“THE ONLY TRUTH IS WHAT YOU FEEL”

Close your eyes. What do you remember about the room you are in? The color of the walls, the angle of the shadows? Whether or not we know it, we selectively attend to different things in our environment. Our brains simply don’t have the capacity to attend to every single detail in the world around us. Optical illusions highlight this tendency. Have you ever looked at an optical illusion and seen one thing, while a friend sees something completely different? 

Our brains engage in a three-step process when presented with stimuli: 

Perception refers to the set of processes we use to make sense of all the stimuli you encounter every second, from the glow of the computer screen in front of you to the smell of the room to the itch on your ankle. Our perceptions are based on how we interpret all these different sensations, which are sensory impressions we get from the stimuli in the world around us. Perception enables us to navigate the world and to make decisions.

Perception is a central issue in epistemology, the theory of knowledge. At root, all our empirical knowledge is grounded in how we see, hear, touch, smell and taste the world around us. Epistemology is the explanation of how we think. Without epistemology, we could not think. We can distinguish truth from error. 

Epistemology comes from the Greek words 'episteme' meaning Knowledge and logos meaning discourse or science.

Epistemology is studying the relationship between the acquisition of knowledge and the knowledge thus acquired.

Knowledge is understanding gained through learning or experience.

It involves investigating the development of human knowledge, its nature, and its limitations. Epistemology is also one of the branches of philosophy, which is concerned with the theory of knowledge. It solves two fundamental problems of knowledge origin of knowledge and validation of knowledge. Knowledge requires three necessary and sufficient conditions; truth, belief, and justification.

The study of knowledge is one of the most fundamental aspects of philosophical inquiry. Any claim to knowledge must be evaluated to determine whether or not it indeed constitutes knowledge. Such an evaluation essentially requires an understanding of what knowledge is and how much knowledge is possible. While this entry provides an overview of the important issues, it of course leaves the most basic questions unanswered; epistemology will continue to be an area of philosophical discussion as long as these questions remain.