Tabula Rasa is Latin meaning blank slate and that is how empiricists perceive the mind. Empiricism claims that people are born knowing nothing and that it is only through our sense experiences (i.e. sight, smell, touch, taste and hear) that we can claim knowledge. This idea can be traced back to Aristotle’s There is nothing [...]

Continuing my discussion of epistemology, I now turn to theories about the sources of knowledge. The first theory I’ll discuss is rationalism, which views reason as the ultimate source of knowledge. René Descartes is probably the best known philosopher (apart from maybe Plato) associated with rationalism. His now famous maxim “cogito ergo sum” (‘I think [...]

Knowledge Puzzles: An Introduction to Epistemology provides a thorough introduction to the theory of knowledge. The book is based on the use of puzzles to encourage further study and also includes recommended further reading. The book succeeds in explaining complex epistemological issues in an easy-to-read (and understand!) format. I definitely recommend this book to [...]

This week I came across another article about the importance of the knowledge based economy. The article starts off by attempting to address the question of what exactly knowledge entails and then uses the somewhat narrow-minded hierarchical approach presenting knowledge as as some kind of growth from information and data, with knowledge defined as “the [...]