However, the study of human knowing has not always placed these particular questions and concerns at the center of philosophy. For our concept of knowledge is inseparably tied to that of justification. I take it that these points are uncontroversial, although of course there could be disagreement about the details… If justification drops out of epistemology, knowledge itself drops out of epistemology. We can summarize our discussion thus far in the following points: that justification is a central concept of our epistemological tradition, that justification, as it is understood in this tradition, is a normative concept, and in consequence that epistemology itself is a normative inquiry whose principal aim is a systematic study of the conditions of justified belief. Kim claimed that justification is the central concept and that epistemology ceases to be epistemology without justification. Jaegwon Kim deepens the sense of the centrality of epistemic justification for traditional epistemology (4). “While these and other authors emphasize different aspects of traditional epistemology, all are agreed that it involves identifying and spelling out criteria of epistemic justification justifying (or ‘ratifying’) those criteria determining, by reference to those criteria, what we know and responding to the skeptical challenge to the possibility of our knowing anything at all (3).” Siegel concludes that philosophers engaged in traditional epistemology, including Jaegwon Kim, Susan Haack, and Barry Stoud agree about the central concerns. Harvey Siegel describes traditional epistemology in much the same terms as Zagzebski, but frames them as concerns rather than questions (2). Others philosophers characterize traditional epistemology similarly. Whatever the arrangement, Zagzebski’s point is well taken: the order in which one attempts to answer these central questions of the discipline will shape the content and the structure of one’s epistemology. Other philosophers avoid the morass of question 1 completely, assert that humanity clearly possesses knowledge, and go on to work out how it is acquired.
Therefore, answering 1 first could lead to not asking either of the other two questions at all. However, debates about the precise definition of knowledge are notoriously endless, resulting in some definitions of knowledge so stringent that none of man’s cognitive activities seem adequate to obtaining it. Some philosophers insist that knowledge must be defined before proceeding to questions 2 and 3.
She states that one’s epistemology will be very different depending on the relative order and emphasis one places on these questions. In On Epistemology, Linda Zagzebski writes that traditional epistemology is concerned with answering three central questions: Following Descartes, both early modern Rationalists and Empiricists employed a foundationalist strategy, coupled with a methodology modeled on mathematics, to answer their epistemological questions.
Epistemological naturalists often use the phrase traditional epistemology to describe the Cartesian tradition of philosophical inquiry, which began by asking epistemological questions prior to any other philosophical questions. Epistemology is the area of philosophy that seeks to answer questions about our knowing, how that knowing is justified, and how grounds for justification are established.
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