The Critical Philosophy won its first success in Germany less as a newepistemology than as what, in fact, its author meant it to be, a rehabilitation of religious belief.
Meanwhile, the facility with which the founder of epistemology accepts fallacies whence Spinoza had already found his way out shows how little he was master of his means.
Hence the primary problem of epistemology is: How is knowledge überhaupt, knowledge at large, possible?
As just pointed out, epistemology makes the possibility of knowledge a problem, because it assumes back of knowledge conditions incompatible with the obvious traits of knowledge as it empirically exists.
The things that pass for epistemology all assume that knowledge is not a natural function or event, but a mystery.
Epistemology only generalized in its loose, although narrow and technical way, the question practically urgent in Europe: How is science possible?
Epistemology starts from the assumption that certain conditions lie back of knowledge.
What is its meaning, not simply for reflective philosophy or in terms of epistemology itself, but what is its meaning in the historical movement of humanity and as a part of a larger and more comprehensive experience?
Epistemology is bound to deny to the results of the special sciences in detail any ulterior objectivity just because they always are in a process of inquiry--in solution.
It is out of the question to set forth in this place in detail the contrast between transcendental epistemology and an experimental theory of knowledge.
But note in the first place that such a conception of the proper province of philosophy where it is released from vain metaphysics and idleepistemology is in line with the origin of philosophy sketched in the first hour.
This outlook is still vague and vacillating, and it may perhaps compel epistemology to return on its old path from the sophists to Plato, from Hume to Kant.
And it is in the teacup of logic and epistemology that the storm in regard to theories of the universe has arisen.
But the doctrine can be met from the standpoint of epistemology itself.
Bergson’s critique of intellectualism proceeds by applying to traditional metaphysics and epistemology his purely qualitative criterion of reality.
This is an abuse of the word “perception,” but the epistemology can show a good deal of reason.
And the light that later writers bring to bear on Kant's logic and epistemology from other sides of his speculation varies in kind and in degree.
Wundt's comprehensive view that logic looks backwards to psychology and forward to epistemology was hundreds of years ago one of the many discoveries of Aristotle.
Indeed Psychology and Epistemology have, driven by every reason and stopped by none, more and more denied and refuted this excessive, indeed gratuitous, Dualism.
We cannot go further back than these forms and principles, which it is the aim of epistemologyto ascertain and for which no further reason can be given.
But there is another side of the problem which is, perhaps, of more importance and which epistemology generally overlooks.
We are here touching a possibility which the great master of epistemology did not bring to light.
Of the English philosophers who prepare the way for the epistemology of Kant, Hume is the most radical and momentous.
The consequences of this dualism for epistemology are very grave.
As a consequence this outgrowth of the Berkeleyanism epistemology is at present merging into a realistic philosophy of experience.
Epistemology is the theory of the possibility of knowledge, and issues from criticism and scepticism.
It is evident that in this Hegelian philosophy epistemology embraces metaphysics.
But within the general field of epistemology there has arisen another issue of even greater significance in its bearing upon metaphysics.
Granting that the subjective knower of the older epistemologyshould be dismissed from philosophy, it does not follow that Dewey's special interpretation of the function of reflection is the only substitute.
Instead of puzzling himself and others about epistemology he pondered the problem of stimulating the growth of intelligence and evolving a rational ethic.
By this I mean much more than that the formulae of epistemology are foreign to him; I mean that his attitude to these things as things involves their not being in relation to him as a mind or a knower.
This progress, verified in every record of science, is an absolute monstrosity from the standpoint of the epistemologywhich assumes a thought in general, on one side, and a reality in general, on the other.
The difficulties attending the discussion of epistemology are in no way attendant upon the special subject-matter of "epistemology.
The alleged discipline of epistemology is then inevitable.
Epistemology is thus concerned with the truth and certitude of human knowledge; with the subjective conditions and the scope and limits of its validity; with the subjective or mental factors involved in knowing.
Thus Epistemology and Psychology deal with human thought, but under different aspects; Psychology and Ethics deal with human volition, but under different aspects, etc.
It can be shown in Cosmology, Psychology, and Epistemology that all such attempts to analyse qualities into something other than qualities, are utterly unsatisfactory and unsuccessful.
Next summer we shall begin with studying action as action, and then, in fact, a well-founded epistemology will be among our first requirements.
But it is not our object here to deal either with epistemology proper or with ontology: a full analysis of biological facts is our problem.
In the cases of physical epistemology and epistemological physics we have already seen doctrines working to this end.
Some thinkers have identified the two, while others regardEpistemology as a subdivision of logic; others demarcate their relative spheres by confining logic to the science of the laws of thought, i.
Epistemology is concerned rather with the possibility of knowledge in the abstract (sub specie aeternitatis, Ward, ibid.
It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draw a hard and fast line between epistemology and other branches of philosophy.
Bit the 'gulf' here is that which the pragmatist epistemology itself fixes in the very first words it uses, by saying there must be an object and an idea.
Footnote: It gives me pleasure to welcome Professor Carveth Read into the pragmatistic church, so far as his epistemology goes.
Had logic possessed the courage long ago to throw overboard this subjective Jonah it would have been spared the storms of epistemology and the reefs of metaphysics.
The problem of knowledge as conceived in the industry of epistemology is the problem of knowledge in general--of the possibility, extent, and validity of knowledge in general.
Because logic has tolerated and attempted to compromise with this subjective act of knowing, say these reformers, it has been forced constantly intoepistemology and has become a hybrid science.
But, replies some one so obsessed with the epistemological point of view that he assumes that the prior account is a rival epistemology in disguise, all this involves no change in Reality, no difference made to Reality.
It is true that it is the bold proposal of analytic logic to keep logic out of the pit of epistemology by excluding the act of knowing from logic.
Had the new logic begun with a bold challenge of the psychical character of the act of knowing, the prospect of a logic free from epistemology would have been much brighter.
That Greek logic escaped the ravages of epistemology was due to the saving materialism in its metaphysical conception of mind and to the steadfastness of the aristocratic regime.
I did not include epistemology or "the theory of knowledge" as a separate discipline, and my reasons for this will appear in Chapter XIX.
It is the necessity of exhibiting this assurance which makes it impossible to subordinate logical problems, and forces us at last to questions of epistemology and metaphysics.
Logic implies an epistemology or theory of cognition in so far as epistemology discusses the concept and judgment and their relations to the real world, and here is to be found its closest connection with psychology.
The general standpoint of Wundt is similar to that of Sigwart, in that he discovers the function of logic in the exposition of the formation and methods of scientific knowledge; for example, in epistemology and methodology.
In Plato's philosophy, logic is not separated from epistemology and metaphysics.
It is not practicable to separate epistemology and logic, for such concepts as causality, analogy, validity, etc.
Indeed, one may say that the evolution of modern epistemology has had a centrifugal influence on logic, and instead of growth towards unity of conception we have a chaos of diverse and discordant theories.
For this reason, Sigwart relegates to a postscript his discussion of teleology, but he gives an elaborate treatment of epistemologyextending through vol.
While logic thus goes back to epistemology for its bases and for the theoretical determination of the interrelation of knowledge and truth, it goes forward in its application to the practical service of the sciences as their methodology.
Logic therefore needs," as he says, "epistemology for its foundation and the doctrine of methods for its completion.
This is, to my mind, suspicious, even when epistemology is defined in a way which most epistemologists would not approve.
Schiller says that "Professor Santayana, though a pragmatist in epistemology is a materialist in metaphysics.
His professional contributions to logical theory and epistemology appear mostly in the fortnightly organ of the philosophical department of Columbia University, the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods.
