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Article: Epistemology
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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EPISTEMOLOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY.
Epistemology means "theory of knowledge," and sometimes more specifically "theory of the sciences." As a term,
epistemology
(French,
é
pist
é
mologie,
German,
Erkenntnistheorie
) entered European languages in the mid-nineteenth century. As a subject matter, it was present in ancient Greece, both in Plato's discussions of knowledge in the
Meno
and
Theaetetus,
and in Aristotle's characterizations in his logical works of "scientific" knowledge, that is, knowledge organized around basic principles from which other knowledge can be derived, or through which various facts can be explained. The root word
episteme
meant 'knowledge' in Greek; in early modern ...