epistemology

A contemporary version of Descartes' demon: if your brain were in a vat being fed artificial signals, how could you know? The scenario sharpens foundational questions about knowledge, reference, and the limits of radical skepticism.

By The Freethinking Times 6 min read

Skepticism is the philosophical position that holds that knowledge claims — particularly those about the external world, God, morality, or the past — require scrutiny, and that many claims commonly accepted as knowledge fail to meet the standards that genuine knowledge demands.

4 min read

Rationalism is the philosophical position that reason, independent of sensory experience, is the primary source of knowledge — and that the most important truths about reality are those that can be arrived at through pure thought.

4 min read

Freethought is the practice of forming beliefs about religion, ethics, and metaphysics on the basis of reason and evidence rather than tradition, authority, or revelation.

3 min read

Empiricism is the philosophical doctrine that all genuine knowledge of the world derives from sensory experience, and that the mind brings no innate content to experience that can serve as a foundation for substantive knowledge.

4 min read

Agnosticism is the position that the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural is unknown and perhaps unknowable — that the evidence available to human beings is insufficient to justify either theistic belief or confident atheism.

4 min read

The failure of a large number of published findings to replicate is not a scandal. It is science functioning as designed — just more visibly than usual.

By Jon Ajinga 3 min read

A philosopher takes issue — respectfully — with our characterization of performed uncertainty.

By Jon Ajinga 2 min read

There is a difference between genuine uncertainty and the performance of uncertainty as a way of avoiding difficult conclusions. Our public discourse has become expert at the latter.

By Jon Ajinga 4 min read