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Analytical approaches to epistemology
Epistemology studies the character of knowledge and its justification. I can know that something is the case – for instance, that Gordon Brown is Prime Minister or that June 2007 was the wettest on record. Traditionally this is referred to as propositional knowledge. I can also know how to do things, such as riding a bicycle or playing the piano. Moreover I can know a person, or the experience of grief. Much of epistemological debate, stemming from Plato, has concerned itself with propositional knowledge. Some philosophers, perhaps most famously Gilbert Ryle, have felt that there has been too much concern with propositional knowledge. Arguably a philosophically adequate response to Ryle should inform decisions about the curriculum: that is, we need, in relation to different subjects to be clear about what the appropriate balance is between these different kinds of knowledge
One line of investigation has attempted to specify the criteria for propositional knowledge. According to the justified true belief account of knowledge, which has its origins in Plato, if I know that Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, for instance, it must be true that he is, I must believe that he is, and I must be justified in believing it – it's not just a lucky guess. I need evidence of some kind. Robert Gettier showed, in a brief article in 1963, that the justified true belief account of knowledge was inadequate, and there has been extensive discussion since then about how to improve it. The so-called causal theory of knowledge attempts to include an appropriate causal relationship between the knower and the known.
However, this whole approach assumes that the question whether someone knows something, and the criteria used to make a decision about this, are independent of the particular context concerned. Contextualism in epistemology denies this, claiming that the standards we think should be met if someone is to have knowledge, legitimately vary from one context to another. So contextualism would appear to have important implications for education and educational assessment: assessment of a learner's knowledge will need to take careful account of the particular circumstances in which it is to be exercised or demonstrated.
Another strand of epistemology has focused on justification itself. Foundationalism holds that while most of our beliefs are justified by reference to other beliefs, this process cannot go on for ever, and that some beliefs are self-justifying. These are sometimes referred to as basic beliefs. My belief that my wife is in the next room is justified by reference to my belief that she was with me a minute ago and that I can hear her opening a drawer – these beliefs in turn will ultimately be justified in terms of basic beliefs I have about my own experiences.
In contrast, Coherentism denies the existence of basic beliefs. On this view beliefs are held to provide each other with mutual support rather than being based on special foundations. The link between the justification of a belief and the understanding of that belief is important in discussions of liberal education. According to proponents of the idea of a liberal education student knowledge should as far as possible be knowledge that they can justify for themselves, rather than knowledge merely accepted on the authority of the teacher.
Epistemological debates have long been rehearsed through developments of and responses to scepticism. Broadly characterised, the sceptic thinks that we do not know what we think we know. For instance, we do not know that there is an external world or that there are minds other than our own for the simple reason that in each of these cases we could be dreaming (or otherwise deluded): everything could be a figment of my imagination. But philosophers tend to view scepticism methodologically, as a device for deepening understanding of knowledge and justification, rather than as a position (a set of substantive beliefs) that any of them actually wants to hold and defend. Descartes famously imagined that he could be deceived by an evil demon about virtually everything he thought he knew – but concluded that he could not be deceived about his knowledge of his own existence: hence, here at least there was certainty. Critics of scepticism have claimed that the standards being required for knowledge are being set unjustifiably high.
A study of the character of knowledge includes attempts to respond to the question ‘What can we know?' What knowledge can be grounded in sense experience? What knowledge can we obtain that is not grounded in sense experience? Does science, for instance belong to the former type of knowledge, and mathematics to the latter? Arguably our answers to these questions have implications for the curriculum, though other assumptions about educational aims would need to be added in and justified for appropriate curricular decisions to be made.
Is moral knowledge possible? For instance, could I have knowledge of certain very general truths concerning what makes actions of a given kind right? Could I know that keeping promises was right because such a practice enhanced levels of happiness in the world and minimised levels of unhappiness (if it did!). Evidently answers to such questions have significant implications for moral education.
Analytical philosophy has devoted much energy to providing an account of belief. Holistic accounts of belief see the attribution of beliefs as an interpretive process in which it is recognised that beliefs do not come one at a time, but in interconnected clusters. Moreover, belief attributions make assumptions about the intentions and desires of the agent concerned. Hence, no specific type of behaviour is tightly linked to the possession of a specific belief. The work of Donald Davidson is particularly important here. Philosophy of education has concerned itself with the adequacy of conceptions of knowledge in the curriculum that see it in terms of competences and in turn with a possible outcome of this where competences are seen as specifiable types of behaviour .
Some accounts of knowledge within analytical philosophy are known as externalist. On this perspective, knowledge is not a stable individual asset of a knower that she can take from one context to another, but a complex state of affairs involving the knower's state of mind and her socio-cultural environment. If externalism is right, it has important implications for the curriculum and for debates about appropriate approaches to educational assessment.
These questions are explored further in the ‘Epistemology' entry in the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy online, the ‘Epistemology' entry in the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy at http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epistemo.htm and the ‘epistemology' entry in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy at http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/epistemology/ . For educational applications see, for instance:
Bonnett, M. (1995) Teaching Thinking, and the Sanctity of Content, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 29. 3, pp. 295-309
Bridges, D. (1996) Competence-based Education and Training: Progress or Villainy?, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 30.3, pp. 361–376
Lum, G. (1999) Where's the Competence in Competence-based Education and Training?, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 33.3, pp. 403–418.
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