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| Knowledge that can be expressed in the form of a proposition or statement (S is P). This is the type of knowledge with which philosophers are concerned when doing epistemology. |
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| classical definition of knowledge |
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| According to this definition, first proposed by Plato (ca. 428-ca. 347 BCE), knowledge is true, justified belief. |
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| (epistemic) justification |
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Definition
| When philosophers doing epistemology talk about justification, they are referring to the reasons that can be given for believing something to be true. |
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| A theory of knowledge according to which knowledge (as classically defined) is in many or most cases impossible for us to have because the reasons we ordinarily give for believing certain things to be true are compatible with those things’ being false. |
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| An extreme form of skepticism according to which the only thing I can know with absolute certainty is what I am aware of at any given moment (but not whether anything I am aware of exists independently of my mind). |
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| A theory of knowledge according to which our beliefs can best be justified on the basis of evidence we receive from our senses (i.e. a posteriori). |
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| A Latin term that literally means “blank slate,” and is sometimes used to refer to the claim of empiricists that our minds are empty of ideas until we begin to have experiences. |
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| A theory of knowledge according to which our beliefs can best be justified on the basis of reason alone, independently of experience (i.e. a priori). |
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| A French mathematician and philosopher in the rationalist tradition who lived from 1596-1650 and famously used his "method of doubt" to arrive at the conclusion that, in thinking, he necessarily exists (I think, therefore I am), which he found himself unable to doubt. |
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| Descartes' method of doubt |
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Definition
| A method used by Rene Descartes that involves calling all of one's beliefs into question in order thereby to discover whether one has any beliefs the untruth of which is logically impossible (i.e. the truth of which cannot be doubted). |
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| A British philosopher in the empiricist tradition who lived from 1632-1704 and argued that all of our ideas come from one of two different kinds of experience, sensation and reflection. |
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| The view that the world (i.e. reality as it exists independently of our minds) is exactly as we perceive it to be. |
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| The view that the world is basically as we perceive it to be, though some of the properties of the things we perceive (e.g. colors, smells) are not “in” things as they exist independently of our minds. |
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| The view that there are no “real” material objects “behind” our perceptions, and that what we actually perceive when we perceive ordinary things (like tables and chairs) are ideas that themselves exist only in our minds. |
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| An eighteenth-century British philosopher who was both an empiricist and an idealist, and who famously claimed that “to be is to be perceived.” |
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| The kind of reasons we give for believing things to be true because of evidence either we ourselves, or others whom we have no reason to doubt, have observed with their senses (e.g. that dogs come in many different shapes and sizes). |
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| The kind of reasons we give when we believe things to be true because it is logically impossible for them not to be (e.g. that 2+2=4 and all dogs are mammals). |
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| A necessary truth is one that can not conceivably be false. For example, it is necessary truth that all dogs are mammals. We know this to be true a priori. |
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| A contingent truth is something that is the case because of the way the world happens to be, but could conceivably be otherwise. For example, that there currently exist 43 distinct species of dogs on earth (including foxes) is a contingent truth. We know this to be true because someone has counted them. It is conceivable that several years from now there might only be 41. |
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