Epistemology

Epistemology is, quite simply, the study of knowledge. But, what does one do to study knowledge? What exactly is one studying? As we'll see, there is some debate with regard these question. However, we can formulate some basic answers to these questions without too much controversy. Epistemologists are generally agreed that Epistemology should give us answers to the following questions:

(1) What is the nature of knowledge?

(2) What are the sources of knowledge for humans (and others?)?

(3) What are the limitations of knowledge for humans (and others?)?

An adequate answer to the first question would tell us what knowledge sorts of things can be or are knowledge, what sort of properties they must have to be instances of knowledge, what is so good about knowledge, and so on. We might already have a pretty good idea, in general outline, what we are after. Knowledge is a mental state through which we have some type of veridical awareness of the nature of reality. Already we've started to contradict some philosophers views. Some hold that there is no knowledge, others that knowledge is a social construct, etc.. How can we decide this matter? One might suppose that we can adopt a position about what it is we are studying and how to go about studying it. However, there is also disagreement with regard to these topics as well. In a real way this course is as much about these questions as the original three.

An adequate answer to the second question would tell us what are the sources for human knowledge, how they give us knowledge, if they would provide knowledge for other creatures, how we could tell if other sources were potential sources of knowledge for some creatures, etc..

Finally, an answer to the third question would tell us what, if anything, humans can not know and what conditions would prevent knowledge.

Plato

Plato lived from about 470bc until 347bc . He was born into an aristocratic and wealthy family of whom several members were prominent politicians on the anti-democratic side. When the democratic forces dominated Athenian politics his family lost political influence and prospects. He was closely associated with Socrates in the last few years of Socrates' life, which ended when Plato was about 31 ( 399bc ). Plato was a prolific writer and Socrates is the main character. By some estimates Plato began writing his dialogues during Socrates' life, but evidence suggests that he began quite some time (perhaps 15 years) after Socrates' death. The Orthodox Chronology of dialogues includes the Euthyphro , Protagoras , Meno , and Cratylus (among others) as written early. These were followed by the Phaedo , Republic, Phaedrus , and Symposium as middle dialogues. The Paramenides and Theaetetus (in that order) probably came next followed by The Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus . Sometime between 380 and 367bc Plato founded his famous academy. Among the students at the academy was Aristotle who it is said was called the nous of the academy.

Theaetetus

Background

Plato is not really the inventor of epistemology. However, in the Theaetetus , as well as the Phaedo and the Meno we see the beginnings of the contemporary theory that knowledge is justified true belief. This view of knowledge was held simpliciter until 1963 when Edmund Gettier wrote his infamous article suggesting that the conditions were insufficient. Most philosophers still hold a more elaborate version of this basic definition even today. Plato does not actually forward the contemporary definition in the Theaetetus . Plato forwards the view that knowledge is true opinion together with an account (logos). Plato presents and rejects three candidates for logos concluding in the end that the definition itself may be circular.

In Plato's intellectual world, he is opposed by two different views. On the one hand, he holds that people do know things. In this he is opposed by the sceptics who held that humans were incapable of knowledge. On the other hand, he wishes to hold that we can fail to know things. In this he is opposed by the relativists who hold that each person knows what they believe or see. It is this later group to which Plato addresses himself primarily in the Theaetetus . He wishes to refute the doctrine of relativism and offer a tentative account of knowledge which allows for one to fail to know. In formulating and investigating accounts of knowledge Plato formulates and investigates models of the mind and its interactions with the world. To understand knowledge for Plato one must surely understand the mind and how it interacts with the world.

Plato begins the dialogue (which has been edited out) by stating what it is that they wish to understand: Knowledge, that is, what is common to all the things "men" are said to know. Socrates gives his famous mid- wife speech wherein he likens himself to his mid-wife mother, trying to help people bring their ideas into the world and see if they are sound or not.

The first view of knowledge offered by Theaetetus to which Socrates and the others attend is the idea that to perceive something is to know it. Plato correctly attributes this to Protagoras who was an itinerant teacher who spent much of his time in Athens and who is featured in the dialogue Protagoras . He then discusses how he feels this view emerges from the doctrine that all is flux, which he attributes to Heraclitus , who lived in Ephesus around 500bc . None of Heraclitus 's known writings clearly and directly articulate the doctrine of universal flux.

Plato's first argument against such views is that they would lead to contradictions. Like, I both know the shrimp is both small and know that it is large. The second argument merely notes that the view runs contrary to our seeming willingness to call some of our perceptions false (for examples illusions). Many other arguments follow, that we recognize that some men know more than others, but that on this view the wisest and the most foolish are on a level plane, that we no longer know something when we cease to perceive it, and so on. The general point of this is to reject the doctrine of eternal flux, which in Plato's mind, is the source of epistemic relativism. In doing so Plato wishes to make a positive points: First, there is a world having a certain amount of constancy through its flux. That perception alone is not sufficient for knowledge but rather that knowledge is the product of sense perception and thought or judgement. It is through thought that we get at the nature of objects, i.e., that which makes them what they are throughout changes in their sensory properties. In other dialogues Plato tell us that this is their form or essence. So the mind gets hold of objects through a combination of sensation and thought whereby it gets a hold of what they are independent of their changes. It is at this point that we enter the dialogue.

Knowledge = True Opinion

Theaetetus offers a theory of knowledge where knowledge is true opinion. Socrates wishes to explore the idea of false belief before entertaining the theory. Such a sudden shift may seem incongruous and to interrupt the flow of the discussion. However, there is a point here. Plato has rejected the doctrine that knowledge is perception, in part because it does not allow for false opinion and in part because we get a hold of object by getting at their form or essence. In order to make his theory work, Plato recognizes that he must offer a theory of false opinion. This seems hard given his view of how we connect with the world by getting at things in themselves. If we do so, how could we ever have false beliefs about them? To perceive something as something is to perceive it as that thing, to know the essence of that thing. But, it would seem that we could never be wrong in perceiving something if we see it as a thing with that essence. Again, such investigations are also geared against those who hold that all opinion is true. Plato states the problem as follows: How can one have a false opinion, since "...if all things are either known or unknown, there can be no opinion which is not comprehended under this alternative; and within it we can find no scope for false opinion." (p. 51)

False Opinion as

Thinking of That Which is Not

Perhaps to have a false opinion is think of something that it is not (or what we think it is). To think of that which is not is to think of nothing. Nothing does not exist. Hence thinking of nothing is to have no opinion, which is not to think at all.

False Opinion as Heterodoxy

Heterodoxy (contrary or different from an acknowledged standard). The idea here is that false opinion results from switching one real object for another in one's mind. So, false opinion arises in thought. This view is ultimately rejected because it would seem that by having the an opinion of Theaetetus one knows him and knowing him and having an idea of him in one's mind, one can hardly then think of Theodorous and have an idea of Theodorous in one's mind (i.e., know Theodorous ) and then think that Theaetetus is Thoedorous . The example used is thinking as saying; we would not say to ourselves " Theaetetus is Theodorous ".

The Wax Head

Socrates offers a different theory of mind that might make sense of the idea of the notion that false opinion is heterodoxy. The view holds that thought is the mismatching of one's thoughts with perception. He supposes that having an having a mind is like having a ball of wax and knowledge of something is like having and impression of that thing in the wax. False opinion them would arise when one misfits one's impressions of sense with one's impressions of memory (one's knowledge). After elaborating the analogy, Socrates rejects it because we can surely have false opinions about things that we are not currently perceiving (or never really perceive) and the view does not allow for this possibility. (For example, the absent man or 5 +7 = 12.)

Bird Cage Head

If the wax head model will not work because it requires perception of the object about which one has the false opinion, then what is one (Plato) to do? Socrates suggests that "having (using) knowledge" might be construed as "possessing knowledge." He then uses the bird cage analogy to explicate how one might possess knowledge without having it. The idea is pretty straightforward: One possesses knowledge about various objects in one's mind in the way that one might possesses the birds in an aviary. However, one doesn't necessarily have that knowledge consciously available just as one does not have the birds in an aviary in one's hand. In both cases one must chase down the desired object. False opinion arises when one fails to get the piece of knowledge that one wants. Socrates observes that this view, though initially plausible, it will not work, saying "how can a man who has the knowledge of anything be ignorant of that which he knows, not by reason of ignorance, but by reason of his own knowledge?" (p.59) Socrates is in effect asking how could we know what bit of knowledge we want and get some bit of knowledge that is not what we know we want and still think that we have what we want? Theaetetus suggests that perhaps there are bits of ignorance mixed in with the bits of knowledge in our mental aviary, but as Socrates points out this gets us no further.

Knowledge as True Opinion

With the problem of false opinion unanswered, Socrates suggests they return to the problem of knowledge in the hope that a solution to the question of what is knowledge is will provide a key as to false opinion. They pick up with the theory that knowledge is true opinion. However, they reject this because one can have a true opinion without knowing, for example, if one is tricked by a smooth orator into a belief for reasons that would not guarantee its true.

Knowledge as True Opinion

With a Rational Account

The last definition considered in the dialogue is that knowledge is true opinion together with a rational account. Socrates motivates this as being the difference between the person mislead by a slick orator and the person who knows. They then proceed to consider three different theories of that to which a rational account might amount. First, is an image or verbal expression of the mind. Socrates rejects this idea because it excludes no one. Second, the group considers the notion of a rational account as an enumeration of elements together with their relations. The analogy is the knowledge of how to spell " Theaetetus " involving an opinion as to the syllables and the order in which they need to be written. Again this account is rejected because one may for bad reason (or inadequate reason) have an opinion about the elements and the arrangement. Finally, the group considers the notion of rational account as the knowledge of the difference between that known and other things. Socrates rejects this for two reasons: First, he thinks that it makes no sense to say that one has an opinion about Theaetetus when one cannot tell Theaetetus from anyone else. Second, he notes that at least the last two accounts presuppose knowledge in their notions of rational explanation. Hence, these account would explain the nature of knowledge by reference to knowledge. This being the case they are circular.