Some Basic Features of Epistemological Schemata

Epistemology refers to the theory of knowledge, and one writer defines epistemology as the critical analysis of cognition. The analysis of knowledge or cognition usually makes us question how we know what we know, or think we know? Here are four basic ways to reflect on epistemological schemas:

1. Academic disciplines/sciences only allow a limited degree of precision (Aristotle)--we cannot expect more than what a particular knowledge domain is capable of giving us.

2. Explanatory hypotheses have inherent limitations (Dan Robinson). Think of hypotheses as epistemological starting-points; they are axiomatic in this sense of the word.

3. Immanuel Kant limited knowledge to make room for faith. That is, he restricted knowledge's domain in order to posit moral faith and Kant thereby distinguished phenomena from noumena.

4. Competing hypotheses coterminously exist (Stephen Pepper). How do we determine which hypothesis has greater explanatory power?

5. It has been suggested that our knowledge of the cosmos has natural boundary limits imposed by the mind's inherent structure (Kant). On the other hand, does Kant's notion of the transcendental self wind up begging the question? Does he assume as true what needs to be proved?