What is the epistemological position in which reason is the source of all knowledge?

Abstract

Epistemology is the study of knowledge, asking questions such as: “what is knowledge?” and “how do we know something?” For human geographers, an appreciation of epistemology is important in order to critically assess the reliability of knowledge developed in the discipline, but also in understanding how knowledge plays an active role in society.

Human geographers have taken up a variety of epistemological positions over the last 70 years. The development of quantitative spatial science in the mid-20th Century was broadly positivist, prioritizing sense data as the only legitimate source of knowledge. Humanistic geography of the 1970s drew on phenomenology to pay attention to human perception and experience of the world. Forms of social epistemology, acknowledging the social dimension of knowledge, have also been influential from the 1970s onwards. Standpoint epistemologies such as Marxism and (some forms of) feminism emphasize that knowledge is socially situated, shaped by social relations. This has implications particularly for how we develop understanding of inequalities in society. Postmodernism and poststructuralism locate knowledge and its effects within our everyday social practices. Arguably, epistemological diversity is one of human geography's strengths: each epistemological position has expanded geographers' focus of interest and opened up new approaches to the discipline.

Personal epistemology refers to the theories or beliefs that lay persons hold about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowing. The article shows that personal epistemology has grown to be a distinct, active field of educational inquiry in the most recent decades. In summarizing the most important achievements in this field, the article addresses the following questions: What is personal epistemology? How does personal epistemology develop? What are the dimensions of personal epistemology? Is personal epistemology domain general, domain specific, or both? How does personal epistemology relate to students' motivation, cognition, and performance? How can personal epistemology be assessed? What are the practical implications of personal-epistemology research?

Abstract

Traditionally, epistemology concerns justifying beliefs. What right do we have to think that our beliefs are true? Evolutionary epistemology is a form of naturalized epistemology. In naturalized epistemology, the justification provided turns on an appeal to something about the natural world, in this case the evolutionary process. Organisms that do not react appropriately to their environments are not likely to survive to reproduce. Evolutionary epistemology began as both epistemology and evolutionary. Evolutionary epistemology was ‘epistemology’ in the sense that it was designed to justify certain basic beliefs that people hold. Evolutionary epistemology was ‘evolutionary’ in the sense that it was based on evolutionary theory as a biological theory. The reason that our knowledge of the world of our experience is reasonably good is that our sense organs have been honed by natural selection, and the results of this honing are programmed into our genes. The early versions of evolutionary epistemology were gene based; that is, the relevant knowledge was programmed into our genes and thus passed from generation to generation. Things like behavior were viewed as phenotypic characteristics.

To introduce knowledge and inspiration into epistemology

Epistemology is a long-discussed issue, the science of the initiation and development process of human cognition as well as its laws. It focuses on sources of people’s consciousness, cognitive ability, cognitive form, cognitive nature, the structure of cognition, the relationship between objective truth and cognition, and so on. In modern philosophy, especially contemporary philosophy, epistemology gains more and more importance. In the development history of epistemological thought, every introduction of a new important concept is to initiate great academic change. Throughout the history of Western philosophy, in general there are three major philosophical revolutions caused by the introduction of new concepts:

Plato introduced ‘logos’ into epistemology, which forms the first transcendentalism.

Immanuel Kant introduced ‘psyche’ into epistemology, which causes great revolution in the history of philosophy.

Marx introduced practice into epistemology, which brought another major change in the history of philosophy.

Fourth, Consumption and Management introduced knowledge and inspiration into epistemology.

‘Consumption practice and consumption awareness’ in Consumption and Management is summarized below.

The process through which people develop cognition can be divided into the following three stages:

The first stage is to observe, discover, feel, apperceive and foster impression (presentation), namely the stage of perceptual knowledge.

The second stage includes knowledge, inspiration, experimentation, thinking and judgment, which means to try the experience out and learn from the lesson, i.e. the first phase of rational knowledge. This is the basic stage of human practice, the foundation of the formation of rational knowledge.

The third stage is to summarize and reason abstractly, i.e. the highest rational stage of thinking, concept, viewpoints and conclusion.

Theory of consumption introduces knowledge and inspiration into epistemology. It will be emphasized that the introduction made by the Consumption and Management is not a reference in a general sense but is regarded as an essential link of epistemology. Having knowledge and inspiration admitted to epistemology gives two aspects of significance. For one thing, knowledge is an important quality of modern people, needed by those who want to achieve something and which they must keep developing and improving. For another, it is imperative to cherish knowledge and respect inspiration from the point of society, and to realize that knowledge may bring a better and more special thinking process to individuals, organizations, or even the whole country, while inspiration perhaps implies one or several significant inventions.

Publisher Summary

Bachelard's epistemology is often presented as a philosophy based on mathematics and physics. Without denying the importance of these two disciplines, this chapter argues that chemistry provided a number of basic concepts in his epistemology. Moreover Bachelard's evaluation of chemistry changed fundamentally during his career. In the 1930s he shaped a future for chemistry modelled on mathematics, in La philosophie du non (1940) and in Le matèrialisme rationnel (1953), he forged a new ontology named “metachemistry” (1940) and a new anthropology (1953). Bachelard advocated a philosophy instructed by science. He started describing “the scientific spirit” in generic terms illustrated by the mathematical and physical sciences, but Bachelard later became aware of the diversity of epistemic thinking. In Le rationalisme appliquè he advocated a regional approach to rationality.

Feminist epistemologies

Epistemologies are theories about the nature of knowledge. Feminist epistemologies form a subset of social epistemologies, which examine the interplay between knowledge and social relations and institutions (Pressley 2008). Feminist epistemologies deny the existence of one truth per se and focus on whose knowledge it is that is being proclaimed. They also focus on context and situation. Pressley (2008, p. 47) sums it up nicely: ‘The particulars of knowledge construction are the main focus for feminist epistemologists, rather than the development of an impossible set of universal circumstances for justifying knowledge’.

There is an overarching rainbow of feminist epistemologies which range from liberal to radical to post-modern perspectives. Over recent years, feminist epistemologies have been drawn upon in studies in a range of fields, including education, health and science. These studies have pointedly revealed that there is no single feminist theoretical perspective. Janice McLaughlin argues that part of the reason there is ‘uncertainty’ in feminist theoretical debates and agendas is the ‘uncertainty about what theory can say and on whose behalf it speaks’ (McLaughlin 2003, p. 4). She also claims that early feminist theoretical discussions ignored or denied the importance of difference. In more recent years this is no longer true, as vehemently debated feminist research perspectives abound and consensus on one perspective or another seems unlikely. Such consensus would also be highly undesirable for it would inevitably mean the exclusion of some and dominance of others, which would be counter to basic feminist values of equity.

Choosing one perspective would also disregard the importance of intersectionality—the recognition that identities/subjectivities/power and knowledge are not stable discrete things but are fluid and situational. Intersectional perspectives sit comfortably within feminist paradigms, particularly third-wave feminisms which do not foreground gender and discard the influences of class, race, culture, disability and sexual preference, among other things (Styhre & Eriksson-Zetterquist 2008). Information literacy researchers need to become more familiar with feminist epistemologies to understand better why or how these positions could be useful in our field. To this end, the ensuing section discusses in more detail critical feminism, feminisms of colour and postcolonial feminism, and proposes research questions and problems that could be considered by information literacy researchers.

8.8 Epistemological Development: Critical Thinking and Metacognition

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge. Accordingly, the notion of epistemological development concerns the way that people’s ideas about the nature of knowledge change as they grow up. More pertinent in the present context is the body of research on the way that students’ ideas about knowledge change as they progress through their course from first-year undergraduate through graduation and beyond into postgraduate study, and we would argue that this phenomenon of epistemological development needs to be taken into account in course design at each of these stages. In lay terms, the epistemological content of the student trajectory can encompass notions of study skills, critical thinking, and awareness of disciplinary differences. That trajectory will involve social-affective situations such as transitions from outside to inside the academy; prior assumptions about knowledge/university teaching; life history, present purposes, and perceptions of knowledge; and may also involve dissonances between expectations and experiences and in discourses between different disciplines.

To summarize very briefly what is a substantial body of research literature involving combinations of interview and questionnaire-based studies, the first-year undergraduate typically arrives at university with a dualistic view of knowledge as either right or wrong and a correspondence theory of truth that holds simply that those items of knowledge that are correct or true are so by virtue of the fact that what they assert corresponds to what is actually the case in the world. Thus, the atomic theory of matter is seen as true because matter really is made up of tiny particles. Later, as the uncertainty of many areas of knowledge begins to become evident, with the very notion of correspondence being problematic (e.g., how does one get evidence of what matter is like at the lowest levels?) a multiplist theory of knowledge is subscribed to in which multiple competing ideas are perceived as equally valid. Beyond this stage, the student becomes an evaluativist thinker in which competing theories are distinguished in terms of the quality and strength of the evidence that supports them. Knowledge is thus seen as not immutable; what is accepted as true is that item of knowledge that is best supported by evidence. However, it could in principle be supplanted by a new theory in the future, if that theory proved capable of explaining the same or a wider range of phenomena and if its evidence base were stronger. This relativist/evaluativist position is the most sophisticated epistemological theory and a goal of epistemological development, and not all university graduates with first degrees will reach this position (Hofer, 2000, 2001; Hofer & Sinatra, 2010; Kuhn & Dean, 2004; Perry, 1970).

Knowing That, Knowing How…, and Knowing Why

Epistemology and ethics are only part of the adult learning story. The already amorphous and distributional quality of adult learning is exacerbated by the immediacy of the self-direction which Knowles' traditional andragogy highlights. Adults learn best when they see the point of it.

Vocationalization within adult learning (as part of a globalizing lifelong-learning policy scenario), such as has just been discussed, impels us to consider the extent to which adults learn best when they can see its direction: this is to know why X… (where X is a reason, purpose, or goal).

As we have seen above, translating this across formal and informal contexts is complex: individuals will have a variety of motivations, often in any one day, and often derived from sociocultural allegiances. Through work, home, community, and national institutions, individual adults locate their sense of what is worth achieving – not only for themselves as individuals, but also for their sense of their shared self-hood. What kind of worker, partner, parent, or citizen do I, or rather, we, want to be? Once the arena for learning is broadened out, we can locate ourselves as distributed among and between diverse allegiances. This lateral dimension complements the linear dimension – the journey of the individual across the life span.

In this way, we can add to the traditional Rylean analysis, a teleological perspective: we learn, from each other, what it is to know why we have particular goals and motives. These might come from our employment (such as a corporate vision or strategy), or from our home or community allegiances (such as spiritual or activist values), or from national imperatives (policy discourses which attract or repel).

On this tripartite analysis, worthwhile adult learning is constituted, coextensively, by know-what, know-how, and know-why. This adds to propositional knowledge the significance of sensitivity to our own learning experiences (knowing how X…), and also adds the directionality of this learning, or the teleological dimension (knowing why X…). This analysis locates the individual as an intersubjectivity among not only other individuals, but also as relationships of associations and allegiances, in groups of diverse sociocultural significance.

Adult learning, analyzed this way, is a wide and deep phenomenon, with astonishingly diverse manifestations, only some of which fit with traditional assumptions of the learner as an individual, or subjective self, enrolled in formal studies in an educational institution. On the contrary, this analysis requires philosophical enquiry into diverse contexts where, almost case by case, particularistic approaches can be tailored to prospects of successful learning. So we need to look closely at educative practices, from which adults can learn.

Philosophy: epistemology of information

“Epistemology” is a philosophical concept that considers the nature of the sources of information we value. It asks questions like these: Where does our disciplinary information come from? What forms does it take? Why is such information seen as significant to our discipline? How do we determine what sources are reliable/valuable and what are not? For those of us who have functioned for some time within a particular discipline, our epistemology is second nature. Not only do we not think much about why we value some forms of information over others, but we might be hard-pressed to teach our epistemology to others. Still, knowing where our information comes from and what significance it has for the work we do is vital to the foundation of disciplinary work. It is also a realm neither understood nor properly appreciated by our students. If their ability with research processes is going to grow, they are going to have to understand the nature of the information field within which they are working.

Helping us are all those “philosophy of” or “theory of” introductory courses that students dread and many faculty members dislike teaching. Why do we teach them? Often because they are seen as essential to knowing a subject area, though it is not at all clear what is essential about them. If we were to think in terms of epistemology, however – how we know what we know, what are our information sources, and why we value some more than others – we might be able to justify the importance of “philosophy of” courses that teach just those elements.

For now, let’s delve a bit deeper into epistemology. A sudden descent like this into philosophical thinking may seem challenging to the attention span, but it is important.

There was a time in which the concept of “information” could be summed up as “that which gives us the foundation for discovering truth.” Postmodernism and Poststructuralism have challenged the assumption that the sources of our information are objective and values-neutral enough to make the acquiring and use of information a sure path to truth. Kapitzke (2003), for example, has argued that information can no longer be seen as operating in some sort of vacuum, separated from the social and historical processes that shape it and justify its existence. Information is not neutral, nor is it apolitical.

Kapitzke goes on to call for us to recognize a hyperliteracy (a literacy that recognizes the various forms and media in which information is found) as a better explanation of the many environmental factors operating when information is created and used. Hyperliteracy includes “intermediality,” the idea that we must view the information process within the worlds of both its producer and user. The one who created the information may not live within the conceptual environment of the one who uses the information, creating a situation in which there is a disconnection between the intent of the creator and the interpretation of the user. Recognizing this reality will help us maintain a constant analysis of the cultures and assumptions of both creator and user.

This idea, that information always is contextual and exists in tension between producers and users, is helpful, yet it neglects one aspect of epistemology – the reality that a source of information needs to be evaluated by criteria that are more or less universally acceptable. We may contextualize the information process, but we must agree upon the interpretive means we employ to recognize what the writer writes, how the information became published, and how the reader reads it. Also, a proper epistemology looks at the qualifications, presuppositions and biases of the writer as well as of the reader.

Here our students need to learn how to use commonly accepted criteria that help them judge the extent to which they can believe, rely upon, or use the information according to the purpose it for which it was created. Unless our epistemology makes a god of subjectivity, any philosophy of knowledge has to ask questions like, “Who wrote this? Does she have the required knowledge base to make her writing reliable? What presuppositions have set the direction for her approach to this topic? What biases do I bring to my reading of her work? What value will this piece of information ultimately have to my quest?”

Academic information generally lives within the context of a subject discipline. In a subject discipline, discourse is carried out by specific though often unwritten rules that make any particular piece of evidence or product of research either valid or invalid, based on the criteria established by the discipline. We might well accept the famous warning of Martin (1998) regarding political bias within disciplines, but Keresztesi (1982) has made it clear in his pioneering article, “The Science of Bibliography,” that the recognition of an area of study as a discipline within the university is the only way for it to achieve widespread approval in society.

This tells us that, though bias may exist within the creator, the publisher, and the reader, we still need ground rules that will guide us in our recognition of the value of information sources and in the means we use to understand them. Epistemological issues are not insignificant ones. Students who understand the forces at work in the production and validation of information sources in their disciplines are prepared to use information intelligently, effectively and ethically to address the research needs which they are facing.

Personal Epistemology

Personal epistemology concerns the beliefs individuals hold about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowing. For example, some students may view scientific knowledge as a collection of proven facts transmitted from authorities, whereas others may believe scientific knowledge to be theoretical, problematic, and a result of ongoing inquiry. Lately, some studies have linked personal epistemology to the comprehension of multiple sources, with this body of research generally indicating that more naive epistemic beliefs (e.g., that knowledge is certain and simple) are related to poorer comprehension performance (for review, see Bråten, 2008).

For example, Jacobson and Spiro (1995) found that only students who preferred working with complex knowledge in multiple ways and valued active learner construction of knowledge were able to profit from the reading of multiple texts presented in a hypertext environment. Moreover, Rukavina and Daneman (1996) found that students who believed that knowledge is simple and consists of isolated facts had problems integrating information from two separate texts representing competing theories about scientific problems. Finally, Bråten and Strømsø (2006a) found that the reading of multiple texts facilitated deeper understanding only among students with more sophisticated epistemic beliefs.

Thus, research suggests that the understanding of multiple sources seems to require relatively sophisticated epistemic thinking, where knowledge is seen as constructed through both rational processes and the melding of information from different perspectives. Apparently, multiple sources constrain rather than promote comprehension for readers who hold the naive beliefs that knowledge consists of unchanging, isolated bits of information handed down by authority rather than tentative, interrelated concepts constructed by the reader.