Epistemology Is A Better Choice Over Traditional Epistemology

Epistemology can be split into two areas: one being traditional epistemology and the other being naturalized epistemology. The distinction between the two forms of epistemology is that traditional epistemologists accept what they think they know whereas natural epistemologists put what they think they know to empirical tests. The connotation of ‘empirical’ in this context refers to the methodologies of natural science; specifically, putting theories that we believe to know to scientific experimentation to find out if the theory is true. In this essay, I will establish the reasons why naturalized epistemology is a better choice over traditional epistemology. First, I will establish why traditional epistemology can be a potentially viable†¦show more content†¦A paradigm-shift is where a set of theoretical principles is replaced by another, for example: Special Relativity replaced Newtonian Mechanics. The problem with this is that theoretical paradigms have no common basis; hence, paradigm-shifts cannot work. Special Relativity and Newtonian Mechanics may seem to have the same theoretical meaning, but they do not because the terms of ‘mass’, ‘force’, and ‘duration’ all have a different meaning to different scientists. Science, in Kuhn’s opinion and from what is gathered on theoretical paradigms, does not provide concrete, epistemic, nor empirical assumptions. It does not work best empirically because matters dealing with science must happen with theoretical paradigms, where effectiveness is a problem. Epistemic thought executed in an empirical manner is better known as naturalized epis temology. Although, traditional epistemology, or sometimes referred to as normative epistemology, can help us further our understanding of philosophy. Jaegwon Kim expounds on this type of epistemology in his work, What is â€Å"Naturalized Epistemology†?, in which he states â€Å"that justification is a central concept of our epistemological tradition, that justification, as it is understood in this tradition, is a normative concept, and in consequence that epistemology itself is a normative inquiry whose principal aim is a systematic study of the conditions of justified belief† (Kim, 539). Epistemology can be