Should Epistemology Be Established As A University Degree Subject???

Question

I think that it would be an excellent idea.

Answer 1

Yes. A good dose of intellectualism will do the American a lot of good.

Answer 2

Epistemology affects to pursue and achieve that which is not truly tenable; for it assumes that one has experienced the other side of that threshold beyond which dividing line epistemology presumes to have experience and knowledge but does not.

Ever the optimist, I believe it yet had as easily be a degree major in a university as any set major known or accepted.

Why not? Of all the things a university affords an individual, certainly life in two dimensions is one. For university education is nothing if not mere two-dimensional reasoning and little more.

I do ask this -- how many times can we shatter a piece of glass before we are satisfied that we have found the smallest shard?

Answer 3

As a university degree, epistemology would be a dangerous subject if married to politics or agendas. It is a valid field of study especially in the computer field, specfically databases.
However, as a study of the state, asumptions, and applications of all human knowledge, we are looking at revisionism, manipulation and censorship.

Answer 4

I think you're right. While studying epistemology might seem like mental masturbation, studying ways of knowing points towards our own inadequacies regarding how we know what we think we know about our own lives and times. One of your earlier respondents referenced the study of semiotics as being related: they're precisely right - knowing the ways in which signs, especially language, work is critical to our understanding our place within culture. But the link is even stronger than that because the signs through which we understand ourselves reflect our ways of knowing: that is, semiotics leads towards an epistemology.

Answer 5

While epistemology is a significant study, lending credibility to philosophy, I do not think there is enough independent application to warrant the subject for a degree.

Answer 6

Yes, or simply critical thinking.

I think everybody ought to learn how to distinguish among sources of knowledge, and learn enough critical thinking to decide for themselves what sources of knowledge are reliable. Learning the characteristics of critical thinking is the beginning of any true education. People incapable of it are the foremost disparagers of education.

There are hordes of ignorant people who are certain of their critically unexamined opinions, partly because they are lazy and partly because their training and teaching often has reinforced second-hand, "cookie-cutter" idealogy and philosophy.

"Doctrine" is still a bigger reality that epistomology. We often hear of indoctrinating people, "educating" people toward holding unexamined and often irrational opinions. Many people believe that the capacity for intelligent thought does not matter so long as people act with great decisiveness and confidence, learn how to manipulate people and how to submit to manipulation. Many huge business organizations have indoctrination seminars telling people just how they want them to think, but true education is a different matter.

It's too bad that most people take "knowledge" as a given, have not the least idea of what critical thinking is, and, asked if they understand epistomology, would respond, "Say what?"

Answer 7

Epistemology is mental masturbation.

The difficulty is in the human knack for treating a metaphysical object as a physical object. Show me your knowledge. Point to it. Measure it. Weigh it.

Knowledge is an abstract concept that we have created linguistically. Most species tend to be able to function without questioning if what they think is knowledge or opinion. It's only the human who opts to be alone who chooses to think such things.

Answer 8

I think therefore i am is quite enough,i wouldn't like much more of the "i think therefore I'm better than others "Degree (mind you it would be better than a Degree in some Bullsh*T subjects available today)

Answer 9

Disagree with guru there. The study of thought is important, as is semiotics. The relation between what we know, what we think knowing is, language and the constructions of daily life is a profound one.

We seem not to appreciate the amazing world our thinking has made around us.

Answer 10

I believe you'll find this is a major part of a Librarian's degree.