TEORÍA del CONOCIMIENTO desde la filosofía

Main ideas and concepts about knowledge (from philosophy and related fields)

• Knowledge is not “created from nothing.”

  • The video frames knowledge as something that arises through different approaches across disciplines.

• How other fields approach “knowledge”

  • Religion: knowledge is approached through faith and through practices, texts, and rituals that are thought to enable knowledge of God.
  • Science: knowledge is approached through prediction and empirical verification (experimentation, observation, calculations).

• Why philosophy becomes central

  • As history progresses, philosophers ask:
    • What is knowledge?
    • Can we come to know?
    • How do we come to know?
    • When is something knowledge?
    • Under what criteria is something knowledge?

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Philosophical perspectives highlighted (chronological/typological)

1) Pre-Socratics: knowledge as identification (“like knows like”)

• Knowledge is understood as identifying what something is.
• Key idea: to know the totality of things, one must know the common component they share, then the essential principle that makes up the whole.
• The pre-Socratics are also said to influence early studies that develop into aspects of physics.

2) Plato: knowledge as something solid and unchanging (episteme vs. doxa)

• Plato distinguishes:
  • Episteme (knowledge): solid, invariable, immutable
  • Doxa (opinion): variable, changeable, and not true knowledge
• Knowledge is not obtained via the senses or the changing sensible world (because that realm is uncertain).
• Knowledge is tied to what never changes: the good, the beautiful, and the true.
• Epistemic theory of recollection: to know is to remember (relevant to how knowledge is accessed).
• The video also references a later “tripartite” framework: knowledge involves true and justified belief.

3) Augustine of Hippo: knowledge anchored in God and truth

• Knowledge has an intrinsic relationship with truth, and truth with God.
• Each person is directed toward truth because the soul contains a divine part.
• The soul can know by drawing closer to God.
• God provides the instruments for knowledge of the world and divine creation.
• God imprints an internal guiding light so humans gain certainty about knowledge.
• This is presented as both anthropological and religious: knowledge depends on divine relation.

4) René Descartes: certainty from God’s benevolence

• Certainty about the external world is guaranteed by God’s goodness, preventing systematic deception.
• This protects rational understanding of a priori ideas about nature.

5) Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Kepler: “knowing like through like” via mathematical structure

• Modern thinkers maintain knowledge as “like knowing like” in practice.
• Knowledge of nature is validated through mathematical procedures.
• Nature is understood as number-based, and mathematical operations approach reality because:
  • reality has a mathematical structure
  • that structure is presented as established by God
• The video recalls a claim attributed to Galileo: nature is written in God’s language of numbers and mathematical operations.

6) Hegel: knowledge extends beyond physical science

• Knowledge is not restricted only to physics/science.
• It also applies to legal, political, aesthetic, and religious matters.

7) Schopenhauer (opponent figure mentioned): knowledge through sensation shaped by will

• Knowledge of the external world comes from one’s sensitive nature.
• Sensation is directed by the Will, described as a metaphysical force moving nature.
• Therefore, knowledge includes not only conceptual/scientific understanding but also experience of sensations.

8) Kant and the limits of knowledge; later debates about process vs. social product

• Kant: our knowledge reaches only phenomena, not the thing-in-itself.
• Later (20th century discussion in the video):
  • Is knowledge-formation an individual/psychic process?
  • Or is it a social/collective product shared by groups?
• Psychology/physiology focus on causal processes of how knowledge arises from sensation and psyche.
• Philosophy focuses on conditions/justification: what makes something count as knowledge and how it is reached.

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The “tripartite conception” of knowledge (and later critique)

Core tripartite idea referenced

The video states that some recent theories start from positions rejected by Plato’s tripartite approach, which requires:

• Knowledge = true belief + justification
  • (Also involves belief as a mental-cognitive component, discussed below.)

Detailed conditions and examples given (problems and requirements)

• Condition 1: The agent must have a belief

  • A true proposition can’t be “knowledge” unless the person has the relevant cognitive belief/mental thought.
  • Example: believing “dragons exist somewhere” does not give knowledge that dragons exist, because the belief is not knowledge of the truth.

• Condition 2: The belief must be true

  • Example (given): Ancient Egyptians may have believed the Earth was a flat disc—but that belief is not knowledge because it does not correspond to reality.
  • Certainty (“being sure”) is not enough:
    • You can be certain and still have a false belief.
    • True knowledge requires more than confidence.

• Condition 3: The belief must be justified

  • A true belief based on chance/guesswork is not knowledge.
  • Example: someone predicts it will rain early morning, and it rains then—but only because they guessed. No reasons were provided → not knowledge.
  • Another example: claiming an earthquake will happen because of a bad feeling/hunch—even if it turns out true, the justification is missing, so it’s not knowledge.

• Additional emphasis: truth without correct reasons doesn’t qualify

  • Example: Ptolemy studied astronomy, but his model was geocentric (Earth at the center).
  • Even with effort/study, if the belief is true for the wrong conceptual framework (or the belief is false by current standards), it doesn’t count as knowledge in the relevant sense.

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Scope of knowledge: science and beyond; practical/technological knowledge

Is knowledge limited to science?

• The video raises the question:
  • Is knowledge restricted to sciences like mathematics, physics, chemistry?
• It also considers whether knowledge exists in:
  • religion, art, law, history, poetry
• The conclusion is cautious: it’s a big complex question, and not all epistemology theories restrict knowledge only to science.

Is knowledge separate from technology?

• The video rejects the idea that knowledge is merely contemplation or speculation.
• Knowledge can be connected to technology, because:
  • technical knowledge produces advances in engineering and medicine
  • scientific knowledge interacts constantly with the world

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What philosophy does in the theory of knowledge (explicit “tasks” listed)

Philosophy’s role in epistemology includes:

• Clarifying concepts
• Reflecting
• Proposing criteria for what counts as knowledge
• Creating a system
• Providing:
  • orderliness
  • logical precision
  • criticism of the notion of knowledge

Some questions require substantial intellectual effort and may be resolved only in the future.

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Speakers / sources featured

• Fer (host/narrator)
• Philosophers / authors mentioned:
  • Pre-Socratics (as a group/tradition)
  • Plato
  • Augustine of Hippo
  • René Descartes (referred to in subtitles as “De Carthus”)
  • Copernicus
  • Galileo Galilei
  • Kepler
  • Hegel
  • Schopenhauer
  • Immanuel Kant
  • Ptolemy