H. P. Grice, "What we know we know"

episteme Ancient Greek philosophy, epistemology [Greek, knowledge] Knowledge, from which the word epistemology is formed. Plato regarded knowledge as a cognitive state of the soul concerned solely with unchanging and necessary objects, the Ideas or Forms. Knowledge contrasts with belief (doxa), the cognitive state concerned with sensible things. For Plato, the contrast between episteme and doxa is essential for establishing the theory of Ideas. Aristotle normally confined knowledge to the demonstrative sciences, which provide necessary and invariant truths about necessary and invariable states of affairs. These sciences start from necessary premises, proceed through syllogistic deduction, and reach necessary conclusions. The necessary premises that form the first principles of these sciences are not grasped by episteme, but by nous (intuition). “Episteme then is by its nature directed to what is, to know it as it is.” Plato, Republic epistemic holism Philosophy of science The core of this position is the Duhem–Quine thesis. According to Duhem, statements about physical things cannot be verified or falsified in isolation from the theory to which they belong. Quine further suggested that what should be tested against experience is not a sentence, not even a theory in isolation, but the whole of science, since all branches of science share logic and mathematics. Epistemic holism is the ground for Quine’s rejection of the distinction between synthetic and analytic statements. It also paves the way for semantic holism which focuses on the essential interconnectedness that exists between thoughts. “The central factor underlying it [epistemic holism] is the potential complex interconnectedness of things, both causally and evidentially.” Heal, in Carruthers and Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind -- an individual is known to have or not have certain attributes (for instance, “Socrates is known to be poor”). The study of the logical relations between epistemic modalities is the subject of modal epistemic logic, developed mainly by von Wright and Jaakko Hintikka. “The basic epistemic modalities are: verified (known to be true), falsified (known to be false) and undecided (neither known to be true nor known to be false).” von Wright, An Essay in Modal Logic -- epistemic justification: although epistemic justification may concern objective justification regarding what we should believe given what is in fact true, it mainly concerns subjective justification. This seeks to determine what we should believe or should not believe, given what we actually do believe, even though what we do believe may not be correct. If and only if one is justified in believing that a proposition is true, is one justified in believing that proposition. To believe what is true one needs to believe what is justified, and to avoid believing what is false one must not accept what is not justified. Justification of belief requires specification of the norms under which one may hold a belief. Determining what to believe is a fundamental problem for epistemology. “Acceptance,” “being beyond reasonable doubt,” “being evident,” “being certain,” “having some proposition in its favor,” etc. are all different senses of epistemic justification. “Epistemic justification, unlike truth, is capable of degrees of the things that we are justified in believing; some are more justified than others.” Chisholm, The Foundations of Knowing -- epistemic modality Logic, epistemology The mode in which a thing is said to be known to be true (verified), known to be untrue (falsified), or neither known to be true nor false (undecided). G. H. von Wright claimed that these epistemic modalities are related to each other logically as the alethetic modalities (necessary, assertible, and possible). Each of these modal concepts can either be de dicto, when it is about the mode in which a proposition is known to be true or false (for instance “It is known that Socrates taught Plato”), or de re, when it is about the mode in which epistemic value, an alternative expression for cognitive value epistemic virtue Epistemology The personal disposition of character, which tends to lead to the attainment of true knowledge and the avoidance of error, such as the desire to seek the truth, impartiality in scientific activities, and the courage to question orthodox views. It is also the internalized standard of belief-acceptance and belief-rejection. The opposite of epistemic virtue is epistemic vice. Since epistemic virtue is related to personal character, and does not involve empirical data, virtuously formed knowledge is not necessarily justified knowledge. In this context, virtue means simply doing well, a notion of efficiency rather than morality. A person of epistemic virtue is more likely to be successful in his inquiry, but that does not mean that he is a morally good person. The concept is derived from Aristotle’s notion of intellectual virtue. Epistemologists also talk about doxastic virtue, which is the disposition leading to the formation of reliable beliefs. Its content is the same as epistemic virtue. “Such concepts as epistemic character or epistemic virtue seem to have their natural home in the conduct of inquiry project, since they focus on what it is to have the good judgement required by guidelines for going about inquiry.” Haack, Evidence and Inquiry -- epistemics, see epistemology -- epistemological atomism Epistemology Sluga’s term for the view that there is a direct acquaintance with objects and that knowledge is not in the first instance knowing that or a matter of judging, but knowledge of objects and their properties. This term plays a role mainly in the interpretation of Frege’s philosophy and the claim that Frege is committed to such a view, as many interpreters have held. “Sluga connects my saying that, for Frege, the referent of a proper name is its bearer with what he calls ‘epistemological atomism’, which he accuses me of ascribing to Frege.” Dummett, The Interpretation of Frege’s Philosophy -- epistemological dualism Epistemology, metaphysics Any theory of sense-data that maintains that sense-data are distinct from the physical objects that they represent. Physical objects are constant, but different perceivers may have different sense-data regarding the same object. Physical objects are public, while sense-data are private. Furthermore, not all of what we perceive, in particular secondary qualities, are inherent in physical objects. A change of sense-data is not a real physical change. Since sense-data are not identical to physical objects, doubt arises with regard to the reliability of perception as the source of knowledge about the external world. According to this view, we do not really know physical objects themselves, although they are the cause of sense-data. From this position, Berkeley’s immaterialism and phenomenalism are derived by denying the existence of unknown substances. “Epistemological dualism, . . . according to it, the sense-datum, i.e. that which is directly perceived, is always distinct from the physical object, even though it may be exactly similar to it like a faithful mirror image.” Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy epistemological necessity Epistemology A necessity that can be deduced from a thinker’s other beliefs, and is generally associated with the “must” of certainty. It is a relation between certain features, showing the dependence of one thing on another. Enquiry establishes such an epistemological necessity between the phenomenon to be explained and its necessary conditions. For instance, we will say, “it must be painful” if we see somebody struck by a stone. -- “When it is shown that certain features are equally essential; when it is shown that certain features are interconnected so that some are necessary for others; when it is shown that certain features are not so closely connected as might be assumed, it is epistemological necessity, closeness, or lack of connection that is being demonstrated.” Harrison, On What There Must Be -- epistemology Epistemology [from Greek episteme, knowledge + logos, theory; literally, theory of knowledge] The adjective “epistemic” pertains to knowledge. Epistemics is sometimes used as equivalent to epistemology or is used to denote a scientific approach to knowledge. Epistemology is also equivalent to gnoseology (from Greek genoskein, to know). Epistemology generally starts with attempts to refute skepticism by justifying the claim that knowledge is possible, and then proceeds to clarify the nature and the scope of knowledge. The standard analysis of knowledge claims that it is justified true belief, a definition initiated essentially by Plato, although it is challenged most recently by Gettier’s problem. Because of this definition, philosophers have been working to analyze the relation between knowledge and belief, between knowledge and truth, and between knowledge and justification. The last issue is especially central. In a sense, epistemology pays more attention to the problem of what it is to be justified in believing than to knowledge per se. Another main task of epistemology concerns the origin of knowledge, that is, to assess the role of sense and reason in the acquisition of knowledge. Philosophers are divided into rationalists and empiricists with respect to this issue. Rationalism, represented by Plato, Descartes, and Leibniz, takes reason to be the source of knowledge, while empiricism, represented by Locke and Hume, argues that experience is the source of truth. Kant attempted to reconcile both by claiming that knowledge is possible only by the combination of our a priori intuitions and concepts of the understanding and appearances. Contemporary epistemology is dominated by Anglo-American philosophy and is largely empirical. Corresponding to the development of the philosophy of language, speech and meaning become important issues. Since epistemology is closely associated with psychology and the philosophy of mind, perception, memory, imagination, other minds, and error are major topics. The discussions of induction and a priori knowledge are also prominent, in part through the association of epistemology with philosophy of science. “Questions such as these, about the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge, motivated the enterprise of epistemology, past and present.” Moser and Nat, Human Knowledge