Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics

Epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics form the core of philosophy's attempt to understand what we can know, how we should act, and what fundamentally exists. Epistemologists examine questions like what distinguishes genuine knowledge from mere belief, whether testimony from others can reliably transmit knowledge, and how skeptical challenges—the worry that we may be systematically deceived—can ever be answered. Active debates turn on how much weight to give epistemic intuitions (our pre-theoretical sense that certain claims just must be true or false) and what makes an assertion genuinely justified rather than lucky. These questions matter beyond the seminar room because they bear directly on how we evaluate expertise, apportion trust, and decide when confidence in a claim is warranted.

Works

65,669

Total citations

761,444

Keywords

KnowledgeBeliefJustificationEpistemic IntuitionsTestimonySkepticism