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1. A man is but what he knows. Francis Bacon

2. One of the fundamental branches of philosophy is epistemology, the study of knowledge. Epistemology deals with the nature, sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge. Epistemological questions are basic to all other philosophical inquiries. Everything we claim to know, whether in science, history, or everyday life, amounts to little if we are unable to support our claims.

3. The concept of human nature and self, a theory of the universe, nor an assertion of an ordinary event (“This banana tastes sour” or “It is raining”) needs for justification. Epistemology presents us with the task of explaining how we know what we claim to know, how we can find out what we wish to know, and how we can judge someone else’s claim to knowledge. Epistemology addresses the problems: the reliability, extent, and kinds of knowledge; truth; language; and science and scientific knowledge.

4. Why Is Knowledge a Problem?

5. Questions in epistemology What is knowledge? W hat are the conditions of knowledge? Can we have knowledge? How do we get knowledge? What is the value of having knowledge?

6. What is knowledge? There are variety of meaning when one says “I know”: Being acquainted with Being familiar with Being aware of Being capable of doing a skill

7. What is knowledge? More specifically when we speak of knowledge we use the phrase “I know that”: The sense of this is to claim about something. To state a truth one believes to be the case. In this sense, knowledge is more than being acquainted with, familiar with or having the skill to do. Knowledge is a truth-claim. A proposition which asserts something about a subject.

8. Take the following: S  knows that  p   iff p  is true; S  believes that  p ; S  is justified in believing that  p

9. Truth condition Knowledge supposes that it is a claim about a fact. Truth is about how things are. To know something means to have access to a fact in the world.

10. Truth condition The person’s belief that P needs to be  true . If it is incorrect instead, then — no matter what else is good or useful about it — it is not knowledge. It would only be something else, something lesser. Admittedly, even when a belief is mistaken it can feel to the believer as if it is true. But in that circumstance the feeling would be mistaken; and so the belief would not be knowledge, no matter how much it might feel to the believer like knowledge.

11. Belief condition It is the mental or expressed firm conviction of the person asserting a claim about something. The belief condition can be fulfilled by asking how certain the person is in making the claim. Thus it is essentially related to CERTITUDE

12. CERTITUDE Firm assent to a proposition. Either warranted (supplied by evidence), or unwarranted (evidence is lacking). Depending on the evidence for a claim, certitude may differ in degree. Absolute or Metaphysical Certitude: all possibility of error is excluded because denial of proposition involve contradiction. Physical Certitude: all probability of error is excluded because the proposition’s truth depends on laws of nature Moral Certitude: all reasonable fear of error is excluded because the proposition’s truth depends on human behavior

13. JUSTIFICATION CONDITION Justification for our beliefs answer to the question what accounts for them to be held as true. The person’s belief that P needs to be well  supported , such as by being based upon some good evidence or reasoning, or perhaps some other kind of rational justification. Otherwise, the belief, even if it is true, may as well be a lucky guess. It would be correct without being knowledge. It would only be something else, something lesser.

14. Justification condition Consider the following Questions: Is it ever or always morally  wrong  (or epistemically  irrational , or practically  imprudent ) to hold a belief on insufficient evidence? Is it ever or always morally  right  (or epistemically  rational , or practically  prudent ) to believe on the basis of sufficient evidence, or to withhold belief in the perceived absence of it? Is it ever or always obligatory to seek out all available epistemic evidence for a belief?

15. Approaches to Justification INTERNALISM: about justification think that whether a belief is justified depends ONLY on states in some sense internal to the subject. ACCESS INTERNALISM: Only those features of a subject’s experience which are directly or introspectively available count as “internal” STATE INTERNALISM: Only intrinsic states of the subject are “internal”

16. Approaches to Justification Internalism about epistemic justification holds that what’s in the subject’s mind determines whether a belief is justified or not. Furthermore, if something is in the subject’s mind, it must be accessible to the subject on reflection

17. FOUNDATIONLISM AND COHERENTISM Foundationalism is by far the more popular. According to foundationalism, there are two kinds of beliefs: basic (or foundational) beliefs and non-basic beliefs . The basic beliefs are beliefs that require no inferential justification. The non-basic beliefs are beliefs that ought to be justified inferentially by more basic beliefs, i.e., some other non-basic beliefs or some basic beliefs. Thus, our system of beliefs has a hierarchical, pyramid- like structure.

18. FOUNDATIONLISM

19. FOUNDATIONALISM A non-basic belief may be justified by another non-basic belief, which, in turn, may be justified by yet another non-basic belief, and so on. However, this chain cannot go on indefinitely or in circles. Some justified beliefs in the chain must be justified by basic beliefs. So, every justified non-basic belief is justified ultimately by some basic beliefs.

20. QUESTION Do the basic beliefs require justification at all?

21. self- justifying : that the basic beliefs require no justification NON-DOXATIC: the basic beliefs are to be justified non-inferentially by some non-doxastic (= non-belief) mental states.

22. I am hungry. So I come to believe that I am hungry. Then I come to believe that my stomach (literally) is empty. Here my belief that I am hungry is justified by my mental state of feeling hunger and no beliefs. Hunger is not a propositional attitude and does not involve a proposition; it is, thus, a non-doxastic state. So the belief that I am hungry is a basic belief justified by the non-doxastic state, the feeling of hunger; and this justification is not by means of an inference from a proposition to another proposition, for hunger does not involve a proposition. HENCE: The belief that my stomach is empty is justified inferentially by the belief that I am hungry; I can make an inference from the belief that I am hungry to the belief that my stomach is empty as a way of justifying the latter belief. So the belief that my stomach is empty is a non-basic belief justified by the basic belief that I am hungry.

23. Behind perceptual beliefs, there are non-doxastic mental states of sensation. When I see, i.e., obtain a belief by vision, that there is a red book in front of me, there is a non-doxastic sensation of redness that justifies the belief. The raw data we obtain by sensation are called sense-data . A perceptual belief is justified if it interprets the relevant sense-data correctly, and it is unjustified if it interprets the sense-data incorrectly. Foundationalists often mention perception, memory, and introspection as instances of mental states involving non-doxastic mental states.

24. Foundationalism: S ’s belief B is justified iff either (a) B is a basic belief; or (b) B is a non-basic belief ultimately justified inferentially by S ’s basic beliefs.

25. COHERENTISM All beliefs are of equal status. Beliefs are collectively justified so long as they cohere, or fit together. The justification relation among beliefs looks like a raft or a spider web

26. Generally, beliefs firmly embedded in our belief system are near the center of the web; they are interconnected with many other beliefs and do not change easily. They include beliefs about the universe in general and beliefs about logical and mathematical truths. Beliefs at the periphery of the web are less interconnected with other beliefs and can change more easily. They include beliefs about individual objects. It is just a matter of degree, however, how firmly beliefs are held in the web, and even beliefs near the center may be replaced if necessary.

27. Coherentism : S ’s belief B is justified iff S has a coherent set of beliefs which includes B . a holistic theory: beliefs are justified or unjustified as a group, and not individually.

28. The common feature that makes both of them internalist theories: On both foundationalism and coherentism , what justifies a belief is other mental states, i.e., other beliefs or non-doxastic mental states. All those mental states are accessible to the subject on reflection. The subject can simply ask him/herself: Why do I believe this? I shall answer that by invoking other beliefs as its justification.

29. For instance, I can ask myself, “Why do I believe that I should eat kamote as soon as possible?” I would retrieve the belief that I am hungry to justify that belief. I can then ask myself again, “Why do I believe that I am hungry?” and retrieve the non-doxastic mental state of hunger. Though we can make mistakes and perhaps our psychiatrist may sometimes tell us that we are not retrieving the real justification of our belief. Overall, however, we are better than anybody else at retrieving our own beliefs. This is the feature common to foundationalism and coherentism , and that’s why they are both considered internalist theories.

30. Approaches to Justification EXTERNALISM: factors external to the subject can be relevant for justification

31. Case 1: I guess that Aeron is a priest, since his name sounds like a priest’s name and supposed it turn out that my guest is in fact true. Case 2 : I know Aeron is a priest since I saw him get ordained. Case 1 can not be said to instance of knowledge since it is belief produced by pure guessing or wishful thinking while the latter is definitely an instance of knowledge since it is produced by perception.

32. Perception is a reliable belief-forming mechanism while pure guessing and wishful thinking are not. This line of thinking leads us to the following reliabilist definition of epistemic justification Why should we believe that case 2 is knowledge then?

33. Reliabilism S ’s belief B is justified iff B is produced by a reliable cognitive process. Reliable cognitive processes : Perception, memory, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning from many samples, and introspection. Unreliable cognitive processes: Pure guessing, wishful thinking, inductive reasoning from few samples, astrology, palm reading, hula, and the use of the Ouija Board

34. PROBABILITY Let us take note that a process’s being reliable does not mean that the process always produces a true belief; it only means that the process tends to produce true beliefs. It’s a matter of probability. But if a certain cognitive process tends to produce truth with a high degree, then there is reason to think that the belief is true; so one is justified in holding the belief. Hence, if a true belief was produced by a reliable cognitive process, one is not just lucky to obtain that belief.

35. Reliabilism is a version of externalism Why is reliabilism an externalist epistemic justification? This is due to the fact that subject S may not know that the cognitive process that produced belief B is in fact reliable; so he may be justified in having belief B without knowing that he is justified.

36. Is Norlam justified in his belief? Suppose that genuine clairvoyance exists as a cognitive process, and that it is in fact a reliable process. Only a few people have the clairvoyance power, so the existence of this power is not yet publicly recognized, and many of the clairvoyants themselves do not realize that they have that power. Norlam is one of those clairvoyants, who has visions about the Seminarian Nednemod whereabouts. Suppose Norlam now comes to believe, as a result of such a vision, that the Nednemod is currently in the Seminary.

37. Is Norlam justified in his belief? Yes! However, Norlam has no way of knowing that his belief is in fact justified, for he has no way of knowing that he has that reliable cognitive mechanism. So what justifies Norlam’s belief is external to his mind.

38. Skepticism There is no good reason for thinking external objects exist. What distinguishes knowledge from mere belief is justification of such belief. To know something to be true, one must have an adequate reason for believing it. beliefs held for no reason—are typically referred to as “arbitrary assumptions.” in order for my reason to be ad- equate, it too must be something that I know to be the case.

39. Infinite Regress 1. In order to know something, I must have a good reason for believing it. 2. Any chain of reasons must have one of the following structures: Either (a) it is an infinite series, (b) it is circular, or (c) it begins with a belief for which there are no further reasons. But, 3. I cannot have an infinitely long chain of reasoning for any of my beliefs.

40. Infinite Regress 4. Circular reasoning cannot produce knowledge. 5. Nor can I gain knowledge by structure 2c, for (a) I would not know my starting beliefs to be true (from 1), and (b) I cannot gain knowledge by deriving it from assumptions that I do not know to be true. 6. Therefore, I cannot know anything.

41. Reply to Challenge of Foundationalist Anything we believe is knowledge only when we have adequate reason for believing so. Awareness of such reason is needed There are foundational knowledge – belief that no reason is needed. We simply accept such belief. I exist, I am conscious, 1 = 1

42. FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE IS SELF CONTRADICTORY Foundational knowledge needs explanation. Since explanation is needed foundational knowledge are not foundational. How do we arrive to this? Assuming we can determine foundational knowledge from derivative knowledge or arbitrary assumption, what made us think foundational knowledge are distinct from other form of knowledge? Let us say foundational knowledge has defining feature that other kinds of knowledge lacks. If so we need to be conscious or aware of such feature to say that what we believe is foundational knowledge. But having such explanation means that I have adequate for believing that what I know is a foundational knowledge.

43. It is reasonable to accept foundational knowledge because one is aware that foundational knowledge has unique feature. But then foundational knowledge is not a foundational proposition after all, because I do have a reason for accepting it— namely, that it has unique feature. Thus, foundationalism is reduced to absurdity: the very idea of a foundational proposition is self-contradictory.

44. Problem of Reliability All beliefs are unjustified since one cannot establish that our belief-forming methods are reliable. 1. All my beliefs are formed by some method. 2. I am justified in accepting a belief formed by method M only if I first know that M is reliable. 3. I do not have an infinite series of belief- forming methods. 4. Thus, all my beliefs must rest on beliefs formed by methods whose reliability has not first been established. (from 1 and 3) 5. Therefore, none of my beliefs are justified. (from 2 and 4)

45. No direct experience of the Physical World Everything we know about the external world is dependent on the senses. What is it that the senses make us directly aware of? What can be inferred from what we are directly aware of? In order to have knowledge of the physical world, we must be able to know that our sense data are caused by physical objects. In order to know that A causes B, one must have experience of A and B. We have no experience of physical objects. Therefore, we do not know that physical objects cause our sense data. (from 2, 3) Therefore, we have no knowledge of the physical world. (from 1, 4)

46. No direct experience of the Physical World We do not directly experience object. What we do are “sense data.” Realists argue that sense data are not made by the mind. They must come from external world, since the senses simply received the objects.

47. But how do we know that the physical world gives us the sense data? To know that sense data come directly from physical world, then we must have enough evidence to believe it. It means that we must have direct sense experience or observation that physical objects produce sense data to our senses. But no matter hard we try we will never actually see physical objects, only our representations of them. We cannot observe the presence of physical objects being followed by the occurrence of sense data. We could not claim to know that physical trees cause treelike sense data, because we have never actually had any direct experience of a physical tree; all we have seen is the tree-representing sense data. Therefore, we cannot claim to know that physical objects cause sense data.

48. That the senses do not make us directly aware of the physical world; and second, that no conclusions about the physical world can be inferred from what we are directly aware of either. It will follow that we can have no knowledge of the physical world.

49. It seems that all the evidence we have about an external world is given by our own perceptions and beliefs. But how can we know whether they accurately report the way the world truly is? The appearances, as given by our perceptions and beliefs, supply the only evidence there is about how the world really is.

50. John Locke rested a great part of his theory on a crucial distinction first used in antiquity and then revived by Galileo—namely, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities of physical objects. Primary qualities are intrinsic characteristics of the object itself—characteristics such as solidity, extension in space (size), figure (shape), motion or rest, and number. These are qualities that the objects would continue to possess even if there were no perceiving beings in the world. Secondary qualities (such qualities as color, taste, smell, sound, warmth, and cold) exist only when actually sensed and then only “in the mind” of the one who senses them. Primary qualities are inseparable from the material object and are found in every part of it, no matter how small. Every conceivable unit of matter, from a celestial body to an atom, must have some size and shape; on the other hand, no mere atom could have color.

51. Locke also contributed to the terminology of subsequent empiricists the technical term idea to stand for “whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks” or, more generally, for any direct object of awareness or consciousness.3 And, again, the “ideas” that result from our perception of primary qualities are different from our “ideas” of secondary qualities. When we perceive a primary quality, according to Locke, our idea of this quality exactly resembles the corresponding primary quality in the material object itself. In contrast, when we perceive a secondary quality, our idea of this quality has no resemblance to a corresponding property of the thing itself. That is, our idea of, for instance, color or odor in an object is produced in us by virtue of the object’s “power” to reflect and absorb light waves of certain frequencies or to emit molecules in certain degrees of vibration. Because of these capacities, or powers, of material objects, color and odor can come into existence. Yet without eyes, there could be no color; without noses, no odor; and without minds, no secondary qualities at all.

52. Gettier Gettier cases are meant to challenge our understanding of  propositional  knowledge. This is knowledge which is described by phrases of the form “knowledge that p,” with “p” being replaced by some indicative sentence (such as “Kangaroos have no wings”). It is knowledge of a truth or fact — knowledge of how the world is in whatever respect is being described by a given occurrence of “p”.

53. Belief Condition The person  believes  that p. This belief might be more or less confident. And it might — but it need not — be manifested in the person’s speech, such as by her saying that p or by her saying that she believes that p. All that is needed, strictly speaking, is for her belief to  exist. That for him such belief is either worthy of his conviction or not.

54. Justified true belief Each of the three conditions needs to be satisfied, if there is to be knowledge; If all are satisfied together, the result is an instance of knowledge. The Analysis presents what it regards as being three individually necessary, and jointly sufficient, kinds of condition for having an instance of knowledge that p.

55. Gettier’s Challenge against jtb The case’s protagonist is Smith. He and Jones have applied for a particular job. But Smith has been told by the company president that Jones will win the job. Smith combines that testimony with his observational evidence of there being ten coins in Jones’s pocket. (He had counted them himself — an odd but imaginable circumstance.) And he proceeds to infer that whoever will get the job has ten coins in their pocket. (As the present article proceeds, we will refer to this belief several times more. For convenience, therefore, let us call it belief b.) Notice that Smith is not thereby guessing.

56. On the contrary; his belief b enjoys a reasonable amount of justificatory support. There is the company president’s testimony; there is Smith’s observation of the coins in Jones’s pocket; and there is Smith’s proceeding to infer belief b carefully and sensibly from that other evidence. Belief b is thereby at least fairly well justified — supported by evidence which is good in a reasonably normal way. As it happens, too, belief b is true — although not in the way in which Smith was expecting it to be true. For it is  Smith  who will get the job, and Smith  himself  has ten coins in his pocket. These two facts combine to make his belief b true. Nevertheless, neither of those facts is something that, on its own, was known by Smith. Is his belief b therefore not knowledge? In other words, does Smith fail to know that the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket? Surely so (thought Gettier).

57. It contains a belief which is true and justified — but which is not knowledge, then JTB is false. It shows that it is possible for a belief to be true and justified without being knowledge. It has established that the combination of truth, belief, and justification does not entail the presence of knowledge. In that sense, a belief’s being true and justified would not be  sufficient  for its being knowledge.

58. the lucky disjunction  Again, Smith is the protagonist. This time, he possesses good evidence in favor of the proposition that Jones owns a Ford. Smith also has a friend, Brown. Where is Brown to be found at the moment? Smith does not know. Nonetheless, on the basis of his accepting that Jones owns a Ford, he infers — and accepts — each of these three disjunctive propositions: Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston. Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona. Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.

59. No insight into Brown’s location guides Smith in any of this reasoning. He realizes that he has good evidence for the first disjunct (regarding Jones) in each of those three disjunctions, and he sees this evidence as thereby supporting each disjunction as a whole. Seemingly, he is right about that. (These are inclusive disjunctions, not exclusive. That is, each can, if need be, accommodate the truth of  both  of its disjuncts. Each is true if even one — let alone both — of its disjuncts is true.)

60. Moreover, in fact one of the three disjunctions is true (albeit in a way that would surprise Smith if he were to be told of how it is true). The second disjunction is true because, as good luck would have it, Brown  is  in Barcelona — even though, as bad luck would have it, Jones does not own a Ford. (As it happened, the evidence for his doing so, although good, was misleading.) Accordingly, Smith’s belief that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona is true. And there is good evidence supporting — justifying — it. But is it knowledge?

61. justification What makes justified beliefs justified?

62. THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF JUSTIFICATION PROPOSALS EVIDENTIALISM: It is the possession of evidence. But what does it mean to possess evidence for believing that  p? Evidences are either knower dependent (mental state that represents p as being true) or independent (exist outside). What makes you justified in believing that  p  is your having an experience that represents p as being true.

63. THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF JUSTIFICATION PROPOSALS Reliabilism : What makes them justified is not the possession of evidence, but the fact that the types of processes in which they originate — perception, introspection, memory, and rational intuition — are reliable. A belief is justified if, and only if, it results from cognitive origin that is reliable: an origin that tends to produce true beliefs.

64. justification Socrates in the  Meno : knowledge is more than true belief. Superstitious beliefs that just turn out to be true are not instances of knowledge. In the  Theatetus   Socrates proposes that knowledge is true belief tied down by an account. It is the beginning of what epistemologists refer to as the  justified true belief  (JTB) account of knowledge. A true belief tied down by an account can be understood as a true belief for which one has  adequate   reasons .

65. INTERNALISM AND EXTERNALISM What are the things that make a belief justified or unjustified?

66. INTERNALISM AND EXTERNALISM Justification is either internal or external. Evidentialism is typically associated with internalism , while reliabilism with externalism.

67. internalism Internalism is the thesis that propositional justification is completely determined by one’s internal states - bodily states, one’s brain states, one’s mental states or one’s reflectively accessible states. The two most common ways of understanding internalism has been to take internal states as either reflectively accessible states or mental states. Accessibility Internalism  : justification itself is always recognizable on reflection. Mentalist Internalism : justification in believing so are always mental states.

68. Attack against evidentialism Reliabilism says that the justification of one's beliefs is a function of, not one's evidence, but the reliability of one's belief sources such as memorial, perceptual and introspective states and processes. Whereas the sources might qualify as mental, their reliability does not. Therefore, reliabilists reject mentalist internalism . Moreover, if the justification of one's beliefs is determined by the reliability of one's belief sources, justification will not always be recognizable on reflection. Hence reliabilists reject access internalism as well.

69. Attack against evidentialism Distinguish between Tim 1 and Tim2: one and the same person whom we imagine in two altogether different situations. Tim's situation is normal, like yours or mine. Tim2, however, is a brain in a vat. Suppose a mad scientist abducted and " envatted " Tim2 by removing his brain from his skull and putting it in a vat in which his brain is kept alive. Next, the mad scientist connects the nerve endings of Tim2's brain with wires to a machine that, controlled by a powerful computer, starts stimulating Tim2's brain in such a way that Tim2 does not notice what actually happened to him. He is going to have perfectly ordinary experiences, just like Tim. Indeed, let's assume that the mental states of Tim1 and the mental states of Tim2 are alike.

70. Attack against evidentialism But, since Tim2 is a brain in a vat, he is, unlike Tim, radically deceived about his actual situation. For example, when Tim believes he has hands, he is right. When Tim2 believes he has hands, he is mistaken. (His hands were discarded, along with the rest of his limbs and torso.) When Tim believes he is drinking coffee, he is right. When Tim2 believes he is drinking coffee, he is mistaken. (Brains don't drink coffee.) Now suppose Tim2 asks himself whether he is justified in believing that he has hands. Since Tim2 is just like Tim, Tim2 will say that his belief is justified, just as Tim would if he were to ask himself whether he is justified in believing that he has hands. Evidentialism implies that Tim2's answer is correct. For even though he is deceived about his external situation, he is not deceived about his evidence: the way things appear to him in his experiences. This illustrates the internality of evidentialist justification. Reliabilism , on the other hand, suggests that Tim2's answer is incorrect. Tim2's belief that he has hands originates in cognitive processes — "seeing" and "feeling" his ( nonexisting ) hands — that now yield virtually no true beliefs. To the extent that this implies their unreliability, the resulting beliefs are unjustified. Consequently, he is deceived not only about his external situation (his not having hands), but also about the justificational status of his belief that he has hands. This illustrates the externality of reliabilist justification.

71. It tells us that evidentialism is an internalist and reliabilism an externalist theory. Even though there are significant physical differences between Tim2 and Tim2, mentally they are alike. Evidentialism implies that, since Tim1 and Tim2 are mentally alike, they have the same evidence, and thus are justificationally alike as well. For example, they are both justified in believing that they have hands. This makes evidentialism an internalist theory. Reliabilism , on the other hand, allows that, even though Tim1 and Tim2 are mentally alike, they differ justificationally , since Tim's beliefs are (by and large) produced by reliable cognitive faculties, whereas the faculties that produce Tim2's beliefs may count as unreliable. For example, some versions of reliabilism imply that Tim1 is justified in believing that he has hands, whereas Tim2 is not. This makes reliabilism an externalist theory.

72. foundationalism Th question what makes our belief justified? How are we justified in believing such belief? A view about the proper structure of one’s knowledge or justified beliefs.  Some beliefs are known or justifiably believed only because some other beliefs are known or justifiably believed. Some beliefs are properly basic and that the rest of one’s beliefs inherit their epistemic status (knowledge or justification) in virtue of receiving proper support from the basic beliefs.