What is Epistemology?  

                               

                     



            Epistemology is basically the study of knowledge; it may sound simple, but when we really get into it, when we start asking questions about knowledge, we realize it is more complex than what we first thought... Since the IV century before Christ, with Plato, there are millions of people who have tried to develop new theories related to Epistemology, this branch is close to the study of reality, Metaphysics.

        When we think of Epistemology, we try to answer questions such as, what is knowledge? How do we know that we know? How do we acquire knowledge, if possible? Does truth exist? Can we get to know the truth? 

               Well, as you know now, it is a very difficult branch of Philosophy... This is why the persons who did create a theory about it are so important, some of them are: Plato, Aristotle, Ockham, Hume, Descartes, Wittgenstein, Kant, Popper, and Spinoza; you will be able to find out what are their theories about in this blog.

              We will try to answer some of the main questions of Epistemology here, based on the 10 philosophers mentioned... 
1. What is knowledge? 
                 It is when a person knows a statement is true, but also, knowing why it is true. Knowledge is different from "containing information", because a computer doesn't have the capacity to know, it doesn't achieve knowledge; in the other hand, we have the human beings, those who are supposed to have the capacity to know, because they are able to understand, to reason the information obtained, and therefore, they are capable of discovering if a statement is true or false. +

2. How do we acquire knowledge?
               According to David Hume, we acquire knowledge through our senses, by interacting with the external world, those are the outward sentiments; but also with our feelings, the inward sentiments. If we mix his empiricist theory with Plato's and Descartes', the answer to this question would be: we get information through our senses, but it is necessary to understand, analyze and reason this information, in order to turn it into knowledge.