first-hand experience without necessarily acquiring factual information about
11070-421: The course of history. Knowledge is a form of familiarity, awareness , understanding , or acquaintance. It often involves the possession of information learned through experience and can be understood as a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality, like making a discovery. Many academic definitions focus on propositional knowledge in the form of believing certain facts, as in "I know that Dave
11193-406: The existence of an infinite regress, in contrast to infinitists. According to foundationalists, some basic reasons have their epistemic status independent of other reasons and thereby constitute the endpoint of the regress. Some foundationalists hold that certain sources of knowledge, like perception, provide basic reasons. Another view is that this role is played by certain self-evident truths, like
11316-571: The greater the number of phenomena explained by the system, the greater its coherence. A problem coherentism has to face is the plurality objection . There is nothing within the definition of coherence that makes it impossible for two entirely different sets of beliefs to be internally coherent. Thus there might be several such sets. But if one supposes—in line with the principle of non-contradiction —that there can only be one complete set of truths, coherentism must therefore resolve internally that these systems are not contradictory, by establishing what
11439-441: The intellect. It encompasses both mundane or conventional truths as well as discoveries of the empirical sciences. Higher knowledge is understood as knowledge of God, the absolute , the true self , or the ultimate reality . It belongs neither to the external world of physical objects nor to the internal world of the experience of emotions and concepts. Many spiritual teachings stress the importance of higher knowledge to progress on
11562-438: The justification of an empirical belief must depend on some connection between the believed proposition and the way the world is. For example, a belief that 'snow is white' must in some way connect to the fact that snow really is white in the external world . Such a connection could be found in how the agent in question has experiences of the world being this way. However, if coherence is sufficient for justification and coherence
11685-470: The knowledge is acquired and on the content of the known information. Propositional knowledge, also referred to as declarative and descriptive knowledge, is a form of theoretical knowledge about facts, like knowing that "2 + 2 = 4". It is the paradigmatic type of knowledge in analytic philosophy . Propositional knowledge is propositional in the sense that it involves a relation to a proposition. Since propositions are often expressed through that-clauses, it
11808-412: The limits of knowledge is radical or global skepticism , which holds that humans lack any form of knowledge or that knowledge is impossible. For example, the dream argument states that perceptual experience is not a source of knowledge since dreaming provides unreliable information and a person could be dreaming without knowing it. Because of this inability to discriminate between dream and perception, it
11931-408: The mathematical belief that 2 + 2 = 4, are justified through pure reason alone. Testimony is often included as an additional source of knowledge that, unlike the other sources, is not tied to one specific cognitive faculty. Instead, it is based on the idea that one person can come to know a fact because another person talks about this fact. Testimony can happen in numerous ways, like regular speech,
12054-564: The military, which relies on intelligence to identify and prevent threats. In the field of education, the value of knowledge can be used to choose which knowledge should be passed on to the students. The scientific approach is usually regarded as an exemplary process of how to gain knowledge about empirical facts. Scientific knowledge includes mundane knowledge about easily observable facts, for example, chemical knowledge that certain reactants become hot when mixed together. It also encompasses knowledge of less tangible issues, like claims about
12177-447: The natural sciences often rely on advanced technological instruments to perform these measurements and to setup experiments. Another common feature of their approach is to use mathematical tools to analyze the measured data and formulate exact and general laws to describe the observed phenomena. Coherentism Coherent truth is divided between an anthropological approach, which applies only to localized networks ('true within
12300-420: The object. By contrast, it is also possible to indirectly learn a lot of propositional knowledge about chocolate or Lake Taupō by reading books without having the direct experiential contact required for knowledge by acquaintance. The concept of knowledge by acquaintance was first introduced by Bertrand Russell . He holds that knowledge by acquaintance is more basic than propositional knowledge since to understand
12423-421: The observation that metaphysics aims to characterize the things in themselves, he concludes that no metaphysical knowledge is possible, like knowing whether the world has a beginning or is infinite . There are also limits to knowledge in the empirical sciences, such as the uncertainty principle , which states that it is impossible to know the exact magnitudes of certain certain pairs of physical properties, like
12546-473: The only way to reach proof-theoretic truth that is not relativistic is through coherency. Coherentism rejects the soundness of the regression argument, which assumes that the justification for a proposition follows a linear sequence: P" justifies P', which in turn justifies P. According to coherentism, justification is a holistic process. Inferential justification for the belief that P is nonlinear, meaning that P" and P' are not epistemically prior to P. Instead,
12669-503: The past and makes it accessible in the present, as when remembering a past event or a friend's phone number. It is generally seen as a reliable source of knowledge. However, it can be deceptive at times nonetheless, either because the original experience was unreliable or because the memory degraded and does not accurately represent the original experience anymore. Knowledge based on perception, introspection, and memory may give rise to inferential knowledge, which comes about when reasoning
12792-416: The position and momentum of a particle, at the same time. Other examples are physical systems studied by chaos theory , for which it is not practically possible to predict how they will behave since they are so sensitive to initial conditions that even the slightest of variations may produce a completely different behavior. This phenomenon is known as the butterfly effect . The strongest position about
12915-702: The possibility of knowledge. Knowledge is relevant to many fields like the sciences , which aim to acquire knowledge using the scientific method based on repeatable experimentation , observation , and measurement . Various religions hold that humans should seek knowledge and that God or the divine is the source of knowledge. The anthropology of knowledge studies how knowledge is acquired, stored, retrieved, and communicated in different cultures. The sociology of knowledge examines under what sociohistorical circumstances knowledge arises, and what sociological consequences it has. The history of knowledge investigates how knowledge in different fields has developed, and evolved, in
13038-428: The process of establishing universalism or absoluteness. This might result in a totally flat truth-theoretic framework, or even arbitrary truth values. Coherentists generally solve this by adopting a metaphysical condition of universalism, sometimes leading to materialism , or by arguing that relativism is trivial. A third objection that coherentism faces is the problem of isolation . Intuitively, one might think that
13161-467: The question of whether or why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. There is wide agreement that knowledge is usually good in some sense but the thesis that knowledge is better than true belief is controversial. An early discussion of this problem is found in Plato's Meno in relation to the claim that both knowledge and true belief can successfully guide action and, therefore, have apparently
13284-512: The relevant set includes beliefs and experiences, and hence no belief can be justified without involving experiences about the world. This latter position is known as non-doxastic coherentism. However, metaphysics poses another problem, the problem of the stowaway argument that might carry epistemological implications. However, a coherentist might say that if the truth conditions of the logic hold, then there will be no problem regardless of any additional conditions that happen to be true. Thus,
13407-399: The requirements that the justified true belief does not depend on any false beliefs, that no defeaters are present, or that the person would not have the belief if it was false. Another view states that beliefs have to be infallible to amount to knowledge. A further approach, associated with pragmatism , focuses on the aspect of inquiry and characterizes knowledge in terms of what works as
13530-413: The same phenomenon is not as coherent as one that uses only one explanation, all other things being equal. Conversely, a theory that explains divergent phenomena using unrelated explanations is not as coherent as one that uses only one explanation for those divergent phenomena. These requirements are variations on Occam's razor . The same points can be made more formally using Bayesian statistics . Finally,
13653-419: The same time, unless the contents are infinite, or unless the contents somehow exist in the form of proof. Such a form of 'existing proof' might seem ridiculous, but coherentists tend to think it is non-problematic. It therefore falls into a group of theories that are sometimes deemed excessively generalistic, what Gábor Forrai calls 'blob realism'. Perhaps the best-known objection to a coherence theory of truth
13776-479: The same value. For example, it seems that mere true belief is as effective as knowledge when trying to find the way to Larissa . According to Plato, knowledge is better because it is more stable. Another suggestion is that knowledge gets its additional value from justification. One difficulty for this view is that while justification makes it more probable that a belief is true, it is not clear what additional value it provides in comparison to an unjustified belief that
13899-404: The series forms a loop, but although this would produce a form of coherentism, this is not what is generally meant by the term. Those who do accept the loop theory sometimes argue that the body of assumptions used to prove the theory is not what is at question in considering a loop of premises. This would serve the typical purpose of circumventing the reliance on a regression, but might be considered
14022-588: The spiritual path and to see reality as it truly is beyond the veil of appearances . Sources of knowledge are ways in which people come to know things. They can be understood as cognitive capacities that are exercised when a person acquires new knowledge. Various sources of knowledge are discussed in the academic literature, often in terms of the mental faculties responsible. They include perception, introspection, memory, inference, and testimony. However, not everyone agrees that all of them actually lead to knowledge. Usually, perception or observation, i.e. using one of
14145-494: The stress is on making the theory valid within the set, and also verifiable. A number of philosophers have raised concerns over the link between intuitive notions of coherence that form the foundation of epistemic forms of coherentism and some formal results in Bayesian probability . This is an issue raised by Luc Bovens and Stephen Hartmann and by Erik J. Olsson in the form of 'impossibility' theorems. These theorems aim to give
14268-405: The term is used in ordinary language . There is also disagreement about whether knowledge is a rare phenomenon that requires high standards or a common phenomenon found in many everyday situations. An often-discussed definition characterizes knowledge as justified true belief. This definition identifies three essential features: it is (1) a belief that is (2) true and (3) justified . Truth
14391-417: The theories being considered, and so, that coherentism must be the preferred truth-theoretical framework in avoiding relativism. In modern philosophy , the coherence theory of truth was defended by Baruch Spinoza , Immanuel Kant , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel , and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Harold Henry Joachim (who is credited with the definitive formulation of
14514-619: The theory). However, Spinoza and Kant have also been interpreted as defenders of the correspondence theory of truth. In late modern philosophy , epistemic coherentist views were held by Schlegel and Hegel, but the definitive formulation of the coherence theory of justification was provided by F. H. Bradley in his book The Principles of Logic (1883). In contemporary philosophy, epistemologists who have significantly contributed to epistemic coherentism include: A. C. Ewing , Brand Blanshard , C. I. Lewis , Nicholas Rescher , Laurence BonJour , Keith Lehrer , and Paul Thagard . Otto Neurath
14637-452: The title Knowing . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Knowing&oldid=938316944 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Knowledge Knowledge
14760-438: The value of knowledge is crucial to many fields that have to make decisions about whether to seek knowledge about a specific matter. On a political level, this concerns the problem of identifying the most promising research programs to allocate funds. Similar concerns affect businesses, where stakeholders have to decide whether the cost of acquiring knowledge is justified by the economic benefits that this knowledge may provide, and
14883-455: The way maintained by dogmatic foundationalists. In this way universal truths are in closer reach. Different varieties of coherentism are individuated by the specific relationship between a system of knowledge and justified belief, which can be interpreted in terms of predicate logic , or ideally, proof theory . As a theory of truth, coherentism restricts true sentences to those that cohere with some specified set of sentences. Someone's belief
15006-405: The world is like. Non-propositional knowledge is knowledge in which no essential relation to a proposition is involved. The two most well-known forms are knowledge-how (know-how or procedural knowledge ) and knowledge by acquaintance. To possess knowledge-how means to have some form of practical ability , skill, or competence , like knowing how to ride a bicycle or knowing how to swim. Some of
15129-529: Was the day he was assassinated but it was knowable to him and some contemporaries. Another factor restricting knowledge is given by the limitations of the human cognitive faculties. Some people may lack the cognitive ability to understand highly abstract mathematical truths and some facts cannot be known by any human because they are too complex for the human mind to conceive. A further limit of knowledge arises due to certain logical paradoxes . For instance, there are some ideas that will never occur to anyone. It
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