KNOWLEDGE (from ME. knowan, AS. call wan. Icel. knit, OHG. cnaan: connected with OChurch Slay. znati, Lat. noscere, Gk. pign5Rkein, Slot. pia, to know ME. -Why. from Icel. -lcikr, an abstract suffix). THEORY OF.
or EPISTEMOLOGY. The science which is concerned with questions about the existence, the validity, and the extent of knowledge. Because of its fundamental character. dealing as it does with a fact that every other science unquestioningly takes for granted, it is considered a philosophical discipline.
In one sense it can he said that any inquiry into knowledge is a circular procedure. In other words, there must be knowledge to begin with. before inquiry of any sort can be entered upon. In this respect. however. epistemology is not so different front any other science. for every science starts with actually given facts and with some degree of actual knowledge of these facts. The facts that the epistemologist takes as given are the fact of knowledge and the fact of knowing something about this knowledge. Just at this point the skeptic puts an objection. He either says that there is no knowledge. or else that if there is we cannot know of it, and that there fore the epistemologist begs the whole ques tion. This objection is not so serious as at first blush it seems to be. lacked. it has done more than anything else to put epistemology on a scientific basis. For when the objection is scru tinized it will be seen to mean. not that there is no fact ill experience answering to the name of knowledge, but that the fact of knowledge is not what it is usually taken to he. In other words. the skeptic—if he knows what he is about— does not deny the existence of knowledge as a fact of experience; but lie doubts certain theories of knowledge—e.g. among others the theory that there are objects, styled real, which are in sonic way represented or copied by other objects styled ideas. He doubts these theories because he knows, or thinks he knows, that they give an account of knowledge which is incompatible with the facts of the case. That is, the skeptic has a theory of
his own about knowledge; he is an epistemologist, and as such enters upon the arena of scientific discussion.
This analysis of the attitude of the skeptic toward knowledge is so important that it must lie dwelt upon at greater length. No man is born a skeptic. No young child is a skeptic. If he becomes cne later, the experiences that have brought about the revolution in his view of the world should help us to a clear insight into the real meaning of this new view. In other words. unless the skeptic is insane, he has and gives reasons for his new attitude. He adduces proofs. taken from his own experience. and presumably verified in the experience of others. to establish either the certainty or the probability. or at least the irrefutable possibility, of his ignorance. The stock arguments of skeptics are gathered up into the famous tropes of ..Enesidernus (q.v.) : and they are further condensed in the five tropes of Agrippa, a skeptic of the second century of our era. It is worth our while to examine these argu ments, as they help us to understand the meth od,, the assumptions, and therefore the real sig nificance of skepticism in general. The tropes of Agrippa are as follows: (1) The same object gives rise to different impressions. (2) All knowledge presupposes an infinite series of prem ises, since any disputed proposition must be proved by some other. this latter by still a third. and so ad infinitunt. (3) All knowledge is rela tive, since every object presents an appearance that differs according to the different-es in the constitutions of the percipients and according to the relations in which the object stands to other objects. (4) All axioms are arbitrary. since dogmatists. to escape the regressas ad infinilum, start their argument from some premise which they assume without justification. (Si There is a circle in all reasoning. since the conclusion rests upon the premises. and. contrariwise. the premise, rest upon the conclusion.