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158-407: Foundationalism concerns philosophical theories of knowledge resting upon non-inferential justified belief , or some secure foundation of certainty such as a conclusion inferred from a basis of sound premises. The main rival of the foundationalist theory of justification is the coherence theory of justification , whereby a body of knowledge, not requiring a secure foundation, can be established by

316-494: A democratic constitution with unlimited religious freedom. His tract, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644), which was widely read in the mother country, was a passionate plea for absolute religious freedom and the total separation of church and state . Freedom of conscience had had high priority on the theological, philosophical, and political agenda, as Martin Luther refused to recant his beliefs before

474-545: A liver infection. Ashley was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue. At Oxford, he was exposed to the writings of Islamic scholars, like Ibn Tufayl 's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan translated by Edward Pococke , who influenced his perspectives on philosophy and tabula rasa . Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667, moved into Ashley's home at Exeter House in London, to serve as his personal physician. In London, Locke resumed his medical studies under

632-408: A pledge to lay claim to goods . He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money , are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value by all of humanity and can thus be treated as a pledge by anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it. Locke argues that a country should seek

790-584: A quasi-feudal aristocracy and gave Carolinian planters absolute power over their enslaved chattel property; the constitutions pledged that "every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves". Philosopher Martin Cohen notes that Locke, as secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations and a member of the Board of Trade , was "one of just half a dozen men who created and supervised both

948-508: A relation between a knower and a known proposition , in the case above between the person Ravi and the proposition "kangaroos hop". It is use-independent since it is not tied to one specific purpose. It is a mental representation that relies on concepts and ideas to depict reality. Because of its theoretical nature, it is often held that only relatively sophisticated creatures, such as humans, possess propositional knowledge. Propositional knowledge contrasts with non-propositional knowledge in

1106-412: A series of thought experiments that aimed to show that some justified true beliefs do not amount to knowledge. In one of them, a person is unaware of all the fake barns in their area. By coincidence, they stop in front of the only real barn and form a justified true belief that it is a real barn. Many epistemologists agree that this is not knowledge because the justification is not directly relevant to

1264-472: A belief can be a reason for another belief". For instance, Wilfrid Sellars argued that non- doxastic mental states cannot be reasons, and so noninferential warrant cannot be derived from them. Similarly, critics of externalist foundationalism argue that only mental states or properties the believer is aware of could make a belief justified. Postmodernists and post-structuralists such as Richard Rorty and Jacques Derrida have attacked foundationalism on

1422-442: A belief is information that favors or supports it. Epistemologists understand evidence primarily in terms of mental states, for example, as sensory impressions or as other propositions that a person knows. But in a wider sense, it can also include physical objects, like bloodstains examined by forensic analysts or financial records studied by investigative journalists. Evidence is often understood in terms of probability : evidence for

1580-634: A belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists , by contrast, maintain that the justification of basic beliefs does not depend on other beliefs. Internalism and externalism disagree about whether justification is determined solely by mental states or also by external circumstances. Separate branches of epistemology are dedicated to knowledge found in specific fields, like scientific, mathematical, moral, and religious knowledge. Naturalized epistemology relies on empirical methods and discoveries, whereas formal epistemology uses formal tools from logic . Social epistemology investigates

1738-473: A belief is justified if the individual's evidence supports the belief and they hold the belief on the basis of this evidence. Reliabilism is an externalist theory asserting that a reliable connection between belief and truth is required for justification. Some reliabilists explain this in terms of reliable processes. According to this view, a belief is justified if it is produced by a reliable belief-formation process, like perception. A belief-formation process

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1896-612: A belief makes it more likely that the belief is true. A defeater is evidence against a belief or evidence that undermines another piece of evidence. For instance, witness testimony connecting a suspect to a crime is evidence for their guilt while an alibi is a defeater. Evidentialists analyze justification in terms of evidence by saying that to be justified, a belief needs to rest on adequate evidence. The presence of evidence usually affects doubt and certainty , which are subjective attitudes toward propositions that differ regarding their level of confidence. Doubt involves questioning

2054-592: A belief, known as propositional justification , but also in whether the person holds the belief because or based on this reason, known as doxastic justification . For example, if a person has sufficient reason to believe that a neighborhood is dangerous but forms this belief based on superstition then they have propositional justification but lack doxastic justification. Sources of justification are ways or cognitive capacities through which people acquire justification. Often-discussed sources include perception , introspection , memory , reason , and testimony , but there

2212-531: A belief-independent process does not, using other stimuli instead. Beliefs produced this way are justified because the processes that cause them are reliable; this might be because we have evolved to reach good conclusions when presented with sense-data , meaning the conclusions we draw from our senses are usually true. Critics of foundationalism often argue that for a belief to be justified it must be supported by other beliefs; in Donald Davidson 's phrase, "only

2370-466: A civil way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. Locke also advocated governmental separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and

2528-416: A classic reasoning for religious tolerance , in which three arguments are central: With regard to his position on religious tolerance, Locke was influenced by Baptist theologians like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys , who had published tracts demanding freedom of conscience in the early 17th century. Baptist theologian Roger Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636, where he combined

2686-414: A common view, this means that the person has sufficient reasons for holding this belief because they have information that supports it. Another view states that a belief is justified if it is formed by a reliable belief formation process, such as perception. The terms reasonable , warranted , and supported are closely related to the idea of justification and are sometimes used as synonyms. Justification

2844-573: A disease helps a doctor cure their patient, and knowledge of when a job interview starts helps a candidate arrive on time. The usefulness of a known fact depends on the circumstances. Knowledge of some facts may have little to no uses, like memorizing random phone numbers from an outdated phone book. Being able to assess the value of knowledge matters in choosing what information to acquire and transmit to others. It affects decisions like which subjects to teach at school and how to allocate funds to research projects. Of particular interest to epistemologists

3002-416: A favourable balance of trade , lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country must constantly seek to enlarge its own stock. Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges, by which in addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital determine exchange rates . He considers

3160-614: A few years. Brewer likewise argues that Locke actively worked to undermine slavery in Virginia while heading a Board of Trade created by William of Orange following the Glorious Revolution . He specifically attacked colonial policy granting land to slave owners and encouraged the baptism and Christian education of the children of enslaved Africans to undercut a major justification of slavery—that they were heathens who possessed no rights. In his Two Treatises of Government , Locke provided

3318-425: A foundation in the fact of his own existence and in the "clear and distinct" ideas of reason, whereas Locke found a foundation in experience . Differing foundations may reflect differing epistemological emphases— empiricists emphasizing experience , rationalists emphasizing reason —but may blend both. In the 1930s, debate over foundationalism revived. Whereas Moritz Schlick viewed scientific knowledge like

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3476-510: A grandly metaphysical work such as Spinoza's Ethics , in other ways he was deeply receptive to Spinoza's ideas, most particularly to the rationalist's well thought out argument for political and religious tolerance and the necessity of the separation of church and state." Among the friends he made in the Netherlands are Van Leeuwenhoek and Van Limborch, the leader of the Remonstrants . In

3634-519: A justification for slavery that could never be met, thus rendering invalid all forms of slavery that existed. Moreover, because slavery is invalid, there is a moral injunction to try to throw off and escape from it. Locke also supported child labour , which was an intrinsic part of all pre-industrial societies. In his "Essay on the Poor Law", he discusses the education of the poor; he laments that "the children of labouring people are an ordinary burden to

3792-675: A lengthy period of poor health, Locke died on 28 October 1704, and is buried in the churchyard of All Saints' Church in High Laver , near Harlow in Essex, where he had lived in the household of Sir Francis Masham since 1691. Locke never married nor had children. Events that happened during Locke's lifetime include the English Restoration , the Great Plague of London , the Great Fire of London ,

3950-603: A letter he wrote titled Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money . Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but, in the end, upholds unlimited accumulation of wealth. Locke's general theory of value and price is a supply-and-demand theory, set out in a letter to a member of parliament in 1691, titled Some Considerations on

4108-452: A letter, a newspaper, and a blog. Rationality is closely related to justification and the terms rational belief and justified belief are sometimes used as synonyms. However, rationality has a wider scope that encompasses both a theoretical side, covering beliefs, and a practical side, covering decisions , intentions , and actions . There are different conceptions about what it means for something to be rational. According to one view,

4266-416: A mental state is rational if it is based on or responsive to good reasons. Another view emphasizes the role of coherence, stating that rationality requires that the different mental states of a person are consistent and support each other. A slightly different approach holds that rationality is about achieving certain goals. Two goals of theoretical rationality are accuracy and comprehensiveness, meaning that

4424-495: A natural right to defend his "life, health, liberty, or possessions". Most scholars trace the phrase " Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness " in the American Declaration of Independence to Locke's theory of rights, although other origins have been suggested. Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in

4582-434: A parallel between postmodernism and late logical positivism that is united in critique of foundationalism. Epistemology The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that

4740-410: A person already has, asserting that a person should only change their beliefs if they have a good reason to. One motivation for adopting epistemic conservatism is that the cognitive resources of humans are limited, meaning that it is not feasible to constantly reexamine every belief. Pragmatist epistemology is a form of fallibilism that emphasizes the close relation between knowing and acting. It sees

4898-744: A person has as few false beliefs and as many true beliefs as possible. Epistemic norms are criteria to assess the cognitive quality of beliefs, like their justification and rationality. Epistemologists distinguish between deontic norms, which are prescriptions about what people should believe or which beliefs are correct, and axiological norms, which identify the goals and values of beliefs. Epistemic norms are closely related to intellectual or epistemic virtues , which are character traits like open-mindedness and conscientiousness . Epistemic virtues help individuals form true beliefs and acquire knowledge. They contrast with epistemic vices and act as foundational concepts of virtue epistemology . Evidence for

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5056-419: A person knows depends on the subjective criteria or social conventions used to assess epistemic status. The debate between empiricism and rationalism centers on the origins of human knowledge. Empiricism emphasizes that sense experience is the primary source of all knowledge. Some empiricists express this view by stating that the mind is a blank slate that only develops ideas about the external world through

5214-507: A posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge is knowledge of non-empirical facts and does not depend on evidence from sensory experience. It belongs to fields such as mathematics and logic , like knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 {\displaystyle 2+2=4} . The contrast between a posteriori and a priori knowledge plays a central role in the debate between empiricists and rationalists on whether all knowledge depends on sensory experience. A closely related contrast

5372-445: A profound influence on political philosophy , in particular on modern liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State . He had a strong influence on Voltaire , who called him " le sage Locke". His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Thomas Jefferson . One passage from

5530-547: A proponent of coherentism . Immanuel Kant 's foundationalism rests on his theory of categories . In late modern philosophy , foundationalism was defended by J. G. Fichte in his book Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1794/1795), Wilhelm Windelband in his book Über die Gewißheit der Erkenntniss. (1873), and Gottlob Frege in his book Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884). In contemporary philosophy , foundationalism has been defended by Edmund Husserl , Bertrand Russell and John McDowell . Foundationalism

5688-506: A pyramid where a special class of statements does not require verification through other beliefs and serves as a foundation, Otto Neurath argued that scientific knowledge lacks an ultimate foundation and acts like a raft. In the 1950s, the dominance of foundationalism was challenged by a number of philosophers such as Willard Van Orman Quine and Wilfrid Sellars . Quine's ontological relativity found any belief networked to one's beliefs on all of reality, while auxiliary beliefs somewhere in

5846-449: A special case of this general theory. His idea is based on "money answers all things" ( Ecclesiastes ) or "rent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough" and "varies very little". Locke concludes that, as far as money is concerned, the demand for it is exclusively regulated by its quantity, regardless of whether the demand is unlimited or constant. He also investigates the determinants of demand and supply. For supply , he explains

6004-425: A starting point but also as the fundamental basis for understanding the truth of existence. Thinking is the process of proving the validity of knowledge, not proving the rationality of the foundation from which knowledge is shaped. This means, with ultimate cause, the foundation is true, absolute, entire and impossible to prove. Neopragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty , a proponent of anti-foundationalism , said that

6162-456: A suitable foundation for knowledge. His method was to question all of his beliefs until he reached something clear and distinct that was indubitably true. The result was his cogito ergo sum – 'I think therefore I am', or the belief that he was thinking – as his indubitable belief suitable as a foundation for knowledge. This resolved Descartes' problem of the Evil Demon. Even if his beliefs about

6320-514: A table being yellow is adequate justification to believe that this is the case, even if it is not infallible. Reformed epistemology is a form of modest foundationalism which takes religious beliefs as basic because they are non-inferentially justified: their justification arises from religious experience , rather than prior beliefs. This takes a modest approach to foundationalism – religious beliefs are not taken to be infallible, but are assumed to be prima facie justified unless evidence arises to

6478-412: A true or a false proposition. According to the correspondence theory of truth , to be true means to stand in the right relation to the world by accurately describing what it is like. This means that truth is objective: a belief is true if it corresponds to a fact . The coherence theory of truth says that a belief is true if it belongs to a coherent system of beliefs. A result of this view is that truth

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6636-510: A tutor and medical attendant to Caleb Banks . He returned to England in 1679 when Shaftesbury's political fortunes took a brief positive turn. Around this time, most likely at Shaftesbury's prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises of Government . While it was once thought that Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, recent scholarship has shown that

6794-608: A wide range of human interests and aspirations; more particularly, it refers to material goods . He argues that property is a natural right that is derived from labour . In Chapter V of his Second Treatise , Locke argues that the individual ownership of goods and property is justified by the labour exerted to produce such goods—"at least where there is enough [land], and as good, left in common for others" (para. 27)—or to use property to produce goods beneficial to human society. Locke states in his Second Treatise that nature on its own provides little of value to society, implying that

6952-402: Is and what types of knowledge there are. It further investigates the sources of knowledge, like perception , inference , and testimony , to determine how knowledge is created. Another topic is the extent and limits of knowledge, confronting questions about what people can and cannot know. Other central concepts include belief , truth , justification , evidence , and reason . Epistemology

7110-408: Is a closely related process focused not on external physical objects but on internal mental states . For example, seeing a bus at a bus station belongs to perception while feeling tired belongs to introspection. Rationalists understand reason as a source of justification for non-empirical facts. It is often used to explain how people can know about mathematical, logical, and conceptual truths. Reason

7268-409: Is a comparative term, meaning that to know something involves distinguishing it from relevant alternatives. For example, if a person spots a bird in the garden, they may know that it is a sparrow rather than an eagle but they may not know that it is a sparrow rather than an indistinguishable sparrow hologram. Epistemic conservatism is a view about belief revision . It gives preference to the beliefs

7426-521: Is a special epistemic good that, unlike knowledge, is always intrinsically valuable. Wisdom is similar in this regard and is sometimes considered the highest epistemic good. It encompasses a reflective understanding with practical applications. It helps people grasp and evaluate complex situations and lead a good life. Philosophical skepticism questions the human ability to arrive at knowledge. Some skeptics limit their criticism to certain domains of knowledge. For example, religious skeptics say that it

7584-439: Is also responsible for inferential knowledge, in which one or several beliefs are used as premises to support another belief. Memory depends on information provided by other sources, which it retains and recalls, like remembering a phone number perceived earlier. Justification by testimony relies on information one person communicates to another person. This can happen by talking to each other but can also occur in other forms, like

7742-412: Is an attempt to respond to the regress problem of justification in epistemology. According to this argument, every proposition requires justification to support it, but any justification also needs to be justified itself. If this goes on ad infinitum , it is not clear how anything in the chain could be justified. Foundationalism holds that there are 'basic beliefs' which serve as foundations to anchor

7900-458: Is an oversimplification of much more complex psychological processes. Beliefs play a central role in various epistemological debates, which cover their status as a component of propositional knowledge, the question of whether people have control over and are responsible for their beliefs , and the issue of whether there are degrees of beliefs, called credences . As propositional attitudes, beliefs are true or false depending on whether they affirm

8058-424: Is better because it is more stable. Another suggestion focuses on practical reasoning . It proposes that people put more trust in knowledge than in mere true beliefs when drawing conclusions and deciding what to do. A different response says that knowledge has intrinsic value, meaning that it is good in itself independent of its usefulness. Beliefs are mental states about what is the case, like believing that snow

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8216-403: Is between analytic and synthetic truths . A sentence is analytically true if its truth depends only on the meaning of the words it uses. For instance, the sentence "all bachelors are unmarried" is analytically true because the word "bachelor" already includes the meaning "unmarried". A sentence is synthetically true if its truth depends on additional facts. For example, the sentence "snow is white"

8374-439: Is correct. Some philosophers, such as Timothy Williamson , reject the basic assumption underlying the analysis of knowledge by arguing that propositional knowledge is a unique state that cannot be dissected into simpler components. The value of knowledge is the worth it holds by expanding understanding and guiding action. Knowledge can have instrumental value by helping a person achieve their goals. For example, knowledge of

8532-416: Is important for explaining the nature of illusions. Constructivism in epistemology is the theory that how people view the world is not a simple reflection of external reality but an invention or a social construction. This view emphasizes the creative role of interpretation while undermining objectivity since social constructions may differ from society to society. According to contrastivism , knowledge

8690-460: Is impossible to have certain knowledge about the existence of deities or other religious doctrines. Similarly, moral skeptics challenge the existence of moral knowledge and metaphysical skeptics say that humans cannot know ultimate reality. Global skepticism is the widest form of skepticism, asserting that there is no knowledge in any domain. In ancient philosophy , this view was accepted by academic skeptics while Pyrrhonian skeptics recommended

8848-443: Is itself a knowledge claim. Another objection says that the abstract reasoning leading to skepticism is not convincing enough to overrule common sense. Fallibilism is another response to skepticism. Fallibilists agree with skeptics that absolute certainty is impossible. Most fallibilists disagree with skeptics about the existence of knowledge, saying that there is knowledge since it does not require absolute certainty. They emphasize

9006-469: Is no universal agreement to what extent they all provide valid justification. Perception relies on sensory organs to gain empirical information. There are various forms of perception corresponding to different physical stimuli, such as visual , auditory , haptic , olfactory , and gustatory perception. Perception is not merely the reception of sense impressions but an active process that selects, organizes, and interprets sensory signals . Introspection

9164-508: Is often credited for describing private property as a natural right , arguing that when a person — metaphorically — mixes their labour with nature , resources can be removed from the common state of nature . Locke was born on 29 August 1632, in a small thatched cottage by the church in Wrington , Somerset, about 12 miles from Bristol . He was baptised the same day, as both of his parents were Puritans . Locke's father, also named John,

9322-493: Is one of the main branches of philosophy besides fields like ethics , logic , and metaphysics . The term is also used in a slightly different sense to refer not to the branch of philosophy but to a particular position within that branch, as in Plato 's epistemology and Immanuel Kant 's epistemology. As a normative field of inquiry, epistemology explores how people should acquire beliefs. This way, it determines which beliefs fulfill

9480-534: Is reasonable to assume that perceptual beliefs are justified unless evidence to the contrary exists. This is still foundationalism because it maintains that all non-basic beliefs must be ultimately justified by basic beliefs, but it does not require that basic beliefs are infallible and allows inductive reasoning as an acceptable form of inference. For example, a belief that 'I see red' could be defeated with psychological evidence showing my mind to be confused or inattentive. Modest foundationalism can also be used to avoid

9638-408: Is relative since it depends on other beliefs. Further theories of truth include pragmatist , semantic , pluralist , and deflationary theories . Truth plays a central role in epistemology as a goal of cognitive processes and a component of propositional knowledge. In epistemology, justification is a property of beliefs that fulfill certain norms about what a person should believe. According to

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9796-407: Is relevant to many descriptive and normative disciplines, such as the other branches of philosophy and the sciences, by exploring the principles of how they may arrive at knowledge. The word epistemology comes from the ancient Greek terms ἐπιστήμη (episteme, meaning knowledge or understanding ) and λόγος (logos, meaning study of or reason ), literally, the study of knowledge. The word

9954-412: Is reliable if most of the beliefs it causes are true. A slightly different view focuses on beliefs rather than belief-formation processes, saying that a belief is justified if it is a reliable indicator of the fact it presents. This means that the belief tracks the fact: the person believes it because it is a fact but would not believe it otherwise. Virtue epistemology is another type of externalism and

10112-420: Is sometimes understood as a form of reliabilism. It says that a belief is justified if it manifests intellectual virtues. Intellectual virtues are capacities or traits that perform cognitive functions and help people form true beliefs. Suggested examples include faculties like vision, memory, and introspection. In the epistemology of perception, direct and indirect realists disagree about the connection between

10270-405: Is synthetically true because its truth depends on the color of snow in addition to the meanings of the words snow and white . A priori knowledge is primarily associated with analytic sentences while a posteriori knowledge is primarily associated with synthetic sentences. However, it is controversial whether this is true for all cases. Some philosophers, such as Willard Van Orman Quine , reject

10428-462: Is taken by radical skeptics , who argue that there is no knowledge at all. Epistemologists distinguish between different types of knowledge. Their primary interest is in knowledge of facts, called propositional knowledge . It is a theoretical knowledge that can be expressed in declarative sentences using a that-clause, like "Ravi knows that kangaroos hop". For this reason, it is also called knowledge-that . Epistemologists often understand it as

10586-416: Is the dream argument . It starts from the observation that, while people are dreaming, they are usually unaware of this. This inability to distinguish between dream and regular experience is used to argue that there is no certain knowledge since a person can never be sure that they are not dreaming. Some critics assert that global skepticism is a self-refuting idea because denying the existence of knowledge

10744-414: Is the case if the beliefs are consistent and support each other. According to coherentism, justification is a holistic aspect determined by the whole system of beliefs, which resembles an interconnected web. The view of foundherentism is an intermediary position combining elements of both foundationalism and coherentism. It accepts the distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs while asserting that

10902-405: Is the question of whether knowledge is more valuable than a mere opinion that is true. Knowledge and true opinion often have a similar usefulness since both are accurate representations of reality. For example, if a person wants to go to Larissa , a true opinion about how to get there may help them in the same way as knowledge does. Plato already considered this problem and suggested that knowledge

11060-409: Is very like it, and might properly enough be called 'internal sense.' Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline on how to educate this mind. Drawing on thoughts expressed in letters written to Mary Clarke and her husband about their son, he expresses the belief that education makes the man—or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an "empty cabinet": I think I may say that of all

11218-427: Is wet. According to foundationalism, basic beliefs are the foundation on which all other knowledge is built while non-basic beliefs constitute the superstructure resting on this foundation. Coherentists reject the distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs, saying that the justification of any belief depends on other beliefs. They assert that a belief must be in tune with other beliefs to amount to knowledge. This

11376-407: Is what distinguishes justified beliefs from superstition and lucky guesses. However, justification does not guarantee truth. For example, if a person has strong but misleading evidence, they may form a justified belief that is false. Epistemologists often identify justification as one component of knowledge. Usually, they are not only interested in whether a person has a sufficient reason to hold

11534-601: Is white or that God exists . In epistemology, they are often understood as subjective attitudes that affirm or deny a proposition , which can be expressed in a declarative sentence . For instance, to believe that snow is white is to affirm the proposition "snow is white". According to this view, beliefs are representations of what the world is like. They are kept in memory and can be retrieved when actively thinking about reality or when deciding how to act. A different view understands beliefs as behavioral patterns or dispositions to act rather than as representational items stored in

11692-553: The Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession. Locke's close friend Lady Masham invited him to join her at Otes, the Mashams' country house in Essex. Although his time there was marked by variable health from asthma attacks, he nevertheless became an intellectual hero of the Whigs. During this period, he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Isaac Newton . After

11850-715: The Constitution of the United States . According to Locke, unused property is wasteful and an offence against nature, but, with the introduction of "durable" goods , men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for those which would last longer and thus not offend the natural law . In his view, the introduction of money marked the culmination of this process, making possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be "hoarded up without injury to anyone", as they do not spoil or decay in

12008-694: The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms in 1521, unless he would be proved false by the Bible. Locke's views on slavery were multifaceted. Although he wrote against slavery in general, Locke was an investor and beneficiary of the slave-trading Royal Africa Company . Also, while secretary to the Earl of Shaftesbury , Locke participated in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina , which established

12166-546: The Glorious Revolution and war against France including the Battle of Blenheim just before his death. He did not live long enough to see the Act of Union of 1707 , but the thrones of England and Scotland were held in personal union throughout his lifetime. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy during Locke's time. Locke has an engraved floor memorial plaque at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford . In

12324-582: The Netherlands in 1683 in the company of Shaftesbury , under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot , although there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme. While in the Netherlands, he lived under the pen-name dr. Van Linden. The philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues that during his five years in Holland, Locke chose his friends "from among

12482-629: The Second Treatise is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a "long train of abuses". Concerning Locke, Thomas Jefferson wrote: Bacon , Locke and Newton … I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences. However, Locke's influence may have been even more profound in

12640-478: The United States Declaration of Independence . Internationally, Locke's political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law. Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self , figuring prominently in

12798-543: The knowledge base of an expert system . Knowledge contrasts with ignorance , which is often simply defined as the absence of knowledge. Knowledge is usually accompanied by ignorance since people rarely have complete knowledge of a field, forcing them to rely on incomplete or uncertain information when making decisions. Even though many forms of ignorance can be mitigated through education and research, there are certain limits to human understanding that are responsible for inevitable ignorance. Some limitations are inherent in

12956-436: The suspension of belief to achieve a state of tranquility . Overall, not many epistemologists have explicitly defended global skepticism. The influence of this position derives mainly from attempts by other philosophers to show that their theory overcomes the challenge of skepticism. For example, René Descartes used methodological doubt to find facts that cannot be doubted. One consideration in favor of global skepticism

13114-633: The tabula rasa . In his Essay , in which both these concepts are introduced, Locke warns, for example, against letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night, for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other". This theory came to be called associationism , going on to strongly influence 18th-century thought, particularly educational theory , as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to

13272-567: The 50 years after Queen Anne's death in 1714, the Two Treatises were reprinted only once (except in the collected works of Locke). However, with the rise of American resistance to British taxation, the Second Treatise of Government gained a new readership; it was frequently cited in the debates in both America and Britain. The first American printing occurred in 1773 in Boston. Locke exercised

13430-399: The Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money . In it, he refers to supply as quantity and demand as rent : "The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyers and sellers" and "that which regulates the price…[of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent." The quantity theory of money forms

13588-532: The Constitution of Carolina has been exaggerated and that he was merely paid to revise and make copies of a document that had already been partially written before he became involved; she compares Locke's role to a lawyer writing a will. She states that Locke was paid in Royal African Company stock in lieu of money for his work as a secretary for a governmental sub-committee, and that he sold the stock after

13746-559: The Netherlands, Locke had time to return to his writing, spending a great deal of time working on the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and composing the Letter on Toleration. Locke did not return home until after the Glorious Revolution . Locke accompanied Mary II back to England in 1689. The bulk of Locke's publishing took place upon his return from exile—his aforementioned Essay Concerning Human Understanding ,

13904-482: The age of 20. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen , vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes , more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Through his friend Richard Lower , whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke

14062-419: The belief following it and is supported by the belief preceding it. The disagreement between internalism and externalism is about the sources of justification. Internalists say that justification depends only on factors within the individual. Examples of such factors include perceptual experience, memories, and the possession of other beliefs. This view emphasizes the importance of the cognitive perspective of

14220-430: The belief in the right way. Another theory states that the belief is the product of a reliable belief formation process. Further approaches require that the person would not have the belief if it was false, that the belief is not inferred from a falsehood, that the justification cannot be undermined , or that the belief is infallible. There is no consensus on which of the proposed modifications and reconceptualizations

14378-625: The belief itself, such as its being self-evident or infallible . Externalism maintains that it is unnecessary for the means of justification of a belief to be accessible to the believer. Reliabilism is an externalist foundationalist theory, initially proposed by Alvin Goldman , which argues that a belief is justified if it is reliably produced, meaning that it will be probably true. Goldman distinguished between two kinds of justification for beliefs: belief-dependent and belief-independent. A belief-dependent process uses prior beliefs to produce new beliefs;

14536-441: The best explanation . And whereas internalists require cognitive access to justificatory means, externalists find justification without such access. Foundationalism was initiated by French early modern philosopher René Descartes . In his Meditations , Descartes challenged the contemporary principles of philosophy by arguing that everything he knew he learnt from or through his senses. He used various arguments to challenge

14694-424: The cash requirements are closely related to the length of the pay period. He argues the brokers—the middlemen —whose activities enlarge the monetary circuit and whose profits eat into the earnings of labourers and landholders, have a negative influence on both personal and the public economy to which they supposedly contribute. Locke uses the concept of property in both broad and narrow terms: broadly, it covers

14852-522: The circumstances under which they observed the cup. Evidentialism is an influential internalist view. It says that justification depends on the possession of evidence . In this context, evidence for a belief is any information in the individual's mind that supports the belief. For example, the perceptual experience of rain is evidence for the belief that it is raining. Evidentialists have suggested various other forms of evidence, including memories, intuitions, and other beliefs. According to evidentialism,

15010-492: The classical formulation of foundationalism requires basic beliefs to be infallible, incorrigible, indubitable, and certain if they are to be adequately justified. Mental states and immediate experience are often taken as good candidates for basic beliefs because it is argued that beliefs about these do not need further support to be justified. As an alternative to the classic view, modest foundationalism does not require that basic perceptual beliefs are infallible, but holds that it

15168-564: The colonies and their iniquitous systems of servitude". According to American historian James Farr, Locke never expressed any thoughts about his contradictory opinions of slavery, which Farr ascribes to his personal involvement in the slave trade. Locke's positions on slavery have been described as hypocritical, and laying the foundation for the Founding Fathers to hold similarly contradictory thoughts regarding freedom and slavery. But historian Holly Brewer has argued that Locke's role in

15326-525: The communal aspect of knowledge and historical epistemology examines its historical conditions. Epistemology is closely related to psychology , which describes the beliefs people hold, while epistemology studies the norms governing the evaluation of beliefs. It also intersects with fields such as decision theory , education , and anthropology . Early reflections on the nature, sources, and scope of knowledge are found in ancient Greek , Indian , and Chinese philosophy . The relation between reason and faith

15484-420: The conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth; he does not identify which principles that government should apply to solve this problem. However, not all elements of his thought form a consistent whole. For example, the labour theory of value in the Two Treatises of Government stands side by side with the demand-and-supply theory of value developed in

15642-425: The contrary. Foundationalism can take internalist and externalist forms. Internalism requires that a believer's justification for a belief must be accessible to them for it to be justified. Foundationalist internalists have held that basic beliefs are justified by mental events or states, such as experiences, that do not constitute beliefs. Alternatively, basic beliefs may be justified by some special property of

15800-732: The cyst. Ashley survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life. During this time, Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina , which helped to shape his ideas on international trade and economics. Ashley, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Locke's political ideas. Locke became involved in politics when Ashley became Lord Chancellor in 1672 (Ashley being created 1st Earl of Shaftesbury in 1673). Following Shaftesbury's fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time travelling across France as

15958-593: The development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley 's attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749). Locke was critical of Descartes's version of the dream argument , with Locke making the counter-argument that people cannot have physical pain in dreams as they do in waking life. Some scholars have seen Locke's political convictions as being based from his religious beliefs. Locke's religious trajectory began in Calvinist trinitarianism , but by

16116-405: The distinction, saying that there are no analytic truths. The analysis of knowledge is the attempt to identify the essential components or conditions of all and only propositional knowledge states. According to the so-called traditional analysis , knowledge has three components: it is a belief that is justified and true. In the second half of the 20th century, this view was put into doubt by

16274-421: The early stages of the [Glorious] Revolution, up to 1692, and even less thereafter, unless it was to heap abuse on them" and that "no one, including most Whigs, [was] ready for the idea of a notional or abstract contract of the kind adumbrated by Locke". In contrast, Kenyon adds that Algernon Sidney 's Discourses Concerning Government were "certainly much more influential than Locke's Two Treatises. " In

16432-440: The external world were false, his beliefs about what he was experiencing were still indubitably true, even if those perceptions do not relate to anything in the world. Several other philosophers of the early modern period, including John Locke , G. W. Leibniz , George Berkeley , David Hume , and Thomas Reid , accepted foundationalism as well. Baruch Spinoza was interpreted as metaphysical foundationalist by G. W. F. Hegel ,

16590-579: The first of the British empiricists , following the tradition of Francis Bacon , Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy . His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau , and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries . His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in

16748-411: The form of knowledge-how and knowledge by acquaintance . Knowledge-how is a practical ability or skill, like knowing how to read or how to prepare lasagna . It is usually tied to a specific goal and not mastered in the abstract without concrete practice. To know something by acquaintance means to be familiar with it as a result of experiental contact. Examples are knowing the city of Perth , knowing

16906-518: The fundamentalism confirmed the existence of the privileged representation which constitutes the foundation, from which dominates epistemology. The earliest foundationalism is Plato 's theory of Forms , which shows the general concept as a model for the release of existence, which is only the faint copy of the Forms of eternity, that means, understanding the expression of objects leads to acquiring all knowledge, then acquiring knowledge accompanies achieving

17064-463: The grounds that the truth of a statement or discourse is only verifiable in accordance with other statements and discourses. Rorty in particular elaborates further on this, claiming that the individual, the community, the human body as a whole have a 'means by which they know the world' (this entails language, culture, semiotic systems, mathematics, science etc.). In order to verify particular means, or particular statements belonging to certain means (e.g.,

17222-440: The hands of the possessor. In his view, the introduction of money eliminates limits to accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke was aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation, but did not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate

17380-427: The human cognitive faculties themselves, such as the inability to know facts too complex for the human mind to conceive. Others depend on external circumstances when no access to the relevant information exists. Epistemologists disagree on how much people know, for example, whether fallible beliefs about everyday affairs can amount to knowledge or whether absolute certainty is required. The most stringent position

17538-417: The individual in the form of their mental states. It is commonly associated with the idea that the relevant factors are accessible, meaning that the individual can become aware of their reasons for holding a justified belief through introspection and reflection. Externalism rejects this view, saying that at least some relevant factors are external to the individual. This means that the cognitive perspective of

17696-405: The individual is less central while other factors, specifically the relation to truth, become more important. For instance, when considering the belief that a cup of coffee stands on the table, externalists are not only interested in the perceptual experience that led to this belief but also consider the quality of the person's eyesight, their ability to differentiate coffee from other beverages, and

17854-419: The interlocking strength of its components, like a puzzle solved without prior certainty that each small region was solved correctly. Identifying the alternatives as either circular reasoning or infinite regress , and thus exhibiting the regress problem , Aristotle made foundationalism his own clear choice, positing basic beliefs underpinning others. Descartes , the most famed foundationalist, discovered

18012-405: The justification of non-basic beliefs depends on coherence with other beliefs. Infinitism presents another approach to the structure of knowledge. It agrees with coherentism that there are no basic beliefs while rejecting the view that beliefs can support each other in a circular manner . Instead, it argues that beliefs form infinite justification chains, in which each link of the chain supports

18170-487: The labour expended in the creation of goods gives them their value. From this premise, understood as a labour theory of value , Locke developed a labour theory of property , whereby ownership of property is created by the application of labour. In addition, he believed that property precedes government and government cannot "dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily". Karl Marx later critiqued Locke's theory of property in his own social theory. Locke defines

18328-537: The late 17th and early 18th centuries, Locke's Two Treatises were rarely cited. Historian Julian Hoppit said of the book "except among some Whigs, even as a contribution to the intense debate of the 1690s it made little impression and was generally ignored until 1703 (though in Oxford in 1695 it was reported to have made 'a great noise')." John Kenyon , in his study of British political debate from 1689 to 1720, has remarked that Locke's theories were "mentioned so rarely in

18486-408: The latter less significant and less volatile than commodity movements. As for a country's money stock, if it is large relative to that of other countries, he says it will cause the country's exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do. He also prepares estimates of the cash requirements for different economic groups ( landholders , labourers, and brokers). In each group he posits that

18644-440: The main topic in epistemology, some theorists focus on understanding rather than knowledge. Understanding is a more holistic notion that involves a wider grasp of a subject. To understand something, a person requires awareness of how different things are connected and why they are the way they are. For example, knowledge of isolated facts memorized from a textbook does not amount to understanding. According to one view, understanding

18802-799: The man". In his Essay , Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an 'empty mind', a tabula rasa , which is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all of our ideas . He states in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding : This source of ideas every man has wholly within himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it

18960-450: The men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education. Locke also wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences". He argues that the " associations of ideas " that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self ; they are, put differently, what first mark

19118-457: The mind possesses inborn ideas which it can access without the help of the senses. Others hold that there is an additional cognitive faculty, sometimes called rational intuition , through which people acquire nonempirical knowledge. Some rationalists limit their discussion to the origin of concepts, saying that the mind relies on inborn categories to understand the world and organize experience. Foundationalists and coherentists disagree about

19276-409: The mind. This view says that to believe that there is mineral water in the fridge is nothing more than a group of dispositions related to mineral water and the fridge. Examples are the dispositions to answer questions about the presence of mineral water affirmatively and to go to the fridge when thirsty. Some theorists deny the existence of beliefs, saying that this concept borrowed from folk psychology

19434-417: The need to keep an open and inquisitive mind since doubt can never be fully excluded, even for well-established knowledge claims like thoroughly tested scientific theories. Epistemic relativism is a related view. It does not question the existence of knowledge in general but rejects the idea that there are universal epistemic standards or absolute principles that apply equally to everyone. This means that what

19592-475: The parish, and are usually maintained in idleness, so that their labour also is generally lost to the public till they are 12 or 14 years old". Therefore, he suggests the setting up of "working schools" for poor children in each parish in England so that they will be "from infancy [three years old] inured to work". He goes on to outline the economics of these schools, arguing not only that they will be profitable for

19750-469: The parish, but also that they will instil a good work ethic in the children. Locke's political theory was founded upon that of social contract . Unlike Thomas Hobbes , Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance . Like Hobbes, however, Locke believed that human nature allows people to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state , all people were equal and independent, and everyone had

19908-453: The perceiver and the perceived object. Direct realists say that this connection is direct, meaning that there is no difference between the object present in perceptual experience and the physical object causing this experience. According to indirect realism, the connection is indirect since there are mental entities, like ideas or sense data, that mediate between the perceiver and the external world. The contrast between direct and indirect realism

20066-461: The physical world. Locke thought the state's borders and the functioning and enforcement of the existence of the state and its constitution were metaphysically tied to "the natural rights of the individual", and this inspired future liberal politicians and philosophers . Writing his Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–1692) in the aftermath of the European wars of religion , Locke formulated

20224-402: The problem of inference. Even if perceptual beliefs are infallible, it is not clear that they can infallibly ground empirical knowledge (even if my belief that the table looks red to me is infallible, the inference to the belief that the table actually is red might not be infallible). Modest foundationalism does not require this link between perception and reality to be so strong; our perception of

20382-422: The propositions of the natural sciences), a person would have to 'step outside' the means and critique them neutrally, in order to provide a foundation for adopting them. However, this is impossible. The only way in which one can know the world is through the means by which they know the world; a method cannot justify itself. This argument can be seen as directly related to Wittgenstein 's theory of language, drawing

20540-417: The pursuit of knowledge as an ongoing process guided by common sense and experience while always open to revision. John Locke John Locke ( / l ɒ k / ; 29 August 1632 ( O.S. ) – 28 October 1704 ( O.S. )) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ". Considered one of

20698-549: The reality of evil. Man was capable of waging unjust wars and committing crimes. Criminals had to be punished, even with the death penalty. With regard to the Bible, Locke was very conservative. He retained the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. The miracles were proof of the divine nature of the biblical message. Locke was convinced that the entire content of the Bible was in agreement with human reason ( The Reasonableness of Christianity , 1695). Although Locke

20856-692: The realm of epistemology . Locke redefined subjectivity , or self , leading intellectual historians such as Charles Taylor and Jerrold Seigel to argue that Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689/90) marks the beginning of the modern Western conception of the self . Locke's theory of association heavily influenced the subject matter of modern psychology . At the time, Locke's recognition of two types of ideas, simple and complex —and, more importantly, their interaction through association—inspired other philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley , to revise and expand this theory and apply it to explain how humans gain knowledge in

21014-601: The reliability of the senses, citing previous errors and the possibilities that he was dreaming or being deceived by an Evil Demon which rendered all of his beliefs about the external world false. Descartes attempted to establish the secure foundations for knowledge to avoid scepticism . He contrasted the information provided by senses, which is unclear and uncertain, with the truths of geometry , which are clear and distinct. Geometrical truths are also certain and indubitable; Descartes thus attempted to find truths which were clear and distinct because they would be indubitably true and

21172-466: The rest of our beliefs. Strong versions of the theory assert that an indirectly justified belief is completely justified by basic beliefs; more moderate theories hold that indirectly justified beliefs require basic beliefs to be justified, but can be further justified by other factors. Since ancient Greece , Western philosophy has pursued a solid foundation as the ultimate and eternal reference system for all knowledge . This foundation serves not only as

21330-431: The same as demand for goods or land: it depends on whether money is wanted as medium of exchange . As a medium of exchange, he states, "money is capable by exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life" and, for loanable funds , "it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income…or interest". Locke distinguishes two functions of money: as a counter to measure value , and as

21488-457: The same freethinking members of dissenting Protestant groups as Spinoza's small group of loyal confidants. [Baruch Spinoza had died in 1677.] Locke almost certainly met men in Amsterdam who spoke of the ideas of that renegade Jew who... insisted on identifying himself through his religion of reason alone." While she says that "Locke's strong empiricist tendencies" would have "disinclined him to read

21646-400: The self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends". He does not, however, wholly ignore "substance", writing that "the body too goes to the making

21804-644: The sense data it receives from the sensory organs. According to them, the mind can arrive at various additional insights by comparing impressions, combining them, generalizing to arrive at more abstract ideas, and deducing new conclusions from them. Empiricists say that all these mental operations depend on material from the senses and do not function on their own. Even though rationalists usually accept sense experience as one source of knowledge, they also say that important forms of knowledge come directly from reason without sense experience, like knowledge of mathematical and logical truths. According to some rationalists,

21962-411: The standards or epistemic goals of knowledge and which ones fail, thereby providing an evaluation of beliefs. Descriptive fields of inquiry, like psychology and cognitive sociology , are also interested in beliefs and related cognitive processes. Unlike epistemology, they study the beliefs people have and how people acquire them instead of examining the evaluative norms of these processes. Epistemology

22120-407: The structure of knowledge. Foundationalism distinguishes between basic and non-basic beliefs. A belief is basic if it is justified directly, meaning that its validity does not depend on the support of other beliefs. A belief is non-basic if it is justified by another belief. For example, the belief that it rained last night is a non-basic belief if it is inferred from the observation that the street

22278-421: The taste of tsampa , and knowing Marta Vieira da Silva personally. Another influential distinction is between a posteriori and a priori knowledge. A posteriori knowledge is knowledge of empirical facts based on sensory experience, like seeing that the sun is shining and smelling that a piece of meat has gone bad. Knowledge belonging to the empirical science and knowledge of everyday affairs belongs to

22436-528: The time of the Reflections (1695) Locke was advocating not just Socinian views on tolerance but also Socinian Christology . However Wainwright (1987) notes that in the posthumously published Paraphrase (1707) Locke's interpretation of one verse, Ephesians 1 :10, is markedly different from that of Socinians like Biddle , and may indicate that near the end of his life Locke returned nearer to an Arian position, thereby accepting Christ's pre-existence. Locke

22594-409: The truth. More specifically, this and similar counterexamples involve some form of epistemic luck, that is, a cognitive success that results from fortuitous circumstances rather than competence. Following these thought experiments , philosophers proposed various alternative definitions of knowledge by modifying or expanding the traditional analysis. According to one view, the known fact has to cause

22752-576: The truth. Achieving the truth means understanding the foundation. This idea still has some appeal in for example international relations studies. Foundationalism holds basic beliefs exist, which are justified without reference to other beliefs, and that nonbasic beliefs must ultimately be justified by basic beliefs. Classical foundationalism maintains that basic beliefs must be infallible if they are to justify nonbasic beliefs, and that only deductive reasoning can be used to transfer justification from one belief to another. Laurence BonJour has argued that

22910-536: The tutelage of Thomas Sydenham . Sydenham had a major effect on Locke's natural philosophical thinking—an effect that would become evident in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Ashley's liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Ashley to undergo surgery (then life-threatening in itself) to remove

23068-400: The validity or truth of a proposition. Certainty, by contrast, is a strong affirmative conviction, meaning that the person is free of doubt that the proposition is true. In epistemology, doubt and certainty play central roles in attempts to find a secure foundation of all knowledge and in skeptical projects aiming to establish that no belief is immune to doubt. While propositional knowledge is

23226-407: The value of goods as based on their scarcity and ability to be exchanged and consumed . He explains demand for goods as based on their ability to yield a flow of income. Locke develops an early theory of capitalisation , such as of land, which has value because "by its constant production of saleable commodities it brings in a certain yearly income". He considers the demand for money as almost

23384-424: The vast network are readily modified to protect desired beliefs. Classically, foundationalism had posited infallibility of basic beliefs and deductive reasoning between beliefs—a strong foundationalism. Around 1975, weak foundationalism emerged. Thus recent foundationalists have variously allowed fallible basic beliefs, and inductive reasoning between them, either by enumerative induction or by inference to

23542-445: The work of later philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume , and Immanuel Kant . He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate, or tabula rasa . Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas , and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception , a concept now known as empiricism . Locke

23700-505: The work was composed well before this date. The work is now viewed as a more general argument against absolute monarchy (particularly as espoused by Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes ) and for individual consent as the basis of political legitimacy . Although Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas about natural rights and government are today considered quite revolutionary for that period in English history. Locke fled to

23858-405: The world. While this core sense is of particular interest to epistemologists, the term also has other meanings. Understood on a social level, knowledge is a characteristic of a group of people that share ideas, understanding, or culture in general. The term can also refer to information stored in documents, such as "knowledge housed in the library" or knowledge stored in computers in the form of

24016-434: Was a central topic in the medieval period . The modern era was characterized by the contrasting perspectives of empiricism and rationalism. Epistemologists in the 20th century examined the components, structure, and value of knowledge while integrating insights from the natural sciences and linguistics . Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge . Also called theory of knowledge , it examines what knowledge

24174-423: Was an advocate of tolerance, he urged the authorities not to tolerate atheism , because he thought the denial of God's existence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos. That excluded all atheistic varieties of philosophy and all attempts to deduce ethics and natural law from purely secular premises. In Locke's opinion the cosmological argument was valid and proved God's existence. His political thought

24332-732: Was an attorney who served as clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna and as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War . His mother was Agnes Keene. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford , about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton . In 1647, Locke

24490-577: Was at times not sure about the subject of original sin , so he was accused of Socinianism, Arianism, or Deism . Locke argued that the idea that "all Adam ' s Posterity [are] doomed to Eternal Infinite Punishment, for the Transgression of Adam " was "little consistent with the Justice or Goodness of the Great and Infinite God", leading Eric Nelson to associate him with Pelagian ideas. However, he did not deny

24648-765: Was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the Royal Society , of which he eventually became a member. Locke was awarded a bachelor's degree in February 1656 and a master's degree in June 1658. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in February 1675, having studied the subject extensively during his time at Oxford and, in addition to Lower, worked with such noted scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle , Thomas Willis and Robert Hooke . In 1666, he met Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley , who had come to Oxford seeking treatment for

24806-454: Was only coined in the 19th century to label this field and conceive it as a distinct branch of philosophy. Knowledge is an awareness, familiarity, understanding, or skill. Its various forms all involve a cognitive success through which a person establishes epistemic contact with reality. Knowledge is typically understood as an aspect of individuals, generally as a cognitive mental state that helps them understand, interpret, and interact with

24964-414: Was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham , a member of Parliament and John Sr.'s former commander. At the age of 16 he was at school just half a mile away from the execution of Charles I ; however, the boys were not allowed to go and watch. After completing studies at Westminster, he was admitted to Christ Church , Oxford , in the autumn of 1652 at

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