"Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge."
The study of knowledge, belief, and justification.
Empiricism: The philosophical theory that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience.
Rationalism: The philosophical theory that knowledge comes primarily from reason and deduction.
Skepticism: The philosophical theory that knowledge claims should be examined critically, and that absolute certainty is impossible.
Reliabilism: The philosophical theory that knowledge is justified by the reliability of the cognitive process that produces the knowledge.
Coherentism: The philosophical theory that knowledge is justified if it coheres with other beliefs in a system of beliefs.
Foundationalism: The philosophical theory that knowledge is justified by basic beliefs that are self-evident or incorrigible.
Epistemic Regress: The problem of justifying beliefs, and how justification can be obtained for the reasons used to justify beliefs.
Induction: The process of reasoning from specific cases to general principles.
Deduction: The process of reasoning from general principles to specific cases.
Epistemic Justification: The process by which knowledge claims are supported by evidence and argumentation.
A Priori Knowledge: Knowledge that is independent of experience, and can be known through reason alone.
A Posteriori Knowledge: Knowledge that is dependent on experience, and can only be known through sensory input.
"Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics."
"Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues."
"Debates in epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas:"
"The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification."
"Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony."
"The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs."
"Philosophical skepticism, which questions the possibility of knowledge, and related problems, such as whether skepticism poses a threat to our ordinary knowledge claims and whether it is possible to refute skeptical arguments."
"Epistemology aims to answer questions such as 'What do people know?', 'What does it mean to say that people know something?', 'What makes justified beliefs justified?', and 'How do people know that they know?'"
"Specialties in epistemology ask questions such as 'How can people create formal models about issues related to knowledge?' (in formal epistemology), 'What are the historical conditions of changes in different kinds of knowledge?' (in historical epistemology), 'What are the methods, aims, and subject matter of epistemological inquiry?' (in metaepistemology), and 'How do people know together?' (in social epistemology)." Please note that the provided quotes are not direct quotes but paraphrased excerpts from the paragraph.