Understanding Epistemology: Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas
Epistemology: Knowledge and Truth
Epistemology seeks a basis for knowledge while addressing the problem of truth.
1. The Nature of Knowing
Knowing involves reaching new discoveries, which are true when combining existing ideas. These ideas must correspond to sensory impressions, but knowledge is an intellectual act of the mind, occurring between ideas that should, in turn, correspond to impressions.
Any new knowledge arises from combining ideas already present in the mind, caused by previous impressions.
Truth is the establishment of knowledge.
Knowing is establishing a new relationship between two or more ideas, associating them with one another. Knowing is thinking or discoursing on the mind, using existing data (ideas). Mental reflection on these ideas and their combinations creates new thoughts.
To know is to discover a new relationship between two or more ideas already in mind. The origin of ideas is the set of stimuli received from the external world through the senses.
2. The Role of Ideas
“Ideas” are copies or reflections of perceived things. An idea is the mental response to each individual object perceived, the impression that every material object leaves on the mind (external impressions). The mind also houses ideas that respond to feelings (internal impressions).
3. The Mind’s Function
The mind, the seat of human reason, accommodates and combines ideas. It has a triple function:
- Faculty of receiving and storing representations of things and objects.
- Faculty of reasoning based on received representations (thinking).
- Power of decision based on reason or feelings.
4. Origin and Classification of Ideas
Ideas are elements of the mind (impressions and ideas) rooted in sensory (external) or internal impressions. Therefore, impressions and ideas are mental states. Ideas always result from previous impressions. The difference lies in the strength and intensity with which they appear in the mind: impressions are strong stimuli, while ideas are weakened reflections.
5. Mechanisms of Association
Once established, the origin of ideas in the mind spontaneously leads to others. The mind promotes comparison between different ideas, organizing, classifying, sorting, and comparing them. These mechanisms include:
- Similarity
- Contiguity
- Cause and effect
6. Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact
All philosophical knowledge involves relationships between two or more pre-existing ideas. There are two types:
- Relations of ideas: Truths based on the analysis of their own meanings, making them inherently true. Their truth doesn’t depend on experience but only on the terms themselves. They are necessary, and denial involves a contradiction.
- Matters of fact: Require a clear appeal to experience to establish their truth. They affirm or deny states of nature or real events.