PHL 101: Introduction to

Philosophy
Epistemology
By
Dr R. T. Oyelakin
Department of Philosophy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
What is Epistemology?
• Historically, the term “Epistemology” is from two Greek words
• “Episteme” meaning “Knowledge”
• “Logos” meaning “Theory of, Study of, or Science of”
• Then Epistemology is also known as “Theory of Knowledge”
• Epistemology therefore is a branch of Philosophy which
concerns itself with such questions relating to the sources,
scope or extent, and justification of knowledge.
Epistemology attempts to answer Some of
these Questions
• What is knowledge? (This is about the definition of Knowledge)
• Can we know anything at all, and if we can know, to what
extent can we know? (This is about a skeptical challenge to
knowledge)
• How do we know or how can we know if we can know at all? (This
is about the sources of knowledge)
• If someone challenges us when we claim to know something,
how can we defend our claim? (This is raising a question of
justification about knowledge claims)
Standard Definition of Knowledge
• Knowledge is traditionally defined as Justified True Belief.
• This means that for a person P to know X, P must first believe that X. X must also be true,
and P must be justified in believing that X.
• A belief is not knowledge because the belief might be false.
• For a belief to become knowledge, It must be true.
• However, is a true belief knowledge? If P has a true belief, does P know?
• For P to acquire knowledge, he must possess a belief that is true. But, that P has a true
belief doe not guarantee knowledge.
• That I believe that it is raining in a certain location on the Atlantic Ocean right now, and
that my belief is true is not to say that I know. It is just a belief which just happens to be
true, not that I know.
• For knowledge to take place, a true belief must be justified or warranted by some further
reliable proofs.
Sources of Knowledge
• There is the debate between Empiricism and Rationalism
concerning the source of knowledge.
• Empiricism is an epistemological school which holds that sense
experience is the ultimate source of any genuine knowledge.
• For them, any other idea or knowledge ultimately depends
upon experience for it justification and licence.
• For rationalism as an epistemological school, reason, idea, or
spirit is the ultimate source of genuine knowledge. Any other
idea or knowledge relies upon idea or reason for ultimate
justification.
Scope of Knowledge
• There are forms of knowledge, they are;
• Knowledge how – This refers to practical knowledge which is the
bedrock of science and scientific enterprise.
• There is revealed knowledge which is the foundation for religious
beliefs and practices.
• Propositional knowledge. This is the concern of epistemology as
this deals with the proposition which is used in knowledge claims.
This is refers to as ‘knowledge that.’ Example; I know that 2+2 =
4, I know that water comprises Hydrogen and oxygen, etc.
• Epistemology is therefore restricted to propositional knowledge.
Justification of Knowledge
• For True Belief to become knowledge, it has to be justified. Justified
true belief may be either be inferential or non-inferential.
• It is inferential if the belief relies on other belief(s) for
justification. For instance, Jingo is a Nigerian. This relies on the
strength of some other truths such as parental citizenship, or
nationalization.
• Non-inferential if the belief does not rely on other belief(s) for
justification but is self-justifying.
• The non-inferential belief is also referred to as foundation of
knowledge. The inferential relies on the non-inferential for its
justification.
Types of Knowledge
• Knowledge is divided to Apriori and Aposteriori.
• Apriori knowledge is communicated by analytic statement. In some
instances a priori and analytic are used interchangeably as in apriori or
analytic judgment. Example; All bodies extend, All bachelors are
unmarried, 3+3=6, etc.
• This knowledge is only established through pure reason and it is strictly,
and necessarily certain and universal. It can not be otherwise. Its
denial leads to philosophical inconsistency or self contradiction.
• The predicate of the statement does not add new information to the
subject, it only breaks down the subject into its component parts.
• A contradiction is affirming and disaffirming a claim at the same time.
“The woman is not a female.”
Synthetic/Aposteriori
• This is judgment which is established through sense experience.
Its denial does not lead into self contradiction. It is
contingent and comparatively true or false. Though
interchangeably used, synthetic statement is used to expressed
aposteriori judgment. Example; there are 20 students in the
classroom, The Sun rises from the east and sets in the west, etc.
The predicate adds new information to the subject.
What is Skepticism?
• The theory which argues for the impossibility of knowledge.
Skepticism is based on the certainty of knowledge claims. Being
certain means being infallible, indubitable and necessary.
• For the skeptist, nothing is certain in the world. Therefore, it is
impossible to know.
• The argument is as follows; P1. Knowledge involves certainty,
P2. No one can be certain of anything, P3. Therefore, no one
can know anything.
Types of Skepticism
• Pyhrronians Skepticism: Refrain from making any judgment
when in doubt. This school was named after Pyhrro: a Greek
philosopher.
• Global/Philosophical/Wholesale/Extreme Skepticism: No
knowledge is possible; we cannot know anything at all. We cannot
know bodies, other minds, other persons or anything else.
• Local, Retail or Mitigated Skepticism: This asserts that we cannot
know some things. For example, we cannot know other people’s
minds but we can know other things or that we cannot know the
future though we can know the present. Rene Descartes is one of
the proponents of this position
Humes Skepticism/Philosophical
Skepticism
• David Hume was a Philosopher is in search of knowledge that is
certain, indubitable, infallible and precise.
• Hume identified two sources of knowledge which are Relations of
Ideas (ROI) and Matters of Fact (MOF).
• Knowledge from Relations of Ideas is intuitively and
demonstratively certain. Example; Geometrical, Arithmetical,
mathematical knowledge. 3+5=8, 3*10=60/2, only express a
relation among these numbers as operation of thought.
• Knowledge from ROI is necessary and denial of it leads to
contradiction. All unmarried Males are Bachelors, and All round
objects are round, are examples of ROI
Criticism of ROI Why Hume Rejected it
• Hume rejected knowledge form ROI because;
• ROI does not provide information about the external world. It is
uninformative. Whereas the search for knowledge concerns
knowledge of the external world.
• It is tautological and takes the form of an identity between the
subject and the predicate. This is an apriori knowledge.
• However, for Hume, every idea in the mind has its antecedent sensory
impression.
• ROI does is inadequate because it is ultimately justifies by matters of
fact.
• David Hume began this enquiry as an empiricist.
Matters of Fact.
• Knowledge acquired through MOF is empirical and informative.
• The contrary of MOF is possible and its denial leads not to
contradiction. The statement “It will rain at 3pm” does not
contradict “It will not rain at 3pm.”
• The foundation of MOF is established on the relation of cause
and effect (C&E).
• C&E is established on Experience.
• Experience consists of all happenings and objects in the
environment most of which we gather by perception.
C&E
• Every matter of fact has its cause, and this is another matter of
fact.
• Ask a man who believes that his friend is in Canada (a fact), the
reason is another fact; a text message, a picture, or
confirmation from another friend.
• It is supposed that there is a connection between a cause and its
effect and correspondingly that there is something that binds
an effect to its cause otherwise the inference will be entirely
precarious.
• For Hume, our conclusions from experience are not founded on
reasoning or any process of understanding.
Conditions to be Satisfied to Establish
Cause and Effect
• Spatio-temporal Priority: This is an assumption that cause and effect occur in a
spatio-temporal world. It further assumes that a particular cause occurs before the
effect. That is, it is impossible for the cause to occur after the effect.
• Spatio-temporal Contiguity: This is an assumption that in a spatio-temporal world, a
cause and an effect share a close proximity together. The relation will not occur if
there is distance relation.
• Spatio-temporal Simultaneity: This is the idea that cause and effect occur at the same
time. That means both of them share spatio-temporal occurrence. For instance, it is
impossible for you to be slapped today only to feel the pain next week. The pain (effect)
follows the slap (cause) immediately.
• The Idea of Necessary Connection: This is the presupposed necessary connection
between the cause and effect. Nourishment is necessarily connected with Bread,
whatever, goes up must necessarily come down.
• But, for Hume, this idea must be justified for us to continue to hold on to the belief
Conditions Continue
• For Hume, since these four conditions are both necessary and
sufficient for knowledge to be acquired, the presence of each
of them must hold for cause and effect to be justified.
• The first three are only necessary but not sufficient. If the
idea of necessary connection is not established, then the
relation of cause and effect fails, and this means that
knowledge of matter of fact is impossible.
Justification of Necessary Connection
• For Hume, as there only two sources of acquiring knowledge, so also there are only two available
means of justifying the idea of necessary connection.
• First, the apriori reasoning and Second, by resorting to experience.
• A statement or an hypothesis can only be justified by apriori if the statement expresses a
proposition whose truth is either necessitated by intuition or demonstration. The idea of necessary
connection cannot be justified by apriori reasoning because, the statement of its proposition is
neither intuitively or demonstratively true.
• A statement or an hypothesis can be justified by experience if it obeys Hume’s copy theory. For
Hume’s copy theory, every genuine knowledge has its corresponding sense impression. For the idea
of necessary connection to be justified, there must be a sensory impression to confirm it. For Hume,
whereas this is confirmed for both cause and effect, this is not confirmed for the necessary
connection. Hence, the idea is not justified.
• Besides, attempting to justify the idea of necessary connection by experience is like going in a
circle, i. e. attempting to use experience to justify itself. This will end up begging the question
concerning matter of fact. That is you want to use necessary connection to justify itself.
Hume’s Atomism
• For Hume, since the idea of necessary connection between
cause and effect is not justified, then it follows that;
• Each event is atomic, i.e. independent of each other on nature.
No necessary cause, no necessary effect.
Conclusion from Hume
• The foundation to infallible and certain knowledge of the
world is undermined.
• The idea of necessary connection is borne out of custom and
habit which is formed by constant and regular conjunction
between two events.
• What follows is that there is no knowledge of matter of fact
which is justified and certain.
• The conclusion is that no knowledge of the external world is
possible.
Implications of Hume’s Theory
• One of the strong implications of Hume’s argument is that scientific
knowledge is impossible because it is ultimately unjustified. This is
because the fabric of scientific knowledge relies on experience, and
experience is justified by relation of cause and effect.
• Hume claims that there is no necessary connection between two
events. It further means that no event causes another. This means
that any effect can follow a cause and any effect can be caused by
any event.
• It is impossible to acquire any knowledge which is certain and
infallible, i.e. knowledge of the world which is necessary and
certain
Implications continues
• Our reasoning concerning causal relationship between two
events and objects is only that of probability and not certain.
• The absence of a sufficient justification for the idea of
necessary connection has rendered the relation of cause and
effect unjustified. The other three conditions are only
necessary but are unable to justify the relation in the absence
of the fourth one.
• The import of Hume’s reasoning is that we must not just
dogmatically accept whatever the world presents before us.
Subject everything to critical questioning.
Some Criticisms against Hume’s
Argument
• 1. Science has been helping man in making life worth living.
Any idea that will remove the foundation of science may
naturally run into problem. Hume’s regularity theory conflicts
with the basis of science. Most of the successes recorded in
science is based on causality (cause and effect) and anything
that conflicts with this causality will remove the foundation of
science. Repeatability is associated with predictability. But
Hume’s argument is against this one since we would not be able
to predicts repeatedly. Science will not be reliable if Hume’s
position is accepted. If science has proven reliable then
Hume’s position is not accepted.
Criticism Continues
• 2. A Philosopher, A. C. Ewing, identified the absurdity from Hume’s
argument as follows. Thus, for him, for any event, any effect could follow
it. For example, if somebody coughs here, then accident may happen on the
road. Then, we conclude that the cough is the cause of the accident.
• 3. Some other Philosophers have argued that Hume’s argument disagrees
with the natural constitution of things. If we put petrol on human being,
then light it. The man is expected to burn. Similarly, if somebody is put in
the oven, he expected to burn. This is based on the natural constitution of
things. If he doesn’t burn, we will not regard him as having natural
properties. Then to them, there appears to be a kind of connection between
two natural events. So for, according to natural order of properties, there
might be a necessary connection between cause and effect.
Counter Criticism
• It may be demanded of objection 3 to account for a necessary
connection in natural order of properties and the constitution
of matter.
• And the argument continues.
• A this point you are also expected to make a reasonable
contribution to the debate or present your own objection to
Hume’s argument which rejects any possibility of knowledge of
the external world.