Epistemology
Epistemology attempts to explain the nature and scope of knowledge and rational belief. Its purview also includes formulating and assessing arguments for skeptical conclusions that we do not have knowledge of various kinds. In addition, epistemologists address topics that are closely related to these core concerns, including evaluations of thought processes and the relationship of science to philosophy. What follows is an overview of contemporary developments in epistemology.
The Analysis of Knowledge
The traditional analysis of knowledge is that it is a combination of three conditions: truth, belief, and justification. The idea is that for someone to have factual knowledge, what is known has to be a fact and thus true; the person has to regard it as true, that is, believe it; and the person must have an adequate basis for believing it—that is, have sufficient justification for believing it. These conditions yield knowledge defined as a sufficiently justified true belief.
The publication by Edmund Gettier (1963) of one brief critical discussion of the traditional analysis brought about a flurry of activity in epistemology. Gettier refuted the traditional analysis by offering convincing counterexamples. He described examples in which someone forms a belief on the basis of strong justifying evidence, but the belief merely happens to be true as a result of a fortunate accident, independently of the evidence.
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