Epistemology

Epistemology (from Greek ἐπιστήμη, or episteme, knowledge; and λόγος, or logos, a study or account) is also called Theory of Knowledge. A philosophical discipline, epistemology deals with broad questions: what is knowledge? Is certainty required for knowledge, and what is certainty anyway? From what sources--sense-perception, say, or revelation--do we derive knowledge? Our beliefs can have more or less justification, warrant, or evidence--and these features seem, roughly speaking, required for knowledge. So what are they? Some thinkers doubt that we have any, or very much, knowledge at all. On what grounds can we embrace, or reject, such skepticism? Surely if you are intensely thinking that you have no knowledge, that is certainly a contradiction!

Philosophers have virtually no unanimous views on these topics. Still, in the interest of getting the roughest lay of the land, we can quickly describe a few of the more common opinions. Many, perhaps most, philosophers hold that knowledge is something like justified, true belief; that certainty is not actually required for knowledge; that our basic sources of knowledge include at the very least sense-perception, memory, and reasoning;

In the earlier part of the 20th century, certain other topics were often included in epistemology.