The owl of Athena, a symbol of knowledge in the Western world
Part of a series on
Epistemology
Outline
Category
Index
Schools
Coherentism
Contextualism
Dogmatism
Empiricism
Fallibilism
Foundationalism
Infallibilism
Infinitism
Naturalism
Perspectivism
Pragmatism
Rationalism
Relativism
Skepticism
Solipsism
Structuralism
Concepts
Action
Analytic–synthetic distinction
A priori and a posteriori
Belief
Credence
Certainty
Data
Experience
Information
Justification
Induction
Knowledge
Meaning
Rationality
Reason
Truth
Wisdom
Domains
Applied epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology
Formal epistemology
Historical epistemology
Metaepistemology
Social epistemology
Virtue epistemology
Epistemologists
Aristotle
Sextus Empiricus
Edmund Gettier
Wang Yangming
René Descartes
David Hume
Immanuel Kant
W. V. O. Quine
more...
Related fields
Epistemic cognition
Epistemic logic
Philosophy of perception
Philosophy of science
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Knowledge 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 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.[a] 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 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 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 the course of history.
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Knowledge is an awareness of facts, a familiarity with individuals and situations, or a practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional...
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