epistemology
Pluralepistemologies (some meanings)
- 1The branch of philosophy that studies knowledge, asking what it is, how it is gained, what people know, and how they can tell it is true.
Much of modern epistemology is concerned with what it takes for a belief to count as justified.
Her research sits where epistemology meets psychology, asking how beliefs turn into knowledge.
Note
The Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864) brought the term into philosophical English; it is built from Greek epistēmē, "knowledge", and -logia, "study of". Its natural foil is metaphysics, which asks what there is rather than how we know it, and some thinkers hold that from Descartes onward it replaced metaphysics as philosophy's central concern.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- James Frederick Ferrier was a Scottish philosopher who lived from 1808 to 1864. en.wikipedia.org
- Metaphysics investigates reality and existence, providing a contrast with epistemology's investigation of knowledge. en.wikipedia.org
- Some thinkers regard epistemology as having replaced metaphysics as philosophy's primary concern beginning in the early modern period associated with Descartes. philosophica.ugent.be
- 2A particular theory of knowledge, or one version or school of it, as held by a thinker or tradition.
In Kant's epistemology, the mind supplies the forms through which experience is organized.
Feminist epistemologies ask whose experience has counted as knowledge in the first place.
UsageUsually with a possessive or a qualifier: Kant's epistemology, feminist epistemologies.
Practice
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Origin
Ancient Greek supplied both parts: epistḗmē, meaning "science, knowledge," from epístamai ("I know"), and -logía, "study or logic of," which goes back to lógos ("speech, language"). James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864), a philosopher from Scotland, introduced the term into philosophical writing in English.