Epistemology Vocabulary
Epistemology: The branch of philosophy that investigates the nature, sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge. Rationalism: The position that reason alone, without the aid of sensory info, is capable of arriving at some knowledge, at some undeniable truths. Empiricism: the position that knowledge has its origins in and derives all of its content from experience. Idealism: in metaphysics, the position that reality is ultimately non matter; in EPISTEMOLOGY, the position that all we know is our ideas.Transcendental Idealism: in epistemology, the view that the form of our knowledge of reality derives from reason but its content comes from our senses. A Priori: pertaining to knowledge that is logically prior to experience; reasoning on based such knowledge.
A Posteriori: pertaining to knowledge stated in empirically verifiable statements; inductive reasoning. Perception: The act or process by which we become aware of things. Sense Data: Images or sensory impressions.Primary Qualities: According to Locke, qualities that inhere in an object: size, shape, weight and so on. Secondary Qualities: According to Locke, qualities that we impose on an object: colour, smell, texture and so on. Solipsism: An extreme form of subjective idealism, contending that only I exist and that everything else is a product of my subjective consciousness. Skepticism: In epistemology, the view that varies between doubting all assumptions until proved and claiming that no knowledge is possible.
Analytic Judgment:Sumum Bonum: Phenomenalism: The belief, associated with Kant, that we can know only appearances (phenomena) and never what is ultimately real (noumena); that the mind has the ability to sort out sense data and provide relationships that hold among them. Induction reasoning: also know as inductionism, induction. The process of reasoning to probable explanations and judgments. Hypothesis: in general, an assumption, statement, or theory of explanation, the truth which is under investigation. Hypothetical Method: Paradigm:Pseudoscience: Correspondence Theory of Truth: A theory contending that truth is an agreement between a proposition and a fact. Coherence Theory of Truth: A theory contending that truth is a property of a related group of consistent statements. Pragmatism: the philosophical school of thought, associated with Dewey, James, and Pierce, that tires to mediate between idealism and materialism by rejecting all absolute first principles, tests truth through workability, and views the universe as pluralistic.
Pragmatic Theory of Truth:Relativism: the view that human judgment is conditioned by factors such as acculturation and personal bias. Tabula Rasa: Egocentric Predicament: Categorical Imperative: Immanuel Kant’s ethical formula: ast as if the maxim (general rule by which you act) could be willed to become a universal law; the belief that what is right for one person is also right for everyone in similar circumstances. Kant’s Categories Locke’s theory: Thomistic Terms Realism: the doctrine that the objects of our senses exist independently of their being experienced. Critical Realism: Transcendental Realism:
