Definition

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with how we know things. Its various popular conclusions are rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism.

What are we trying to know?

To understand philosophy, we have to understand that we humans want to understand the universe, to grasp it and be satisfied that we have true knowledge. To continue from the last topic, how do we find more about the thing that exists? This includes the day-to-day knowledge of being able to identify animals, plants, walls, and other humans. Moreover, this includes identifying the underlying principles of existence.

How did Plato know things?

In the last lecture, we had a sneak peek that Plato thought that there is an immaterial world on which this material world imitates. How could Plato know this? He could not have felt or sensed it, and neither did he make a claim that he can walk into that immaterial world. Instead, Plato claimed that if you thought long enough, and properly enough, you would, through reason and logic, figure out that the only logical conclusion is to believe in such an immaterial world.

Rationalism

This idea behind rationalism is that you can close your eyes, shut yourself off in an empty room and think, use logic, and that is enough to grasp the very fabric of existence. In my opinion, there is something psychologically weak about having such an opinion. You are being risk averse when thinking that you do not need any external help or information. It is the ability to make judgements without knowing everything and thinking you do not even need to know. In some sense, it is similar to jumping to conclusions about celebrities based on listening to one piece of gossip.

However, this is I bringing my bias into it. Let us identify some key terms that make rationalism better than the other options.

Rationalism is the theory that reason is the foundation of certainty in knowledge. Certainty means something being indubitable. If a fact is established through basic logic such as

If the two premises are correct, then the conclusion must be correct. This level of certainty is not available in any other methodology. Therefore, rationalism ensures certainty, and using it, you can build a foundation for knowledge and only later incorporate other sources of knowledge. However, the base is reason and reason alone.

Let me further clarify here, rationalism is combined with other methodologies so it is not as barren, bleak, and weak, and its claim that certainty is only possible in the realm of logic is fully sound. Philosophers like Descartes, Kant, Plato, and others employ Rationalism to build the foundation of their knowledge while still using other things like their senses to know more about the world.

How did Aristotle do things?

When Plato wanted to think of the best possible political theory, he looked inward, towards logic and reason and spewed out a theory based on logic and reason in his two dialogues, The Republic, and The Laws. When Aristotle wanted to figure out what the best possible political theory is, what did he do? He sent his disciples around the area to gather information about how everyone is organizing their polity.

Based on their reports, Aristotle listed six ways to classify states. He said that the ideal state is a monarchy, followed by aristocracy, and then at third polity (similar enough to democracy). The ideal is not practical and hence he suggested polity as the best option because it would be less risky as monarchy might turn to tyranny, and aristocracy into oligarchy.

Empiricism

Empiricism is the way science does things, and how Aristotle sometimes did things. Empiricism is the idea that experiences, observations, experimentations, these sorts of things are the basis of knowledge. You can apply logic over your experiences but experiences serve as the foundation to all knowledge.

Specifically the focus is on senses. Senses feed our minds information, which then transforms that information into more complex ideas of knowledge. The idea being that if you did not have senses, you would have nothing to work on logic with. Ibn Sina counters it with the floating man argument but that is a later topic.

Hence, the proper definition of empiricism is that all knowledge is based on experience that is derived from the senses. This is exactly how science does things. If something cannot be proven through observations, experimentations, or verifiable in some way, it does not become a law.

Is knowledge something out there?

Rationalism and Empiricism have an internal bias that knowledge is something out there that we can grasp. One does it through logic, the other through sensory experiences, and this was the way of thinking for thousands of years until very recently.

Until people like Derrida, and Jean Piaget came to the similar conclusions that knowledge is not out there, and it is not static. Instead when I try to teach someone something, they are going to listen to some of what I am saying, they are going to try and mash it in with what they already know, they are going to incorporate their own biases, and they are going to believe something completely different from what I had intended.

In that sense, there is no knowledge out there that people are absorbing. Instead, they are actively creating their own knowledge that could be unique to them. Similarly, when you read something, you may seem to "absorb" its meaning. However, when you return to it sometime later, you will learn something new and different from it, maybe a different perspective, or a deeper layer. Repeatedly you can return to written text and always grab more and more information and knowledge from the same piece of text, even information that the author had not intended.

Constructivism

Constructivism term is the idea that every individual constructs his or her own knowledge rather than passively taking in information. The truth is not out there, but you make your own truth based on your existing truths. You will incorporate new information in very different ways to someone else.

Look at how the media industry misconstrues the same information in multiple ways for multiple and often opposite purposes. For example, an economic report showing job growth will lead to republicans using that report to show that their tax cuts and deregulation are working and democrats are going to use the same report to show that their efforts and advocacy for worker rights are working. Both groups have strengthened their knowledge from the same new information, and there is no truth out there for us to know which of the two groups are right, maybe both of them are wrong.

Similarly maybe there is a report that there was job growth during the democrats’ government. The democrats are going to be emboldened that their ideas are working. While the republicans are going to say that the job growth is happening despite the current administration's policies and if they were able to govern, the growth would have been significantly better.

On the other side, say, the report said that the job growth is weak; the democrats would chalk it up to external conditions like the global economic conditions and not take the report to heart. While the republicans are going to claim that the detrimental economic policies of the current administration caused the weak growth.

So, understand it in this term. Both groups of humans are receiving the same information from the senses. The have the same ability to reason and logic, it is not that one of them is being illogical and making incorrect conclusions. Hence, neither empiricism nor rationalism explains why republicans and democrats are coming to different conclusions.

Constructivism does explain it by claiming that there is no knowledge out there that these parties are trying to grasp at, instead they are literally creating their own knowledge.

What is the point of knowledge if it is not objective?

If we cannot know objectively which is better, empiricism, rationalism, or constructivism, or which is true, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or the Norse Mythology, then what is the point of using the word 'truth'.

I chalk this up to philosophical fatigue. Once you have read over 20 differing philosophers and all of them make partial sense but also contradict each other, you kind of get the idea that being certain about an objective truth is seemingly pointless.

How could we ever ascribe the label 'truth' to anything if can never be sure. Well we just change what the word true means. Now, truth means useful.

Pragmatism

Programmers know this feeling, if they do not know why their code is working but it does work, who cares? Similarly, if I say the Earth orbits around the sun, it works. But to be pedantic, the earth does not really revolve around the sun. Instead, the earth and sun both revolve around their common center of mass, which is off center.

However, it is useful to say Earth orbits the sun hence it is true 'enough'. Similarly, “the Sun rises in the East” is truly perplexing. The sun is not rising; instead, the earth is rotating. But the statement “the Sun rises in the east” is functionally true.

The idea behind functionally true is whether that statement is successful in some practical application or not. "The sun rises in the east" is practical for navigation so it stays. Pragmatism is not just about these obscure statements, it includes all of useful science as well.

The Bernoulli principle is true because so far it has an incredible record of accomplishment of allowing us to construct airplanes. Maybe one day we find out that the Bernoulli principle was a total fluke of understanding, it did not work how we understood it, it just happened to work out in our favor; pragmatism says 'so what?’ As long as Bernoulli principle works, no matter why or how, it is true.

Therefore, with Pragmatism, we can make claims like, Capitalism improves the living conditions of people, and hence it is true. If it is useful adopt it, if it is useless or harmful, discard it. It also allows the adoption of religious belief and spiritual beliefs. If you think that meditating ten minutes in the morning makes you a better and happier person, who am I to argue. As long as there is a practical success of your belief, it is true, and when there is no practical success, that is no longer true.

Skepticism

Not to go into detail here, the last main idea of empiricism, emphasized by Hume, is that certainty in knowledge is impossible. You can pretend you make your own knowledge and that is okay. You can redefine the word true to mean useful and successful, which is fine as well.

However, as far as the outside world is concerned, you will never be sure that you are not a brain in a jar being fed electrical impulses. This is skepticism. You can find solace in rationalism of indubitable principles of mathematics and logic. But you will never know what you don't know, and you will never be sure that what you do know is real or is it an illusion. This is a horrifying concept plaguing philosophers since the 18th century because of which pragmatism and constructivism came into being.

My opinion is that Skepticism is correct. Certainty is impossible. Instead, one has to cope and choose the route of pragmatism, constructivism, existentialism, religion, or some other philosophy that helps you organize knowledge, find meaning, and obtain happiness and satisfaction in the years we live on this planet.

With this, the basics are over. In the next lesson, we start with Socrates and begin the long journey into the most impactful minds of recorded human history.