Epistemology

Epistemology (ⁱ/ᵻˌpɪstᵻˈmɒlədʒi/; from Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē, meaning "knowledge, understanding", and λόγος, logos, meaning "word") is a term first used by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier to describe the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge; it is also referred to as "theory of knowledge". Put concisely, it is the study of knowledge and justified belief. It questions what knowledge is and how it can be acquired, and the extent to which knowledge pertinent to any given subject or entity can be acquired. Much of the debate in this field has focused on the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification. The term was probably first introduced in Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysic: The Theory of Knowing and Being (1854), p. 46.

Background and meaning

The word epistemology is derived from the Greek epistēmē meaning "knowledge" and logos meaning "speech" or "word", in this context denoting "codified knowledge of". J.F. Ferrier coined epistemology on the model of 'ontology', to designate that branch of philosophy which aims to discover the meaning of knowledge, and called it the 'true beginning' of philosophy. The word is equivalent to the German concept Wissenschaftslehre, which was used by Fichte and Bolzano for different projects before it was taken up again by Husserl. French philosophers then gave the term épistémologie a narrower meaning as 'theory of knowledge [théorie de la connaissance].' E.g., Émile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality, written in 1908, with the remark that the word 'is becoming current' as equivalent to 'the philosophy of the sciences.'

Social epistemology

Social epistemology refers to a broad set of approaches to the study of knowledge that construes human knowledge as a collective achievement. Another way of characterizing social epistemology is as the study of the social dimensions of knowledge. One of the enduring difficulties with defining "social epistemology" is that of determining what the word "knowledge" means in this context. There is also a challenge in arriving at a definition of "social" which satisfies academics from different disciplines. Social epistemologists may be found working in many of the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, most commonly in philosophy and sociology. In addition to marking a distinct movement in traditional, analytic epistemology, social epistemology is associated with the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).

The emergence of social epistemology

The term "social epistemology" was first used by the library scientists Margaret Egan and Jesse Shera in the 1950s. Steven Shapin also used it in 1979. But its current sense began to emerge in the late 1980s. In 1987, the philosophical journal Synthese published a special issue on "social epistemology" which included two authors that have since taken "social epistemology" in two divergent directions: Alvin Goldman and Steve Fuller³. Fuller founded a journal called Social Epistemology: a journal of knowledge, culture, and policy in 1987 and published his first book, Social Epistemology, in 1988. Goldman's Knowledge in a Social World came out in 1999. Goldman advocates for a type of epistemology which is sometimes called "veritistic epistemology" because of its large emphasis on truth. This type of epistemology is sometimes seen to side with "essentialism" as opposed to "multiculturalism". But Goldman has argued that this association between veritistic epistemology and essentialism is not necessary.

Genetic epistemology

Genetic epistemology is a study of the origins (genesis) of knowledge (epistemology). The discipline was established by Jean Piaget.

Aims

The goal of genetic epistemology is to link the validity of knowledge to the model of its construction. It shows that how the knowledge was gained affects how valid it is. For example, our experience of gravity makes our knowledge of it more valid than our theory about black holes. Genetic epistemology also explains the process of how people develop cognitively from birth throughout their lives in four primary stages: sensorimotor (birth to age 2), preoperational (2-7), concrete operational (7-11), and formal operational (11 years onward). The main focus is on the younger years of development. Assimilation occurs when the perception of a new event or object occurs to the learner in an existing schema and is usually used in the context of self-motivation. In Accommodation, one accommodates the experiences according to the outcome of the tasks. The highest form of development is equilibration. Equilibration encompasses both assimilation and accommodation as the learner changes how they think to get a better answer. This is the upper level of development.

Crash Course

Crash Course (also known as Driving Academy) is a 1988 made for television teen film directed by Oz Scott.

Plot

Crash Course centers on a group of high schoolers in a driver’s education class; many for the second or third time. The recently divorced teacher, super-passive Larry Pearl, is on thin ice with the football fanatic principal, Principal Paulson, who is being pressured by the district superintendent to raise driver’s education completion rates or lose his coveted football program. With this in mind, Principal Paulson and his assistant, with a secret desire for his job, Abner Frasier, hire an outside driver’s education instructor with a very tough reputation, Edna Savage, aka E.W. Savage, who quickly takes control of the class.

The plot focuses mostly on the students and their interactions with their teachers and each other. In the beginning, Rico is the loner with just a few friends, Chadley is the bookish nerd with few friends who longs to be cool and also longs to be a part of Vanessa’s life who is the young, friendly and attractive girl who had to fake her mother’s signature on her driver’s education permission slip. Kichi is the hip-hop Asian kid who often raps what he has to say and constantly flirts with Maria, the rich foreign girl who thinks that the right-of-way on the roadways always goes to (insert awesomely fake foreign Latino accent) “my father’s limo”. Finally you have stereotypical football meathead J.J., who needs to pass his English exam to keep his eligibility and constantly asks out and gets rejected by Alice, the tomboy whose father owns “Santini & Son” Concrete Company. Alice is portrayed as being the “son” her father wanted.