What Is Epistemology?

Epistemology is one of the words that trips up students. Even when they learn that it means "theories of knowledge," they often don't get it. I simply means, how does one know what is true and what is untrue; and, in addition, what is 100%? How am I certain?

Theories about knowledge differ from theories about reality only in form. The two are intertwined and that makes definitions harder. What is true and what is real are two questions that help define this. What is true is epistemology and what is real is metaphysics. But its really not that easy.

Yea that doesn't really help.

How can I know something about reality without epistemology? How can I apply thinking to something that is not real? So even when I try to group them neatly into a distinction, it doesn't really do the job. Just like many things in philosophy we are going to have to live with a seeming contradiction.

Students that really wanted to learn often asked me how I came to truth? What is the one thing that cements truth?

Good question.

So for critical commonsense readers I'll tell you. Pure logic. One does not always have to strive for critical truth, you can bullshit and guess and do all sorts of human things, but when you want to be right, when its important, pure logic is how you do it. This simple answer is covered over by centuries of thinkers who use other forms of knowledge to answer the same fundamental question. They use intuition to prove there is no logic or they use logic to prove there is no logic, etc. The reason students become frustrated with the tradition is in no small part because of this over-complication.

It is simply pure logic. The kind Kant had in mind.

When the answer is important I cannot use emotion or guesswork or intuition or cultural baggage or authority/opinion or a sense of utility or pure rhetoric … All I have is cold logic, as it is called. I call it warm logic, but that's just me. The only people that still stand against this idea are 1) people selling something (things or ideas) and 2) people using logic to try to undermine logic. If you want to see an example of present-day logic and anti-logic existing in the same mind and producing cartoons of truth, just visit social media. Social media is the platform for the uncritical mind to feel critical. Without a logical base there is no tool out there to self-diagnose, and the devolution continues seemingly forever.

So you want me to elaborate? Well, unfortunately, that would be hyper-critical. There is no way for me to explain to a student what the anti-logic logicians have been doing for three-hundred years or more in their comfy armchair caves. What I can do is offer up my type of consistent thinking for them to experience and then, as they value things later in life, act on in order to get better results.

Maybe as an example I'll just point you to the news story, from of course Florida, where rescue personnel are helpless to stop ignorant people from jumping in the panhandle waters despite legally prohibitive warnings about the riptides. Read about it. They try to fine them $500 and the people still do it and they are currently drowning, about one person per day.