Epistemology: How Do We Know What We Know?

Epistemology deals with nature and scope of knowledge and is considered one of the most important branches of philosophy today. In fact, a lot of schools of thought are based on epistemology as it tends to address the most basic yet the most important of things, which is knowledge.

Epistemology tends to question the very term knowledge. It asks questions like what is knowledge, how does one acquire knowledge, how does one know that what he knows is right, and what does one know? While these questions can be slightly confusing for common man, philosophers ponder these questions like anything and try to come up with answers in order to address issues in the universe philosophically.

There are two most important aspects of knowing something. Firstly, you know about a thing and secondly, you know how to do that thing. For example, there is a mathematical problem. You know the problem, you know the nature of the problem, and you know the outcome. But, knowing how to solve the problem to get the desired outcome is entirely different from knowing the problem and its outcome in the first place. This difference is mutually exclusive and is differentiated as knowledge-that and knowledge-how in epistemology.

To explain further, there is a simple problem like this. Three plus three equals six. You know it. You understand it. This is called knowledge-that. Now, in order to justify your belief that you know the problem and its outcome, you need to do it yourself. In other words, you should be able to add three plus three and come up with the answer six. This is called knowledge-how. Simply put, knowledge-that assumes that you know the problem and its solution while knowledge-how proves that you know the problem and its solution.

Also, epistemology states the difference between believing something and knowing something. This is in fact one of the most useful explanations upon which a lot of other things can be derived upon. You can believe something by all means. It doesn't need to be right or wrong. In other words, you can believe in something and it could be right or wrong. On the other hand, if you know something, it cannot be wrong, as knowledge is absolute while belief is not. You continue to believe in things only when you are not sure of them. The moment you are sure of something, in other words, the moment you know something, you stop believing it, as you know it.

A lot of philosophers like Plato, Simon Blackburn, Timothy Williamson, D.M. Armstrong, Alvin Goldman, Richard Kirkham, and Edmund Gettier have contributed to epistemology immensely. To date, epistemology continues to be one of the most genuine methods of thinking.