epistemology
/ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒləd͡ʒi/
epistemology means the branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge; the theory of knowledge, asking such questions as "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", "How do we know it is true?", and so on. It carries an Arena rating of 1507, earned across 68 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, epistemology ranks #475 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,596 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,810 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #3,066 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
epistemology is pronounced /ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒləd͡ʒi/.
Why “epistemology” is a great word
EPISTEMOLOGY — [Noun] The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge. From Ancient Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistḗmē, "science, knowledge") + -λογία (-logía, "study of"). Coined in English by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864). Unlike ontology, which asks what fundamentally exists, or methodology, which maps the tools of inquiry, epistemology is the rigorous audit of how we can claim to know anything at all. It is the skeptic questioning the reality of the chair she sits upon, the historian sifting evidence to distinguish fact from bias, and the unbridgeable gap between the redness you see and the redness I describe—a quiet interrogation of the very ground beneath our feet.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistḗmē, “science, knowledge”), from ἐπίσταμαι (epístamai, “to know”) + -λογία (-logía, “study or logic of”), from λόγος (lógos, “speech, language”). The term was introduced into English by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).
noun
- The branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge; the theory of knowledge, asking such questions as "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", "How do we know it is true?", and so on.e.g.“Some thinkers take the view that, beginning with the work of Descartes, epistemology began to replace metaphysics as the most important area of philosophy.”
- A particular instance, version, or school thereof; a particular theory of knowledge.e.g.“In his epistemology, Plato maintains that our knowledge of universal concepts is a kind of recollection.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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