Epistemology i/ɨˌpɪstɨˈmɒlədʒi/ (from Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē), meaning "knowledge, understanding", and λόγος (logos), meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:
Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification. One view is the objection that there is very little or no knowledge at all—skepticism. The field is sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge.
The term was introduced by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).
In this article, and in epistemology in general, the kind of knowledge usually discussed is propositional knowledge, also known as "knowledge that." This is distinct from "knowledge how" and "acquaintance-knowledge." For example: in mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers and knowing a person (e.g., oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g., addition). Some[who?] philosophers think there is an important distinction between "knowing that," "knowing how," and "acquaintance-knowledge," with epistemology primarily interested in the first.
Ernest Sosa is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. He is currently Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has been at Rutgers full-time since January, 2007; previously, he had been at Brown University since 1964. While full-time at Brown, he was also a distinguished visiting professor at Rutgers every spring from 1998-2006.
He is one of the leading contemporary epistemologists, and has also written on metaphysics, modern philosophy and philosophy of mind. In his books Knowledge in Perspective (1991) and A Virtue Epistemology (2007), Sosa defends a form of virtue epistemology called "virtue perspectivism", which distinguishes animal knowledge from reflective knowledge. Born in Cárdenas, Cuba on June 17, 1940, Sosa earned his BA and MA from the University of Miami and his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964 where his dissertation was supervised by Nicholas Rescher.
Sosa is a past president of the American Philosophical Association and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
John Henry McDowell (born 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford and now University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written extensively on metaphysics, epistemology, ancient philosophy, and meta-ethics, McDowell's most influential work has been in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. McDowell was one of three recipients of the 2010 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award.
McDowell has, throughout his career, understood philosophy to be "therapeutic" and thereby to "leave everything as it is", which he understands to be a form of philosophical quietism (although he does not consider himself to be a "quietist"). The philosophical quietist believes that philosophy cannot make any explanatory comment about how, for example, thought and talk relate to the world but can, by offering re-descriptions of philosophically problematic cases, return the confused philosopher to a state of intellectual quietude. However, in defending this quietistic perspective McDowell has engaged with the work of leading contemporaries in such a way as to both therapeutically dissolve what he takes to be philosophical error, while developing original and distinctive theses about language, mind and value. In each case, he has tried to resist the influence of what he regards as a misguided, reductive form of philosophical naturalism that dominates the work of his contemporaries, particularly in North America.
Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of the philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her besides Aristotle.
Matthew Stephen Ward, known by his stage name M. Ward, is a singer-songwriter and guitarist who rose to prominence in the Portland, Oregon music scene. In addition to his solo work he is known as a member of She & Him and Monsters of Folk.
Ward's solo debut, Duet for Guitars #2, was released by Howe Gelb on his Ow Om record label. Ward's 2001 album, End of Amnesia, was put out by Future Farmer Records. A collection of live recordings, Live Music & The Voice of Strangers, was a self-released disc that was sold at his shows in 2001. His subsequent albums have been released on Merge Records.
He has guested on recordings by Cat Power, Neko Case, Beth Orton (with whom he co-wrote the title track to her album Comfort of Strangers), The Court & Spark, Bright Eyes (with whom he toured on the 2004 Vote for Change tour with R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen), Jenny Lewis (whose debut solo album Rabbit Fur Coat he co-produced), and My Morning Jacket.
In 2004, Ward played guitar for Bright Eyes on a taping of The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. During the performance, Bright Eyes' singer Conor Oberst yelled out "M. Ward for President!" This prompted Newsweek to run an article on Ward and his next album Transistor Radio.[citation needed] Also in 2004, Ward had his song Transfiguration #1 featured in Chris Malloy's surf documentary "A Brokedown Melody."
I was raised in a Catholic school, learned who to fire with and pray to
I learned how to hold on from a book of old Psalms
And if you're trying to sing an old song, you're getting all the words wrong
Well, you're just a-following along too closely in the book
I learned how to keep my head from something Paul said
About keeping the fruit in the spirit from the chorus down to the hook
And sometimes I wonder what in God's name did I do to deserve you
Oh, to deserve you
'Cause I just rolled and I tumbled, down a long road I stumbled
While shooting in the dark as to what's best
And finally I found you without ever learning how to
I put the right foot in front of the leg and beyond that is anybody's guess
I learned how to keep my head from something Paul said
About keeping the fruit in the spirit from the chorus down to the hook
Oh, and sometimes I wonder what in God's name did I do to deserve you
Oh, to deserve you
'Cause I just rolled and I tumbled, down a long road I stumbled
While shooting in the dark as to what's best
And finally I found you without ever learning how to
I put the right foot in front of the leg
'Cause I just rolled and I tumbled, down a long road I stumbled
While shooting in the dark as to what's best
Oh, as to what's best, as to what's best
And finally I found you without ever learning how to
I put the right foot in front of the leg and beyond that is anybody's guess