What is Epistemology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

What is Epistemology - Essay Example The link of epistemology into ontology and the way epistemology shape social research in general. According to scientists, there is a significant difference between too expressions: â€Å"I know that† and â€Å"I know how†. For instance, it is well-known that 1+1=2, however, here we could think not only about the result, but about the process itself: how there two numbers should be summed up. When we state that we â€Å"know† something, the question arises why we â€Å"believe† that. When we â€Å"believe’ in something we usually think that this â€Å"something† will not make us disappointed, for example we may believe in our national basketball team and its victory. However, epistemology considers â€Å"belief† from another point of view. For example, when we believe that the grass is green that means that we consider the statement that the grass is green to be correct. Every statement is simply a preposition of someone else and it does not mean that everybody must believe it .At the same time, if something represents a real fac t, it is true. The main controversy in this area is concentrated on study of the nature of knowledge and its connection to related concepts: information, conviction, and rationalization. It is connected with the method of knowledge acquisition and uncertainty about various statements. The different arguments of rationalism and empiricism and the controversy that occurs on the base on this difference is connected to different experience of the people in their attempts to obtain knowledge. According to rationalists, there are significant methods to obtain information autonomously of experience at the same time as empiricists consider experience to be very essential in knowledge acquisition (Fodor 1975). The vision of rationalists is usually built in the following way: they state that sometimes our knowledge obtained through intuition is more reliable, than that obtained from experience. Then,