Philosophy is that field of knowledge, the subject of which is almost impossible to define precisely. The questions that it is intended to answer are very diverse and depend on many factors: era, state, specific thinker. Traditionally, philosophy has been divided into several branches according to the subject it deals with. The most important components of philosophical knowledge are ontology and epistemology, respectively, the doctrine of being and the doctrine of cognition. Of great importance are such branches as anthropology, social philosophy, history of philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of science and technology, and some others. In this article, we will focus on the section that studies the nature of human cognition.
Estemology and epistemology are two terms that point to the same phenomenon - the theory of knowledge in philosophy. The existence of two different terms is due to the temporal and geographical factors: in the German philosophy of the XVIII century. the doctrine of human cognitive abilities was called epistemology, and in the Anglo-American philosophy of the 20th century. -epistemology.
Estemology is a philosophical discipline that deals with the problems of human cognition of the world, the possibilities of cognition and its limits. This branch explores the prerequisites for cognition, the relationship of acquired knowledge to the real world, the criteria for the truth of cognition. Unlike such sciences as psychology, epistemology is the science that seeks to find universal, universal foundations of knowledge. What can be called knowledge? Are our knowledge relevant to reality? The theory of knowledge in philosophy does not focus on the particular mechanisms of the psyche, through which the knowledge of the world occurs.
The history of epistemology begins in Ancient Greece. It is believed that for the first time the problem of the truth of knowledge in Western philosophy was raised by Parmenides, who, in his treatise On Nature, discusses the difference between opinion and truth. Another thinker of antiquity, Plato, believed that initially the soul of every person belonged to the world of ideas, and true knowledge is possible as a memory relating to the period of the soul's stay in this world. Socrates and Aristotle, who developed methods of consistent cognition, did not bypass this problem. Thus, already in ancient philosophy we find many thinkers who do not question that epistemology is an important branch of philosophical knowledge.
The problem of cognition has occupied one of the central positions throughout the history of philosophy - from antiquity to the present day. The most importantThe question asked by epistemology is the fundamental possibility of knowing the world. The nature of the solution to this problem serves as a criterion for the formation of such philosophical currents as agnosticism, skepticism, solipsism and epistemological optimism. The two extreme points of view in this case represent, respectively, the absolute unknowability and the complete cognizability of the world. In epistemology, the problems of truth and meaning, essence, form, principles and levels of knowledge are touched upon.
