Topic 4: Knowledge

What is knowledge? This question is answered in different ways in different contexts, but for our purposes, the classical philosophical definition is the most appropriate:

Knowledge is justified true belief.

That is, you genuinely know something when you believe it, you are justified in believing it, and it is actually true.

Suppose, for example, you believe that the No.19 tram goes along Royal Parade in Melbourne, Australia. If the No.19 tram does not go along Royal Parade, you do not know that it does; you merely believe that it does, and you are mistaken.

If the No.19 tram does go along Royal Parade, you have a true belief. But suppose you only believe it because you just took a wild, very lucky guess. Then you still do not know that it goes along Royal Parade; you merely have a belief which, as it happens, is in fact true. You need some proper basis or justification for your belief.

Epistemology

In fact, the real story is considerably more complicated (1). The study of knowledge – of what it is to know something – is known as epistemology:

Epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature of knowledge.

Epistemologists ask questions such as:

- What is knowledge, anyway?

- Under what conditions can somebody be said to know something?

- What sorts of things do we know?

- What are the best procedures or methods for obtaining knowledge?

- Do we really know anything at all?

If you are interested, you can study these topics in detail in one of the various upper-level philosophy subjects in this field.