Epistemology: Definition of knowledge

► Our journey of philosophy will begin by looking at some discussions and debates related to
epistemological issues.

● Roughly speaking, Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It deals with the origin of knowledge
and the method of knowing something.

■ Epistemology mainly focuses on the following four questions:

(1) What is knowledge?

(2) Can we know anything at all?

(3) How do we obtain knowledge?

(4) What is the limit of our knowledge?

We will be focused on the first three questions and if time allows then we will address the fourth
question.

► What is knowledge?

● Consider the following knowledge claims:

(1) S knows that the earth is round.

(2) S knows [of/about] Mr. Donald Trump.

(3) S knows how to drive a car.

● The kind of knowledge claim made in (1) is called propositional knowledge. It should be noted
here that the knowledge claim made in (1) concerns a proposition or a belief or a judgment.

► What is a proposition (or belief or judgment)?

● A proposition or a belief is a linguistic expression that expresses a relation between two concepts.
In the example (1), we see that the expression appears after the “that” clause expresses a relation
between two concepts, namely the concepts of the “earth” and the concept of “roundness”.
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● It is not the case that all linguistic expressions or sentences are propositions. To know whether
or not a linguistic expression/sentence is a proposition, we have a TEST.

● The test is this: All propositions are either true or false. For example, “The earth is round” is a
sentence which is true. Hence, it is a proposition. Again, “The President of Bangladesh is a female
person” is a sentence which is false. Hence, like the former sentence, this sentence is a proposition.
But, there are sentences which are neither true nor false. For example, the sentences “Give me a
glass of water”, “Can you pass the salt?”, etc. are sentences which are neither true nor false. These
are imperative sentences and interrogative sentence respectively which are not propositions. These
sentences express emotion/desire/request/query etc.

● At any rate, it is clear that the knowledge-claim made in (1) is a claim about a proposition. So,
we call the kind of knowledge-claim made by it a propositional knowledge or, sometimes,
“know-that” type knowledge.

►The kind of knowledge-claim made in the sentence (2) does not involve a particular proposition
but an object which is claimed to be known by S. Here, what is claimed is the following: S has
some sort of direct or indirect acquaintance with the object in question, namely Mr. Donald Trump.
This kind of knowledge-claim is an example of knowledge by acquaintance or object-knowledge.

● It may, however, be argued that one may know Mr. Donald Trump by knowing some propositions
about him, e.g. that he is the present president of USA; that he is a republican; that he is the husband
of Melania, etc. But, we should also note that none of the propositions mentioned is necessary to
know Mr. Donald Trump. One may know Mr. Donald Trump without knowing that he is the
president of USA. For example, one of his childhood friends may not know that he is now the
president of USA, but he, in some way, knows Mr. Donald Trump. The same is true of any particular
proposition about Mr. Trump. So, the knowledge-claim made in (2) is not about any proposition
but about the person/object of knowledge. We call it knowledge by acquaintance or object-
knowledge. Object knowledge sometimes is called “know-of” type knowledge.

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► The knowledge-claim made in the last sentence, e.g. the sentence (3), is about a certain type of
competence or ability, not about a particular object or a particular proposition. This kind of knowledge
is called competence knowledge or performative knowledge or sometimes “know-how” type
knowledge.

● It may be said that to know how to ride a bicycle is to know some propositions related to the
matter. But this is not true. Obviously, there are some propositions that are relevant to the competence
of riding bicycle. A physicist may tell you a number of propositions related to how to ride a bicycle.
These propositions may include propositions related to gravity, movements of wheels, balance, etc.
But you may know how to ride a bicycle without knowing any of these propositions. And the
physicist who knows all these propositions may not know how to ride a bicycle. So, it is clear
that competence knowledge or “know-how” is different from propositional knowledge or “know-
that” and knowledge by acquaintance.

■ The kind of knowledge we are concerned here is the Propositional Knowledge.

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