Epistemological theories

In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to other possible sources of knowledge such as faith, tradition, or sensory experience. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.

thumb|right|upright=1|Auguste Comte, the founder of modern positivism

assertion that only statements verifiable through empirical observation are meaningful

thumb|Adriaen van Ostade, "Analysis" (1666)

Solipsism ( ; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.

thumb|René Descartes, in De homine (1662), claimed that non-human animals could be explained reductively as automata; meaning essentially as more mechanically complex versions of this [[Digesting Duck.]]

Objectivism is a philosophical system named and developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".

thumb|upright=1.3|alt=Pair of black swans swimming|Here are two black swans, but even with no black swans, "All swans are white" would still be shown falsifiable by "Here is a black swan"—it would still be a valid observation statement in the empirical language, even if empirically false.

In epistemology, sensualism (also sensationalism or sensationism) is a doctrine whereby sensations and perception are the basic and most important form of true cognition. It may oppose abstract ideas.

Fideism ( ) is a standpoint or an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology). The word fideism comes from , the Latin word for faith, and literally means "faith-ism". Philosophers have identified a number of different forms of fideism. Strict fideists hold that reason has no place in discovering theological truths, while moderate fideists hold that though some truth can be known by reason, faith stands above reason.

a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight

school of thought in metaphysics, psychology, sociology, and theology

philosophical theory

In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist as "things-in-themselves", but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in space. In particular, some forms of phenomenalism reduce all talk about physical objects in the external world to talk about bundles of sense data.

epistemology, proposed by Kant, in which space and time are merely formal features of how we perceive objects, not things in themselves that exist independently of us

epistemological philosophy advanced by Karl Popper

Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth.

questioning the possibility of certainty, or of judgement, due to inadequate evidence

In the philosophy of mind, innatism is the view that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. The opposing doctrine, that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth and all knowledge is gained from experience and the senses, is called empiricism.

Perspectivism (also called perspectivalism) is the epistemological principle that perception of and knowledge of something are always bound to the interpretive perspectives of those observing it. While perspectivism regard all perspectives and interpretations as being of equal truth or value, it holds that no one has access to an absolute view of the world cut off from perspective. Instead, all such occurs from some point of view which in turn affects how things are perceived. Rather than attempt to determine truth by correspondence to things outside any perspective, perspectivism thus general

form of methodological skepticism associated with the writings and methodology of René Descartes

philosophical theory of mind that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are

thought experiment about the impossibility of proving any truth: in response to repeated "but why?"s, only the circular argument, infinite regress, or axiomatic argument are possible

In epistemology, there are two types of coherentism: the coherence theory of truth, and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism).

Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is a doctrine in philosophy which asserts that a statement is cognitively meaningful only if it is empirically verifiable (can be confirmed through experience) or an analytic truth (true by virtue of its definition or logical form). Typically expressed as a criterion of meaning, it rejects traditional statements of metaphysics, theology, ethics and aesthetics as meaningless in terms of conveying truth value or factual content, reducing them to emotive expressions or "pseudostatements" that are

theory that some of our sense-data (for example, those of primary qualities) can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events

area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing willful human bodily movements of a more or less complex kind. This area of thought involves epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, jurisprudence, and philosophy of mind

branch in philosophy of science

philosophical terms

Finitism is a philosophy of mathematics that accepts the existence only of finite mathematical objects. It is best understood in comparison to the mainstream philosophy of mathematics where infinite mathematical objects (e.g., infinite sets) are accepted as existing.

realist school of philosophy

movement in philosophy

ambiguous term applied to several concepts

period circa 266—90 BCE investigating the possibilities of certainty in all knowledge

In theology and philosophy, probabilism (from Latin probare, to test, approve) is an ancient Greek doctrine of academic skepticism. It holds that in the absence of certainty, plausibility or truth-likeness is the best criterion. The term can also refer to a 17th-century religious thesis about ethics, or a modern physical–philosophical thesis.

Postpositivism or postempiricism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism and has impacted theories and practices across philosophy, social sciences, and various models of scientific inquiry. While positivists emphasize independence between the researcher and the researched person (or object), postpositivists argue that theories, hypotheses, background knowledge and values of the researcher can influence what is observed. Postpositivists pursue objectivity by recognizing the possible effects of biases. While positivists emphasize quantitative methods, postpositivists co

Neopragmatism is a philosophical position developed by the American philosopher Richard Rorty. It is pragmatist in that it is influenced by the classical pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, while also incorporating the insights of the analytic philosophy which ended up superseding that movement, hence the "neo-" in its name.

theory of truth based on coherence

Human thought aided by divine grace

debate regarding corrospondence between experiences of the world and its reality

expression of the problem of infinite regress

reasoning about degrees of belief using Bayesian inference

Mathematicism is 'the effort to employ the formal structure and rigorous method of mathematics as a model for the conduct of philosophy', or the epistemological view that reality is fundamentally mathematical. The term has been applied to a number of philosophers, including Pythagoras and René Descartes although the term was not used by themselves.

Ontologism is a philosophical system most associated with Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715) which maintains that God and divine ideas are the first object of our intelligence and the intuition of God the first act of our intellectual knowledge. Nicolas Malebranche was a source for many later philosophers of Ontologism such as Antonio Rosmini-Serbati. The Holy Office condemned Ontologism in 1861 as unsafe for teaching (tuto tradi non possunt).

school of Christian apologetics that believes Christianity is the only basis for rational thought, presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation, and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews

meta-ethical view

epistemology developed by Plato and his followers

Belief that mind-independent reality exists and can be known

view that that one can know something without knowing how one knows that thing

Concept in the philosophy of language

philosophical position first proposed by Nelson Goodman

position of epistemology according to which every perception is completely subjective

school of epistemology, that beliefs, specifically belief in God, not need to be inferred from other truths to be rationally warranted

concept

term used in philosophy, economics, and virtually any field of study to refer to different ways of knowing things, different epistemological methodologies for attaining a fuller description of a particular field