Traditional Epistemologies

Epistemological studies have been carried out since ancient times. It was only in the modern
period, however, that epistemology became a central theme of philosophy. The philosopher who
explained epistemology systematically for the first time was John Locke, whose Essay
concerning Human Understanding became known as an epoch-making work.

The most important questions with regard to the cognition of an object have been those of the
origin, the object, and the method of cognition. In terms of the origin of cognition, two opposing
schools of thought have arisen, namely, empiricism, which asserted that cognition could be
obtained through sensation, and rationalism, which asserted that cognition could be obtained
through innate ideas. With regard to the object of cognition, two views have come into
opposition, namely, realism, which asserted that the object of cognition existed objectively, and
subjective idealism, which asserted that the object of cognition was merely the ideas or
representations of the subject. Concerning the method of cognition, such methods as the
transcendental method and dialectical method have been proposed.

In the conflict between empiricism and rationalism, empiricism, finally fell into skepticism, and
rationalism lapsed into dogmatism. Kant took the position of synthesizing these two opposing
positions through his critical method, or transcendental method. This is his theory of "a priori
synthetical judgment," which says that the object is synthesized by the subject. This papare will
discuss in detail the different philosophers who represent different foundation schools of thought
ranging from Plato, Descartes, John Locke and Immanuel Kant.

Later, plagiarizing Hegel's dialectic materialistically, Marx presented the materialist dialectic.
The epistemology based on the materialist-dialectic is none other than Marxist epistemology, or
dialectical epistemology. This is copy theory, or rejection theory, which asserts that the content
and form of cognition are actually reflections of things in the external world.

A. The Origin of Cognition

Empiricism says that all knowledge is obtained from experience, while rationalism says that true
cognition can be gained through the workings of reason alone, independently from experience.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, empiricism was advocated in Great Britain, and rationalism
was advocated in continental Europe.

1. Empiricism

a) Bacon

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) established the foundation for empiricism. He considered traditional
learning to be merely a series of useless words, empty in content, and that correct cognition is
obtained through observation of nature and experimentation. According to him, in order to obtain
cognition, one must first renounce one's pre-conceived prejudices. As prejudices, he listed four
Idols (idola).

The first is the Idol of the Tribe. This refers to the prejudice into which people in general are
likely to fall, namely, the prejudice whereby the real nature of things are reflected distortedly,
because the human intellect is like an uneven mirror. An example is the inclination to view
nature as personalized.

The second is the Idol of the Cave. This prejudice arises due to an individual's unique nature,
habits, or narrow preconceptions as if one were looking at the world from inside a cave.

The third is the Idol of the Market. This refers to the kind of prejudice that derives from one's
intellect becoming influenced by words. For example, words may be created for the things that
do not exist, which could lead to empty arguments.

And the fourth is the Idol of the Theater. This refers to the kind of prejudice that arises from
blindly accepting the theories of various philosophers. Even though their theories are nothing but
plays enacted on the stage, we are easily blinded by their prestige and accept them.

Bacon said that we should first remove these four Idols, and then observe nature to find the
essence within each individual phenomenon. For that end, he proposed the inductive method.

b) Locke
John Locke (1632-1704) systematized empiricism, and in his major work, "An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding," he developed his views. Locke denied what Descartes called "innate
ideas," and considered the human mind to be like a blank sheet of blank paper (tabula rasa), and
that all ideas come from experience. Experience here consists of external experience and
internal experience, namely, "sensation" and "reflection." The human mind can be compared to a
dark room, and what corresponds to the windows through which light enters are sensation and
reflection. Sensation refers to one's ability to perceive external objects through sense organs;
reflection (or internal sense) refers to the perception of the operations of our mind such as
willing, reasoning, and thinking.

Next, ideas consist of "simple ideas" and "complex ideas." Simple ideas are those obtained
individually and separately by sensation and reflection. When simple ideas have become higher
ideas through combination, comparison and abstraction by the operations of the understanding,
they are complex ideas.

Furthermore, according to Locke, simple ideas include those of the qualities which have
objective validity, namely, solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest, number, and the like; in
addition, simple idea include the qualities which have only subjective validity, namely, color,
smell, taste, sound, and the like. The former qualities are called "primary qualities," and the latter
are called "secondary qualities."

Locke mentioned three kinds of complex ideas, namely, mode, substance and relation. "Mode"
refers to the idea expressing the situation and quality of things, that is, the attributes of things,
such as the mode of space, the mode of time, the mode of thinking, and the mode of power.
"Substance" refers to the idea concerning the substratum that carries the various qualities. And
"relation" refers to the idea that comes into being by comparing two ideas, like the idea of cause
and effect.

Locke regarded knowledge as "the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement
and repugnancy of any of our Ideas." He also said, "Truth is the marking down in Words, the
agreement or disagreement of Ideas as it is." He sought to answer the question concerning the
origin of cognition by analyzing ideas.
Locke considered the existence of the spirit, which is recognized intuitively, and the existence of
God, which is recognized through logical proof, both to be certain. Yet as for material things in
the external world, he considered that there cannot be certainty regarding their existence,
because, even though material things cannot be denied, they can be perceived only through
sensation.

c) Berkeley

George Berkeley (1685-1753) rejected Locke's distinction between primary qualities and
secondary qualities, and described both primary and secondary qualities as subjective.

For example, we do not see distance as it is. The idea of distance is obtained in the following
way: We see a certain object with our eyes. We approach it and touch it with our hands. When
we repeat this process, certain visual sensation lead us to expect that they will be accompanied
by certain tactile sensation. Thus arises the idea of distance. In other words, we do not look at
distance as extension itself.

Berkeley also denied substance as the carrier of qualities, as Locke stated, and viewed things as
mere collections of ideas. He asserted that "to be is to be perceived" (esse est perspi). Thus
Berkeley denied the existence of the substance of material objects, but he had no doubt regarding
the existence of spirit as the substance that perceives.

d) Hume

David Hume (1711-1776) advanced empiricism to its ultimate state. He considered our
knowledge to be based on impressions and ideas. "Impression" refers to a direct representation
based on sensation and reflection, whereas "idea" refers to a representation that appears in the
mind through memory or imagination, after the impression has disappeared. Impressions and
ideas make up what he called "perceptions."

Hume enumerated resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect as the three laws of association
ideas. Here, the cognition of resemblance and contiguity is certain, and poses no problem, but
there is a problem with cause and effect, he said.
With regard to cause and effect, Hume gave the following example: when one hears thunder after
a lightning, one usually think! that lightning is the cause and thunder is the effect. Hume, how
ever, claimed that there is no reason to connect the two as cause and effect, for they are merely
impressions; the idea of cause and effect is established on the basis of people's subjective
customs and beliefs, he asserted. For instance, the phenomenon of the sun rising shortly after a
rooster crows is empirically well known. Here we cannot say that the rooster's crowing is the
cause, and the sun's rising is the effect. Knowledge accepted as cause and effect is then based on
subjective human customs and beliefs. In this way, empiricism, upon reaching Hume, fell into
skepticism. Concerning the idea of substantiality, Hume, like Berkeley, doubted the existence of
substance in material objects. He went even further to doubt the existence of the spiritual
substance, considering it to be nothing but a bundle of perceptions.

2. Rationalism

In contrast to empiricism developed in Britain, as discussed above, rationalism expanded over

the continental Europe. Represented by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Wolff, and others, it
considered that through experience one cannot obtain correct cognition. Instead, correct
cognition can be obtained only through deductive logical reasoning. That position is what is
called Continental Rationalism.

a) Descartes

Rene Descartes (1596-1650), regarded as the founder of rationalism, started from doubting
everything as a method to attain true cognition. This technique has been called "methodic doubt."

He thought that sensation can deceive us, and so doubted everything related to sensation.
Arguing, however, that, for someone who doubts everything, the fact that he or she doubts (or
thinks) cannot be doubted, Descartes reached the proposition, "I think, therefore I am" (cogito
ergo sum). Even if a malicious spirit were deceiving me, I, who am being deceived, must exist,
he argued. Based on that proposition, Descartes was able to assure the existence of the spirit,
whose nature is thinking.
For Descartes, the proposition "I think, therefore I am" is the first principle of philosophy. 5 That
proposition is certain, he argued, because one's perception of it is clear and distinct. he then
derived a general rule that, "things we perceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true." 6 If
this rule is taken as correct, then the existence of material substance, the attribute of which is
extension, can be recognized as certain; as well as the spiritual substance, the attribute of which
is thought.

'Clear' implies that something is present and obvious to the spirit, and 'distinct' implies that it is
7
distinguishable from other objects. The opposite of 'clear' is 'obscure,' and the opposite of
'distinct' is 'confused.'

In order to guarantee a clear and distinct cognition, one must not allow cases in which evil spirits
secretly deceive people. In order to prevent such a thing, one must assume the existence of God.
If God exists, no mistake can occur in my cognition, because an honest God can never deceive
me.

Descartes is said to have proved the existence of God as follows: First, the idea of God is innate
in us. In order for this idea to exist, the cause of this idea must exist. Second, the fact that we,
who are imperfect, have the idea of a perfect Being (God) proves the existence of God. Third,
since the idea of the most perfect Being (God) necessarily contains existence as its essence, the
existence of God is proved.

In this way the existence of God was proved, according to Descartes. Therefore, God's essences,
namely, infinity, omniscience, and omnipotence, become clear; honesty (veracitas), as one of
God's attributes, is secured. And clear and distinct cognition is guaranteed.

Descartes ascertained the existence of God and the existence of spiritual and corporeal substance,
or mind and body; among those, the only independent being, in the true sense, is God, for mind
and body are dependent on God. He also held that mind and body -- with the attributes of
thought and extension, respectively-are substances independent from each other; thus, he
advocated dualism.
Descartes proved the certainty of clear and distinct cognition, thereby asserting the certainty of
rational cognition based on the mathematical method.

b) Spinoza

Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677), like Descartes, thought that truth can be cognized through
rigorous proofs, and tried to develop a logical reasoning particularly by applying the geometrical
method to philosophy.

The premise of Spinoza's philosophy was that all truth can be cognized through reason. That is,
when one perceives things, in the eternal aspect through reason and also perceives them wholly
and intuitively in their necessary relationship with God, true cognition can be obtained. He
divided cognition into three types: imagination, scientific knowledge (which is on the level of
reason), intuitive knowledge. Among these three, he held that if imagination is not properly
ordered by reason, it is imperfect. He thought that true cognition can be obtained through
scientific knowledge and intuitive knowledge. For Spinoza, intuitive knowledge is not separated
from reason, but rather it is based on reason.

Descartes considered mind, which has thought as its attribute, and body, which has extension as
its attribute, to be substances independent from each other. In contrast, Spinoza held that God
alone is substance, and extension and thinking are God's attributes. Spinoza said that God and
nature are in the relationship of natura nalurans (the origin of all things) and natura naturala
(everything which follows, by the necessity, from the nature of God), and are inseparable. Thus
he developed a pantheistic thought, claiming that "God is nature."

c) Leibniz

Gottlieb Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) placed great importance on the mathematical
method, and considered that it is ideal to derive every proposition from a few fundamental
principles. He classified the truth into two kinds: first, the truth that can be found logically
through reason, and second, the truth that can be obtained through experience. He labeled the
former as eternal truths, or truths of reason, and the latter as truths of fact, or contingent truths.
He held that what guarantees truths of reason is the principle of identity and the principle of
contradiction, and what guarantees truths of fact is the principle of sufficient reason, which says
that nothing can exist without sufficient reason.

Yet, such dysfunction of truths applies only to the human intellect; for God can cognize, through
logical necessity, even what is regarded by humans as truths of fact. Therefore, ultimately, truth
of reason was held to be the ideal truth.

Leibniz also held that the true substance is the "monad," or a living mirror of the universe. I le
explained the monad as a non-spatial substance having perception and appetite, whereby
apperception arises as a collection of minute unconscious perceptions. Monads were classified
into three stages: "sleeping monad" (or "naked monad") in the material stage; "soul" (or
"dreaming monad") in the animal stage, which possess sensation and memory; and "spirits" (or
"rational souls") in the human stage, which possess universal cognition. In addition, there is the
monad on the highest stage, which is God.

d) Wolff

Christian Wolff (1679-1754), based on Leibniz's philosophy, further systematized the

rationalistic position. He held that true knowledge is truth of reason derived logically from
fundamental principles. He considered that all truths can be established purely on the basis of the
principles of identity and contradiction. He accepted the existence of empirical truths of fact, but
according to him, truths of reason have nothing to do with empirical truths, and empirical truths
are not necessarily true, but only contingently so.

In this way, Continental rationalism attached little importance to the cognition of facts,
considering that everything can be cognized rationally, and in the end came to fall into
dogmatism. 8

C. Epistemology in Terms of Method

As we have seen, empiricism, which saw experience as the origin of cognition, fell into
skepticism, whereas rationalism, which saw reason as the origin of cognition, fell into
dogmatism. They reached that situation because they did not examine the questions of how
experience becomes truths, and how cognition is made through reason, in other words, the
method of cognition. It was Hegel, Marx and Kant who attached importance to the method of
cognition. I will introduce here the main points of the Kantian and Marxian methods.

1. Kant's Transcendental Method

British empiricism fell into skepticism, and continental rationalism fell into dogmatism, but
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) synthesized these two positions and established a new view. He
considered empiricism to be mistaken because it ascribed cognition to experience, disregarding
the function of reason, whereas on the other hand, rationalism was mistaken because it regarded
reason as almighty. Thus, Kant considered that in order to obtain true knowledge, one has to start
from an analysis of how experience can become knowledge. To achieve this, one has to examine,
or critique, the function of reason.

Plato EPISTEMOLOGY

Plato was the best known ancient Greek philosopher. The question of what constitutes
"knowledge" is as old as philosophy itself. Early instances are found in Plato's dialogues, notably
Meno (97a–98b) and Theaetetus He was a student of Socrates; and a teacher of Aristotle. He
wrote about 23 philosophical dialogues, Famous doctrines: the Theory of the Forms; the
Immortality of the Soul; Knowledge is Justified True Belief.

Knowledge as justified true belief (JTB)

The JTB account of knowledge is the claim that knowledge can be conceptually analyzed as
justified true belief, which is to say that the meaning of sentences such as "Smith knows that it
rained today" can be given with the following set of conditions, which are necessary and

sufficient for knowledge to obtain:

A subject S knows that a proposition P is true if and only if:

1. P is true, and
 2. S believes that P is true, and
3. S is justified in believing that P is true

The JTB account was first credited to Plato, though Plato argued against this very account of
knowledge in the Theaetetus (210a). This account of knowledge is what Gettier subjected to
criticism.

The Gettier problem, in the field of

epistemology, is a landmark
philosophical problem concerning our
understanding of descriptive knowledge.
Attributed to American philosopher
Edmund Gettier, Gettier-type
counterexamples (called "Gettier-cases")
challenge the long-held justified true
belief (JTB) account of knowledge. The
JTB account holds that knowledge is
equivalent to justified true belief; if all
three conditions (justification, truth, and
belief) are met of a given claim, then we
have knowledge of that claim. In his
1963 three-page paper titled "Is Justified
True Belief Knowledge?", Gettier
attempts to illustrate by means of two
counterexamples that there are cases
where individuals can have a justified,
true belief regarding a claim but still fail
to know it because the reasons for the
belief, while justified, turn out to be
false. Thus, Gettier claims to have shown
that the JTB account is inadequate; that it
does not account for all of the necessary
and sufficient conditions for knowledge.
The term "Gettier problem", "Gettier case", or even the adjective "Gettiered", is sometimes used
to describe any case in the field of epistemology that purports to repudiate the JTB account of
knowledge.

Responses to Gettier's paper have been numerous; some reject Gettier's examples, while others
seek to adjust the JTB account of knowledge and blunt the force of these counterexamples.
Gettier problems have even found their way into sociological experiments, where the intuitive
responses from people of varying demographics to Gettier cases have been studied

Gettier's two original counterexamples

Gettier's paper used counterexamples to argue that there are cases of beliefs that are both true and
justified—therefore satisfying all three conditions for knowledge on the JTB account—but that
do not appear to be genuine cases of knowledge. Therefore, Gettier argued, his counterexamples
show that the JTB account of knowledge is false, and thus that a different conceptual analysis is
needed to correctly track what we mean by "knowledge".

Gettier's case is based on two counterexamples to the JTB analysis. Each relies on two claims.
Firstly, that justification is preserved by entailment and secondly that this applies coherently to
Smith's putative "belief". That is, that if Smith is justified in believing P, and Smith realizes that
the truth of P entails the truth of Q, then Smith would also be justified in believing Q. Gettier
calls these counterexamples "Case I" and "Case II":

Case I
 Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. And suppose that Smith has
strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition: (d) Jones is the man who will
get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket.
Smith's evidence for (d) might be that the president of the company assured him that
Jones would, in the end, be selected and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones's
pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (d) entails: (e) The man who will get the job has ten
coins in his pocket.
Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (d) to (e), and accepts (e) on the
grounds of (d), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in
believing that (e) is true.
But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And,
also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket. Proposition (e) is true,
though proposition (d), from which Smith inferred (e), is false. In our example, then, all
of the following are true: (i) (e) is true, (ii) Smith believes that (e) is true, and (iii) Smith
is justified in believing that (e) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not know
that (e) is true; for (e) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith's pocket, while
Smith does not know how many coins are in his pocket, and bases his belief in (e) on a
count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get
the job.

Case II

Smith, it is claimed by the hidden interlocutor, has a justified belief that "Jones owns a
Ford". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of disjunction introduction)that
"Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona", even though Smith has no information
whatsoever about the location of Brown.
In fact, Jones does not own a Ford, but by sheer coincidence, Brown really is in Barcelona.
Again, Smith had a belief that was true and justified, but not knowledge

One response, therefore, is that in none of the above cases was the belief justified because it is
impossible to justify anything that is not true. Conversely, the fact that a proposition turns out to
be untrue is proof that it was not sufficiently justified in the first place. Under this interpretation,
the JTB definition of knowledge survives. This shifts the problem to a definition of justification,
rather than knowledge. Another view is that justification and non-justification are not in binary
opposition. Instead, justification is a matter of degree, with an idea being more or less justified.
This account of justification is supported by mainstream philosophers such as Paul Boghossian
[10]
[1] and Stephen Hicks[2][3]. In common sense usage, an idea can not only be more justified
or less justified, but it can also be partially justified (Smith's boss told him X) and partially
unjustified (Smith's boss is a liar). Gettier's cases involve propositions that were true, believed,
but which had weak justification. In case 1, the premise that the testimony of Smith's boss is
"strong evidence" is rejected. The case itself depends on the boss being either wrong or deceitful
(Jones did not get the job) and therefore unreliable. In case 2, Smith again has accepted a
questionable idea (Jones owns a Ford) with unspecified justification. Without justification, both
cases do not undermine the JTB account of knowledge.

Other epistemologists accept Gettier's conclusion. Their responses to the Gettier problem,
therefore, consist of trying to find alternative analyses of knowledge. They have struggled to
discover and agree upon as a beginning any single notion of truth, or belief, or justifying which
is wholly and obviously accepted. Truth, belief, and justifying have not yet been satisfactorily
defined[citation needed]
, so that JTB (justified true belief) may be defined satisfactorily is still
problematical, on account or otherwise of Gettier's examples

The Platonic theory of knowledge thus contains two parts: first, an investigation into the nature
of unchanging objects and, second, a discussion of how those objects can be known through
reason. Of the many literary devices Plato used to illustrate his theory, the best known is the
allegory of the cave, which appears in Book VII of the Republic. The allegory depicts people
living in a cave, which represents the world of sense-experience. In the cave, people see only
unreal objects, shadows, or images. Through a painful intellectual process, which involves the
rejection and overcoming of the familiar sensible world, they begin an ascent out of the cave into
reality. That process is the analogue of the exercise of reason, which allows one to apprehend
unchanging objects and thus to acquire knowledge. The upward journey, which few people are
able to complete, culminates in the direct vision of the Sun, which represents the source of
knowledge.

Plato’s investigation of unchanging objects begins with the observation that every faculty of the
mind apprehends a unique set of objects: hearing apprehends sounds, sight apprehends visual
images, smell apprehends odours, and so on. Knowing also is a mental faculty, according to
Plato, and therefore there must be a unique set of objects that it apprehends. Roughly speaking,
those objects are the entities denoted by terms that can be used as predicates—e.g., “good,”
“white,” and “triangle.” To say “This is a triangle,” for example, is to attribute a certain property,
that of being a triangle, to a certain spatiotemporal object, such as a figure drawn in the sand.
Plato is here distinguishing between specific triangles that are drawn, sketched, or painted and
the common property they share, that of being triangular. Objects of the former kind, which he
calls “particulars,” are always located somewhere in space and time—i.e., in the world of
appearance. The property they share is a “form” or “idea” (though the latter term is not used in
any psychological sense). Unlike particulars, forms do not exist in space and time; moreover,
they do not change. They are thus the objects that one apprehends when one has knowledge.

Reason is used to discover unchanging forms through the method of dialectic, which Plato
inherited from his teacher Socrates. The method involves a process of question and answer
designed to elicit a “real definition.” By a real definition Plato means a set of necessary and
sufficient conditions that exactly determine the entities to which a given concept applies. The
entities to which the concept “being a brother” applies, for example, are determined by the
concepts “being male” and “being a sibling”: it is both necessary and sufficient for a person to be
a brother that he be male and a sibling. Anyone who grasps these conditions understands
precisely what being a brother is.

In the Republic, Plato applies the dialectical method to the concept of justice. In response to a
proposal by Cephalus that “justice” means the same as “honesty in word and deed,” Socrates
points out that, under some conditions, it is just not to tell the truth or to repay debts. Suppose
one borrows a weapon from a person who later loses his sanity. If the person then demands his
weapon back in order to kill someone who is innocent, it would be just to lie to him, stating that
one no longer had the weapon. Therefore, “justice” cannot mean the same as “honesty in word
and deed.” By the technique of proposing one definition after another and subjecting each to
possible counterexamples, Socrates attempts to discover a definition that cannot be refuted. In
doing so he apprehends the form of justice, the common feature that all just things share.

Plato’s search for definitions and, thereby, forms is a search for knowledge. But how should
knowledge in general be defined? In the Theaetetus Plato argues that, at a minimum, knowledge
involves true belief. No one can know what is false. People may believe that they know
something that is in fact false. But in that case they do not really know; they only think they
know. Knowledge is more than simply true belief. Suppose that someone has a dream in April
that there will be an earthquake in September and, on the basis of that dream, forms the belief
that there will be an earthquake in September. Suppose also that in fact there is an earthquake in
September. The person has a true belief about the earthquake but not knowledge of it. What the
person lacks is a good reason to support that true belief. In a word, the person lacks justification.
Using such arguments, Plato contends that knowledge is justified true belief.

Although there has been much disagreement about the nature of justification, the Platonic
definition of knowledge was widely accepted until the mid-20th century, when the American
philosopher Edmund L. Gettier produced a startling counterexample. Suppose that Kathy knows
Oscar very well. Kathy is walking across the mall, and Oscar is walking behind her, out of sight.
In front of her, Kathy sees someone walking toward her who looks exactly like Oscar.
Unbeknownst to her, however, it is Oscar’s twin brother. Kathy forms the belief that Oscar is
walking across the mall. Her belief is true, because Oscar is in fact walking across the mall
(though she does not see him doing it). And her true belief seems to be justified, because the
evidence she has for it is the same as the evidence she would have had if the person she had seen
were really Oscar and not Oscar’s twin. In other words, if her belief that Oscar is walking across
the mall is justified when the person she sees is Oscar, then it also must be justified when the
person she sees is Oscar’s twin, because in both cases the evidence—the sight of an Oscar-like
figure walking across the mall—is the same. Nonetheless, Kathy does not know that Oscar is
walking across the mall. According to Gettier, the problem is that Kathy’s belief is not causally
connected to its object (Oscar) in the right way.