KNOWLEDGE
(Epistemology)

What is Knowledge?
Ancient Greek philosophers; “Knowledge is power.
Knowledge to be power over oneself.”
To modern man; “ Knowledge is power over the world.
Knowledge is the power to control and
manipulate our environment.”

the "Tri-Partite" or "Justified True Belief"
(JTB) theory. The traditional approach is that knowledge requires
three necessary and sufficient conditions, so that
knowledge can then be defined as
JTB "justified true belief":

Truth Condition
"To say of something which is that it is not, or to
say of something which is not that it is, is false.
However, to say of something which is that it is,
or of something which is not that it is not, is
true." (Aristotle)

Belief Condition
One cannot know something that One doesn't even
believe in, the statement, "I know x, but I don't believe
that x is true" is contradictory.

Justification Condition
“Lucky guesses cannot constitute
knowledge; we can only know what we
have good reason to believe.”

JTB Model
(JTB) S knows that P iff (1) P is true;
(2) S believes that P; and
(3) S is justified in
believing that P.
S= Subject
P= Proposition
justified-true-belief

How Is Knowledge
Acquired?

”
Propositional knowledge,
"knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge-
how" (for example, the knowledge that "2 + 2 = 4",
as opposed to the knowledge of how to go about
adding two numbers).

Two types of Propositional Knowledge
“a priori”(or non-empirical), Before Experience
a.k.a Analytic Knowledge
“a posteriori” (or empirical), After Experience
a.k.a . Synthetic Knowledge

Sources of Knowledge

Simply, we can define truth as: a
statement about the way the world
actually is.
What is Truth?

 The COHERENCE theory describes truth in terms of
interconnected belief.
 The CORRESPONDENCE theory describes truth in terms of
a relation concepts or propositions have to the actual world.
 Finally POSTMODERNISM lays out a view of truth in
terms of individual perspectives and community agreement.
Three main views of TRUTH

Thank You!
Any questions?