(September 12, 2010 at 11:15 pm)theVOID Wrote: What is knowledge?
How do we gain knowledge?
How do we know what we know?
These are the questions addressed by epistemology. Almost all have the first in common, the TJB (true justified belief) where someone Knows something if it is true and if they believe it to be true - There are minor variations between epistemologies, such as reliabilism positing that one must use a method that tends towards the truth to Know something - the whole idea of this is to exclude guessing and similar approaches where one could believe something that is in fact true, but their method for arriving at this belief was simply chance.
There are many other epistemologies out there, all with merits and flaws.
I think that this is the best I can come up with as a "label" to answer your question VoiD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism This in particular took my fancy....
Solipsism amounts to realism
An objection, raised by David Deutsch[15] (among others), is that since the solipsist has no control over the "universe" she is creating for herself, there must be some part of her mind, of which she is not conscious, that is doing the creating. If the solipsist makes her unconscious mind the object of scientific study (e.g. by conducting experiments), she will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe described by a realist. Thus what realism calls "the universe", solipsism calls "one's unconscious mind." Understood this way, the distinction between realism and solipsism collapses and amounts to different ways of describing the same thing: a massively complex process that causes all of the solipsist's experiences, but is not identical to the solipsist's conscious mind.
Presumably having made the case that the solipsist scientist is actually a realist scientist, Deutsch next argues in favor of the more common understanding of reality. He applies Occam's Razor, and suggests that it prefers the standard external 'reality' over something like a brain in a vat. This is because the standard 'reality' fits all the data available to the scientist, rendering superfluous the other more complicated possibilities.
If seeking to avoid rejecting the laws of thought, the solipsist may appeal to the problem of induction to reiterate that the realist's theory of reality could still, in the end, be an illusion in some way. She could also appeal to some types of idealism.
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Personally I hate labels mainly because we are dealing with humans and we are a very complicated species capable of deluding ourselves very well. What we think we have proven to know may be in strict contrast to what actually is or how 'it' actually is.
As you have stated ...'There are many epistemologies out there' (six billion and counting - imho) All we can hope to do is apply our insatiable curiosity; our scientific methodologies; and best minds to the task of finding THE answer.
In the mean time I'm busying myself to ensure that we all get there.
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
