Epistemology

Epistemology - from greek "episteme" (knowledge) and "logos" (word, study of, or reasoning about) - is the study of the nature of knowledge and its various aspects, as well as the conditions under which knowledge might be said to be had or gained.

In everyday contexts, we believe that we have a lot of knowledge. We know what day it is, we know that we have hands, we know that there are other people, that electrons exist, etc... or so we think. However, once we try to characterize knowledge and justification, we quickly realize that things are less clear than we thought. What can we know? And how? Are there different kinds of knowlegde? Do we need to believe what we know to be true? 

In this course, we will look at various topics in epistemology, notably at the structure of justification, the nature of knowledge, the debate between internalism and externalism (New Evil Demon problem), perceptual justification, and (as new additions) social epistemology, the epistemology of conspiracy theories, testimony and peer disagreement, and perhaps even some epistemic logic.