Prior to the 70s philosophy of science was trying to get at the essence of science, but after that point, philosophy of science rather tried to understand specific sciences and how they operate. In physics there are clear general laws, but in other sciences, like biology, general laws are rare.
How do we get any kind of knowledge?
(Well, you can go and research. Do activities linked with attaining knowledge, but do we actually gain knowledge by doing that? What kind of ontological thing do we get so to speak?)
Episteme = knowledge, understanding, science
Logos = discourse, rational account, argument, theory
TOK and Epistemology are convertible.
Epistemic: having to do with knowledge
Epistemological: having to do with epistemology
(Though often used wrong)
Epistemological questions can be asked in every other subdiscipline as well so it is kinda all-pervasive.
Different uses between epistemological questions in different disciplines?
WHY ASK QUESTIONS THAT MAKE HIM GO ON LNGER ABOUT NOTHING?????
Know-how vs. Know-that vs. Know-of
Procedural vs. Propositional vs. Objectual
It is relatively unctontroversial to say that beings have objectual and procedural knowledge.
A bird knows how to build a nest
A bird knows her clutch of eggs
Propositional knowledge is the general focus of epistemology
Propositions are referents of ”that-clauses”, well defined, and they are what is denoted by declarative sentences.
Two important prerequisites for propositional knowledge:
Belief
&
Truth
They are necessary conditions for knowledge. If one is not fulfilled, it is not knowledge.
If John knows x Then (he believes that x & it is true that x)
Truth and belief are necessary for knowledge
Knowledge is sufficient for truth and belief
Is truth really necessary?
For the truth condition not to be met we would need a case in which
S genuinely knows that p
yet it is not true that p
So if some theory is disproven, the knowledge that theory provided was false knowledge.
(Though in reality, given the scientific method, we should assume that the knowledge we currently have also is false knowledge, given that empirically all prior theories have been disproven, so everything points to the direction that our current knowledge is of the same nature, and so this method actually just forfeits any possibility of knowledge at all but that’s just a game theory. Anyways that’s part of what he wants to teach us so I guess it’s okay………..)
Luck undermines knowledge, if we’re just lucky about something being right we don’t actually know it.
Tools do not know things surprisingly, they only indicate what they are trying to show through their use.
True belief: p ^ Bp - -p
false belief: -p^Bp - p
Truth condition for knowledge: Kp → p
the belief condition for knowledge: Kp → Bp
True belief is a necessary condition for knowledge, true belief is not a sufficient condition for knowledge.
Knowledge seems to also be tied to some kind of reliability or certainty.
A goal of epistemology is to find the conditional x such that
Kp → (p^Bp^x)
Kp ← (p^Bp^x)
”Maybe there is no common essence that ties all causes of knowledge together. ’Family resermblances’ account for the unity of concepts without implying essences” - Wittgenstein