Talk:Epistemology

Link to German article on Epistemology
In the list of links to articles in other languages German seems to be missing even though there is an article called "Erkenntnistheorie" that links to this English article (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erkenntnistheorie). I could not figure out how to add German to the list myself or I am lacking the necessary admin privileges. Maybe anybody who has the necessary privileges to edit that list could help out? Greetings Sidonius (talk) 10:40, 13 November 2023 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, the language links are taken from wikidata. The English article is linked to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9471. The German article is linked to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116930361. One way to fix this would be to link the German article to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9471. Before you do that, you should probably check to corresponding talk pages to see whether there is a reason for having the German article linked to a different item. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I will look into it. The English page that redirects to Epistemology is linked to the wikidata-page where the German article points to. Probably a left over from earlier times. Greetings Sidonius (talk) 08:09, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

The new paragraph on Descartes
Some arguments used in the contemporary externalist/internalist debate in philosophy of mind refer to the relation between mind and body that Descartes introduced in the early modern period. Descartes' answers to epistemological questions are not so easily related to contemporary justificatory views in naturalized epistemology and in the epistemological counterpart of this debate in particular,  but both debates have been related and constitute together a fundamental part of contemporary epistemology and of key contemporary epistemological concepts such as virtue epistemology. Descartes is well known for his dualism, but he is mostly known for his skeptical approach. He used this approach, not to deny that the objects of sensory experiences follow precise laws that can be known, but to gain certainty in the mind side, in the cogito, and he used this as a platform to get to other truths. In that respect,  Descartes was influenced by Plato. However, Descartes argued for a different kind of dualism. The new aspect of Cartesian dualism, with no counterpart in Plato's dualism, is the existence of a real physical world behind the sensory experiences with its own laws and a real mental substance behind our mental experiences and a causal relation between these two worlds. The part of this view, which says that "the external world is real but known to us only indirectly, is called indirect realism". In that sense, Descartes was the father of modern realism and, for realists, of modern philosophy as well. Descartes's interactionism (interaction between the physical reality and the substance of the mind) was abandoned in the nineteenth century because of the growing popularity of philosophical mechanism. Realism itself was not abandoned, only the coexistence of an independent substance behind the mind was abandoned.

References specific to notes
Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:36, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Relevancy
The time and effort you have invested in this section are inspiring and your recent adjustments solve the problem of the initial version. As the text in the paragraph suggests, the way the topic of the paragraph is related to epistemology seems to be rather complicated and indirect. Let's see if I can get it straight: It seems that this chain of connection is not made in a single source that is cited but several sources need to be combined to sketch out this path. Are you sure that this rather distant relation justifies adding a full paragraph to a wide overview article like this one (see WP:PROPORTION)? This issue could be avoided by instead adding this discussion to an article that has the internal-external debate in philosophy of mind as a main topic. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:56, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Contemporary epistemology is part of epistemology
 * 2) The internal-external debate in epistemology belongs to contemporary epistemology
 * 3) The internal-external debate in epistemology is not the same as the internal-external debate in philosophy of mind but there are relations between them
 * 4) Various arguments are used in the internal-external debate in philosophy of mind
 * 5) Some of these argument refer to Descartes' dualism


 * Descartes is such an important figure that I do not see a need to prove the relevancy of a paragraph on Descartes in that section about how contemporary epistemology is historically informed. At the same time, claiming that Descartes had epistemological questions or finding contemporary epistemological concepts in Descartes' philosophy is something else. It is, in Barry Stroud's terminology, a "historically 'oriented' contemporary epistemology", a very different and controversial subject: many say that it is incorrect to use past philosophies in that manner. I am not saying that we should not present all pertinent view points on this, but it should be covered elsewhere, not in that section. This section is different. It must consider Descartes' philosophy as standardly seen by historians and present sources that discuss how this could inform, if at all, contemporary epistemology.  I am not trying to infer that Descartes' dualism informed contemporary epistemology. On the contrary, contemporary epistemology is centred around justification and there are sources that say that Descartes was far away from contemporary justification concerns. So, the paragraph is just being plain direct about it. There is no OR at all, but I know that is not your concern. It is relevancy. In view of the importance of Descartes, the question whether it has informed contemporary epistemology is relevant.  Let me add that I looked at Descartes' skepticism to see if it could have informed contemporary epistemology. Sources such as Popkin explain that Descartes used skepticism in a very special manner, not to deny knowledge of the laws of transitory external phenomena, but to gain certainty in the mind side. It is paradoxical to use skepticism to gain certainty, but that is what sources say.  Descartes' argument is that God gave us a priori knowledge and skepticism is a systematic way to unveil this gift of God. No source explains how this part of Descartes' view might have informed contemporary epistemology or even philosophy of mind and I guess it did not.It is not that sources completely ignore this. For example, Robert Audi wrote "... Descartes’s well-known denial that God would allow such a world, but I cannot pursue it here." On the other hand, we have sources that explain how Descartes' dualism informed the internalist/internalist debate. The more I think about it, the content of that paragraph is not that Descartes has informed contemporary epistemology, but that he has not, except indirectly through the externalist/internalist debate in philosophy of mind. This is clearly relevant in that section and interesting.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 10:37, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with again. And this whole new excursus here is nothing more than WP:OR in my view. Descartes was no skeptic at all. He recognized the challenge of Skepticism (which is an ever present challenge which Epistemology cannot avoid), and tried to provide paths for the achievement of knowledge and certainty, which are the goals of Epistemology. I went through the Britannica entry on Epistemology again, and it is overall much better that what we have here, in my view. There is no mention in it whatsoever of  the internal-external debate in so-called "comtemporary epistemology" as far as I can see. Thank you, warshy (¥¥)  19:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The part about Descartes' skepticism is from Popkin, which you suggested. Moreover, the paragraph, referring to Popkin, says what you say: Descartes found his base for certainty in the cogito. You further say that Descartes had the same goal as epistemology, but if by "epistemology" here you mean contemporary epistemology, this is controversial and requires attribution and it's not the subject of that section anyway. This section is not about whether or not contemporary epistemological questions or concepts can be located in past philosophies. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yep, it is a big mess, in my view, nothing else unfortunately. Simple misunderstandings. warshy (¥¥) 21:02, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * In any case, I am going to take into account what was said here. The paragraph seems to fight in a weak manner (by referring to philosophy of mind) to say that Descartes informed contemporary epistemology. I think that Phlsph7 correctly noticed that. There is something interesting to be said about the question how Descartes informed contemporary epistemology, but that one thing (the indirect connection through philosophy of mind) is only a part of it and not the first thing to be said: though I still think it is very interesting and relevant, it must be given its just place.  Kornblith's view point that it did not inform naturalized epistemology is also interesting on its own. Note that he did not say that Descartes did not inform contemporary epistemology at large, because that would be a very big statement to make: there might be contemporary epistemologists that take a metaphysical view similar to Descartes' view based on apriori given to us by God (renamed as Nature). Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

We can proceed with the central concepts and see what context is needed
The context that was moved at the end might not be what people in the contemporary epistemological bubble expect, but Wikipedia is not the place to reproduce bubbles that occur in academic circles. I mean, one might feel that the section on central concepts is self sufficient and does not need context, but that is because it is presented as a bubble that stands on its own. It presents a view of analytic philosophy on knowledge, in particular, the justified true belief view, as if it was the only view. This is not what Wikipedia must do. The whole point of having a context is to change that. But, we can start with the central concepts and try to present them in a way that acknowledges the specific place contemporary epistemology has within its context. Will see how it goes. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree that articles should not ignore alternative views. But as I see it, our main job is usually to present the dominant views as discussed in the reliable academic sources. That doesn't mean that critical voices stating alternative views are ignored or silenced. But they don't receive the same attention in terms of coverage and placement. So whatever bubble the academic discourse may be in, it's not our responsibility to burst it or to protect our readers from the dominant views in it. The discussion of justified true belief and alternative characterizations is not at the beginning but found in a later section. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:16, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I find annoying that you suggest that I want to protect our readers from the dominant views in the subject—I am not even sure what you mean by this and that makes it even more annoying. The natural interpretation of "protect against a content" would be not to present that content, but that leads to a ridiculous concern: my entire goal is to present the dominant and contemporary view in epistemology within its context. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:10, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to be the cause of annoyance. If your bubble remarks were meant in different sense then I'm happy that we are on the same page. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

image for lead
A B-class article that gets as much traffic as this one ought to have an image in the lead so that it is appealingly decorated in search results. I am adding Mind in Cave by David S. Soriano. If this is too flashy, a couple other options would be or. I don't have strong views on what the image should be, just that the article ought to have one.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The problem with your image is that it suggests that modern epistemology asks the same questions which Plato also asked, but many philosophers disagree with that. Not only the text of a Wikipedia article, but also its images cannot present a view point in Wikipedia's voice. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * My only request then would be to replace it with something you deem more neutral rather than simply removing it. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:58, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * (Although, honestly, if I wanted to, such a distinctly modernist take on an ancient allegory could easily be defended as making precisely your point: the same abiding interest in knowledge takes on different forms under different historical circumstances.) Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:03, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Changes to the article
I was thinking about implementing changes to this article with the hope of moving it in the direction of GA status. The article has 12 unreferenced paragraphs and the following maintenance tags: 1x More citations needed, 3x clarification needed, 1x page needed, 1x citation needed, 1x dead link.

The article has an odd structure. It has a section dedicated to schools of thought but many schools of thought have their own subsections elsewhere, like internalism, virtue epistemology, and foundationalism. Knowledge is defined first in the subsection "Knowledge" and later in the section "Defining knowledge". Redundancies are also a problem in the two separate subsections dedicated to the apriori-aposteriori distinction and the discussion of skepticism first in the subsection "Skepticism" and later the section "Epistemological concepts in past philosophies". The section "Schools of thought" has too many subsections, some of which are quite short. It would probably be better to only use separate subsections for the most important traditions and merge the remaining subsections. The definition of epistemology should be discussed somewhere in the body of the article so that the lead can summarize it rather than present information not found in the body of the article.

The article has some historical information but it lacks a structured discussion of the history of epistemology regarding the main positions in ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary philosophy. The pieces that are already there could probably be included in a more organized presentation as parts. Various important topics are also missing from the rest of the article or are only alluded to, such as applied epistemology, evidentialism, fallibilism, contrastivism, epistemology of religion, and moral epistemology. It also wouldn't hurt to mention the problem of knowledge of other minds and the problem of induction somewhere. The article is already quite long so some of the current contents would need to be summarize to keep the length managable. There is a lengthy paragraph on words for knowledge in other languages that could probably be removed and getting rid of some redundancies would also help reduce length.

Various smaller adjustments are needed but they can be addressed later since the ones mentioned so far will already involve a lot of work to implement. I was hoping to get some feedback on these ideas and possibly other suggestions. I still have to do some research to work out the details. After that, I would start implementing them one at a time but it will probably take a while to address all the points. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:57, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The article should explain the context of its subject, modern epistemology, in a more fundamental manner, not only as an afterthought, in particular, not only in a history section at the end.  As a starting point and always in the background thereafter, the article should have a critical explanation or analysis of the approach taken by modern epistemology so that the readers can appreciate the subject from a neutral point of view. Modern epistemology is the epistemology that started more or less with the Gettier problem, at the least as a social phenomena. This subject exists in a larger background.  For example, this modern epistemology is not seen in the direction that "epistemology" took in the French culture. The complain is not that there is not enough space attributed to French Epistemology or to Epistemology as seen in Popper's work and some of his students that criticized him, etc. On the contrary, that would have the opposite effect of claiming indirectly in an uncritical manner that modern epistemology somehow covers all these subjects and that they only deserve some sections in the article, as if they are not more interesting than that within this big subject.  This is a pretentious position that is acceptable when coming from many modern epistemologists, but is not acceptable within Wikipedia. What is needed is a more focused article, but an article that at the same time explains more its own context. The other approaches, French epistemology, Popper's epistemology without a knowing subject, etc. should only be mentioned to help that and only if it helps, not as a way to pretend that the article covers a big subject that includes them. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:18, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for raising this point. I'm aware that this was the topic of some of our previous discussions and I intend to keep it in mind as I tackle the other sections. I plan to add more explicit information on the historical context when I get to the subsection "Historical epistemology" and I hope to include a short mention of this in the lead after the other points have been addressed. Ideally, the article's main subject should not be limited to new topics that have come into focus since Gettier's counterexamples but encompass epistemology in general. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:15, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * A Wikipedian might have a sincere vision of a general article, but actually he has a good vision that is focused on a nice topic that is well sourced and unified in the literature, including debates within that topic: unified does not mean a single point of view without debates. In that case, he may actually write an article that is well sourced and would be a nice article except for the fact that it is presented as a "general article" and fail to describe its own context properly and thus conflict with other views and violate NPOV while not going as deep as it should on its actual topic.
 * The notion of "in general" is fundamentally problematic when the overall literature on the given "topic" is fundamentally divided in different approaches or cultures. Otherwise, we simply pick a few reliable sources that represent the overall topic, understand them and write a nice GA article. But, this unity does not exists for most kind of knowledge. I don't see it for Epistemology.  Scientific knowledge seems to be an exception, but not philosophical knowledge. It's very tempting to try to write a "general article" and to even see it as the ultimate goal of Wikipedia, but there is no  basis to do it correctly. It will rely heavily on our ability to step back and gain a vision that, by definition, no universally reliable and notorious source ever had before. For this reason, it is very hard to write a general article without violating NOR or NPOV. For example, the criteria used to determine relevancy is likely to reflect the point of view of one part of this non unified literature and there will be a violation of NPOV. Worst, the criteria will be our own invention and it will be hard to justify it without violating NOR. Even if we succeed, the article will itself be divided with parts not well linked as it is the case in the sources that represent the overall literature. In other words, not much will be gained in terms of organization and it will not correspond to any ultimate goal.
 * Dominic Mayers (talk) 08:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Etymology used to present a point of view
This illustrates the general issue discussed in the previous section. Indirectly, through an etymological statement, the article presents a specific view on today's epistemology and on ancient Greek knowledge as being a universal view. The French version fr:Épistémologie uses a similar approach, but with their own adapted etymological view in which "episteme" refers to science: which translates as  The etymological statement in the article, as does the above statement in the French version, misrepresents ancient Greek knowledge to give a false impression that the article is universal and cover a general topic. To my knowledge, there is no universal view on the ancient Greek meaning of "episteme", but the most accepted view among scholars is that it is a knowledge accompanied with a techne, a skill. It is not useful to enter into the details. The point is that the etymological statement in the article (and also in the French version, but to support their own different approach) serves only the purpose of claiming that the article is a general article, but in doing so it relies on a simplistic view of the knowledge in ancient Greek. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:31, 20 July 2024 (UTC)