Metaphysics and Epistemology
Metaphysics and epistemology are core philosophical branches. This domain tests the nature of reality and the analysis of knowledge, including rationalism, empiricism, scepticism and theories of truth.
Core rules
- Metaphysics studies being, substance, universals, causation, personal identity, mind and body, and freedom. Materialism, dualism and idealism are competing positions.
- Epistemology analyses knowledge, belief, justification and truth. The standard analysis is knowledge as justified true belief, refined in response to Gettier-style cases.
- Rationalism gives reason a primary role in knowledge; empiricism gives experience that role. Scepticism questions whether knowledge is possible.
- Truth theories include correspondence, coherence and pragmatist accounts.
Worked example
Ravi believes the train leaves at 5 p.m.; it does; and he read the official timetable. His belief is true and justified, so it counts as knowledge under the justified-true-belief analysis. If he had merely guessed correctly, the belief would be true but not justified, so it would not be knowledge. If his justification were defective but accidentally true, a Gettier case would arise.
Traps
True belief alone is not knowledge. Justification is not the same as truth. Scepticism is not relativism. Do not confuse materialism about the mind with hedonism in ethics. In metaphysics, distinguish a description of what exists from an explanation of why it exists.