Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

Is the central figure in modern philosophy. He synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism, set the terms for much of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, and continues to exercise a significant influence today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and other fields. The fundamental idea of Kant's “critical philosophy”. 

He argues that the human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that human reason gives itself the moral law, which is our basis for belief in God, freedom, and immortality. Therefore, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious belief are mutually consistent and secure because they all rest on the same foundation of human autonomy, which is also the final end of nature according to the teleological worldview of reflecting judgment that Kant introduces to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system.

Spinoza (1632 - 1677)

       Spinoza is one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period. His thought combines a commitment to Cartesian metaphysical and epistemological principles with elements from ancient Stoicism and medieval Jewish rationalism into a nonetheless highly original system. His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness. They also lay the foundations for a strongly democratic political thought and a deep critique of the pretensions of Scripture and sectarian religion. Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth-century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza.

—His ethics are very similar to Aristotle’s in content and in being eudemonistic. 

—He holds a reductionist and arguably naturalistic understanding of the human being.

—He denies the freedom of the will and transcendent values.

—He tends to subsume the practical under the theoretical.
 

Method of Epistemology:
The admission that there are a variety of ways one can have knowledge.
There is a definitively adequate way for knowing this variety of ways.
—Spinoza’s method has two aspects; one that is formal and another that is more concerned with the concrete perspectives that define the different ways one can have knowledge. 

Knowledge — :

 Adequate vs. Inadequate ideas
3 Types of knowledge

-Imagination: disorganized accumulation of experience

- Reason : logical deductions made based on an understanding of the nature of space (e.g. geometry) or of the nature of thought (e.g. logic, psychology)

-intuition: the intuitive grasp of a particular thing on the basics of ration   

 
Ethics: 

—The polemic against traditional ethics:  

-Against free will

  -Against absolute normative terms 

  -Against teleology 

—The naturalistic replacement: 

  -The human being as conatus 

  -The redefinition of “freedom,” “good,” and “bad” 

  -A special brand of hedonism 

  -Resemblance to Aristotelian virtue ethics 

  -Akrasia and moral knowledge

Rene Descartes (1595-1650)

Rene Descartes was a famous French mathematician, scientist and philosopher. He was arguably the first major philosopher in the modern era to make a serious effort to defeat skepticism. His views about knowledge and certainty, as well as his views about the relationship between mind and body have been very influential over the last three centuries.
Descartes understands doubt as the contrast of certainty. As my certainty increases, my doubt decreases; conversely, as my doubt increases, my certainty decreases. The requirement that knowledge is to be based in complete, or perfect certainty, amounts to requiring a complete absence of doubt — an indubitability, or inability to undermine one's conviction. Descartes' methodic emphasis on doubt, rather than on certainty, marks an epistemological innovation. This so-called ‘method of doubt’

William Ockham (1287 - 1347)

William of Ockham is, along with Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, among the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy during the High Middle Ages. He is probably best known today for his espousal of metaphysical nominalism; indeed, the methodological principle known as “Ockham's Razor” is named after him. But Ockham held important, often influential views not only in metaphysics but also in all other major areas of medieval philosophy—logic, physics or natural philosophy, theory of knowledge, ethics, and political philosophy—as well as in theology.

Ockham's is not much concerned with answering skeptical doubts. He takes it for granted that humans not only can but frequently do know things, and focuses his attention instead on the “mechanisms” by which this knowledge comes about.  Ockham's theory of knowledge, like his natural philosophy, is broadly Aristotelian in form, although—again, like his natural philosophy—it is “Aristotelian” in its own way. For most Aristotelians of the day, knowledge involved the transmission of a “species” between the object and the mind. At the sensory level, this species may be compared to the more recent notion of a sense “impression.” 

Plato (427—347 BCE)

Plato is one of the world’s best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher ofAristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many of Plato’s writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans. 

Platonic epistemology holds that knowledge is innate, so that learning is the development of ideas buried deep in the soul, often under the midwife-like guidance of an interrogator. Plato believed that each soul existed before birth with "The Form of the Good" and a perfect knowledge of everything. Thus, when something is "learned" it is actually just "recalled."

Epistemology - Subtopics

1. Accessibilism : The position that whether someone's belief is justified supervenes only on facts to which that person has some sort of access.
2. Epistemic injustice: Principle that when one is not believed for prejudicial reasons one is wronged epistemically. Primarily advanced by British philosopher Miranda Fricker.
3. Internalism and externalism: Names of two contrasting theories in several areas of philosophy, Internalism has a variety of different meanings within philosophy, and for each of these meanings there is a corresponding externalist position which is just the denial of the internalist one.
4. Knowledge: On one common account by philosophers, justified, true belief; often used in a looser way by everyone else to mean any truth or belief, and also a whole body of truth or a whole system of belief.
5. Mentalism : The position that whether someone's belief is justified supervenes only on their mental states.
6. Philosophical skepticism: Rejection of the possibility of knowledge.
7. Rating raw intelligence: The process, before intelligence analysis, in which intelligence collection managers rate individual items of "raw" collected data for plausibility and reliability
8. Reliabilism : The theory that a belief is justified, or a true belief is known, if it is the product of a reliable process.

Purpose

• Analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification. 
• Deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.

 

Basic Questions

1.  What is knowledge? That is, what counts as knowledge as opposed to belief or opinion?

a)      beliefs which are true for which we can give justification

1. 2.   Can we have knowledge? Are human beings capable of knowing anything?

a)      Skepticism - "No!"

b)      Dogmatism - "Yes!"

1. 3.   How do we get knowledge? What is the process by which knowledge is obtained?

a)      Rationalism - through reason alone

b)      Empiricism - through the senses alone

1. 4.      What can we know?

a)      What ever we want to know.

1. 5.      How can we know it?

a)      Through reason

1. 6.      Why do we know some things, but not others?

a)      Because our reason or our senses, don’t perceive it

1. 7.      Is knowledge possible?

a)      Skepticism - "No!"

b)      Dogmatism - "Yes!"

1. 8.      Can knowledge be certain?

a)      Yes. It is acquired through experience.

1. 9.      How can we differentiate truth from falsehood?

a)      The truth will always provide us those beliefs that have real justification of facts.

1. 10.  Why do we believe certain claims and not others?

a)      Because we have the proof and knowledge of certain claims and according to our knowledge we can deduct which claims are truth or not.

Epistemology