Epistemology

Abstract

For most of the modern period of philosophy, from Descartes to the present, epistemology has been the central philosophical discipline. It raises questions about the scope and limits of knowledge, its sources and justification, and it deals with sceptical arguments concerning our claims to knowledge and justified belief. This chapter firstly considers difficulties facing attempts to define knowledge and, secondly, explores influential responses to the challenge of scepticism. Epistemology is closely related to METAPHYSICS (chapter 2), which is the philosophical account of what kinds of entities there are. Epistemological questions are also crucial to most of the other areas of philosophy examined in this volume, from ETHICS (chapter 6) to PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (chapter 9) and PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS (chapter 11) to PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY (chapter 14). Chapters on individuals or groups of philosophers from DESCARTES (see chapter 26) to KANT (chapter 32) discuss classical epistemology, while several chapters about more recent philosophers also follow epistemological themes.