Quotes About Epistemology

Paul Benacerraf, 'What Numbers Could Not Be,' Philosophical Review (1965).

Kant wishes to draw the limits of the understanding. If there are things that cannot be grasped by the understanding, then all assertions about them are meaningless.

The pre-Greek civilizations, never discovering the field of epistemology, had no explicit idea of a cognitive process which is systematic, secular, observation-based, logic-ruled; the medievals for centuries had no access to most of this knowledge. The dominant, mystical ideas of such cultures represent a nonrational approach to the world, not an antirational approach.

Christianity prepared the ground. It paved the way for modern totalitarianism by entrenching three fundamentals in the Western mind: in metaphysics, the worship of the supernatural; in epistemology, the reliance on faith; as a consequence, in ethics, the reverence for self-sacrifice.

For those new to philosophy, its two fundamental branches are metaphysics, which studies the nature of existence, and epistemology, which studies man's means of knowledge.

Philosophy is the study of the nature of existence, of knowledge, and of values.

The branch of philosophy that studies knowledge is epistemology.

Since DIM categories are epistemological, their applicability to a given individual is determined not by his mind's content, but by its method—not by what he thinks, but by why he thinks it.

Although there are many variants of Plato's system, what makes them the same in regard to integration is their commitment to two fundamental principles. In metaphysics, their principle is supernaturalism. In epistemology, it is rationalism.

There's nothing more political than epistemological struggles.

Science without epistemology is – insofar as it is thinkable at all – primitive and muddled.

As far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. —Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

He was never quite at home in what we may call our post-positivist era

One task is to identify what for some time I have referred to as the "epistemic politics" that often sever colonial pasts from their contemporary translations

The dualism itself becomes a sort of presupposition or datum; its terms condition the further problem.

An important aspect of an epistemology of ignorance is the realization that ignorance should not be theorized as a simple omission or passive gap but is, in many cases, an active production.

el fracaso del marxismo no está en que haya sido mal aplicado a la realidad, sino a sus propias bases epistemológicas y gnoseológicas, por decirlo de algún modo, y al hecho de que Marx jamás pudo imaginar el potencial económico, tecnológico y democrático que encerraba el capitalismo, el mercado, la libertad.

NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of reasoning—which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought. Hurrah (therefore) for the noumenon!

In genetic epistemology, as in developmental psychology, too, there is never an absolute beginning.

If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.

If there were a verb meaning to believe falsely, it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.

What is the proof that I know something? Most certainly not my saying I know it.

All numbers in logic must be capable of justification.   Or rather it must become plain that there are no numbers in logic.   There are no pre-eminent numbers.

At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.