Concept
Definitions of knowledge
Overview
Definitions of knowledge aim to identify the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philosophers, for example, that it involves cognitive success and epistemic contact with reality. Despite extensive study, disagreements about the nature of knowledge persist, in part because researchers use diverging methodologies, seek definitions for distinct purposes, and have differing intuitions about the standards of knowledge.
An often-discussed definition asserts that knowledge is justified true belief. Justification means that the belief fulfills certain norms like being based on good reasons or being the product of a reliable cognitive process. This approach seeks to distinguish knowledge from mere true beliefs that arise from superstition, lucky guesses, or flawed reasoning. Critics of the justified-true-belief view, like Edmund Gettier, have proposed counterexamples to show that some justified true beliefs do not amount to knowledge if the justification is not genuinely connected to the truth, a condition termed epistemic luck.
In response, some philosophers have expanded the justified-true-belief definition with additional criteria intended to avoid these counterexamples. Suggested criteria include that the known fact caused the belief, that the belief manifests a cognitive virtue, that the belief is not inferred from a falsehood, and that the justification cannot be undermined. However, not all philosophers agree that such modifications are successful. Some propose a radical reconceptualization or hold that knowledge is a unique state not definable as a combination of other states.
Most definitions seek to understand the features of propositional knowledge, which is theoretical knowledge of a fact that can be expressed through a declarative that-clause, such as "knowing that Dave is at home". Other definitions focus on practical knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance. Practical knowledge concerns the ability to do something, like knowing how to swim. Knowledge by acquaintance is a familiarity with something based on experiential contact, like knowing the taste of chocolate.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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What we firmly believe, if it is true, is called _knowledge_, provided it is either intuitive or inferred (logically or psychologically) from intuitive knowledge from which it follows logically. What we firmly believe, if it is not true, is called _error_. What we firmly believe, if it is neither knowledge nor error, and also what we believe hesitatingly, because it is, or is derived from, something which has not…
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
States what Definitions of knowledge is; the author is tied to Definitions of knowledge in the knowledge graph.
THEAETETUS: That seems to be true. SOCRATES: But how utterly foolish, when we are asking what is knowledge, that the reply should only be, right opinion with knowledge of difference or of anything! And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither sensation nor true opinion, nor yet definition and explanation accompanying and added to true opinion? THEAETETUS: I suppose not. SOCRATES: And are you still in labour and travail…
Plato, Theaetetus
The author is tied to Definitions of knowledge in the knowledge graph; opens on Definitions of knowledge.
When I say that it has been so viewed, I mean that this has been the practice of philosophers; in ordinary life, people have been more objective. In ordinary life, knowledge is something which can be tested by examinations, that is to say, it consists in a certain kind of response to a certain kind of stimulus. This objective way of viewing knowledge is, to my mind, much more fruitful than the way which has been…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
The author is tied to Definitions of knowledge in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Definitions of knowledge
- Edmund Gettier
- David Malet Armstrong
- Xenophanes
- Plato
- Timothy Williamson
- Beyond Good and Evil
- Kenneth Burke
Related ideas
- Belief
- Linda Zagzebski
- Virtue epistemology
- Cognition
- Foundationalism
- Natural kind
- Argumentation theory
- Counterexample
- If and only if
- Internalism and externalism
- Intuition
- Analytic philosophy
- Judgement
- Cartesian doubt
- Necessity and sufficiency
- Peru
- Infallibility
- Information
- Culture
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Philosophical skepticism
- Evidence
- Mental state
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.