Humans have been attempting to understand for thousands of years what knowledge truly is and how we acquire it, but the more we learn about the human body, our brains, and the world around us, the more challenging the quest becomes. The 21st century is a fast-paced world of technological change and expanding social networks, a world where information is plentiful and cheap, but where truth seems in short supply.

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When it comes to our never-ending search for the truth about knowledge, there are innumerable questions and considerations.

What is the best way to make a transformative decision, such as whether to have a child? What if common sense was diametrically opposed to rational decision theory?

If you see the correct time on a stopped clock, do you really know what time it is? Is that genuine knowledge or simply chance? And does the distinction matter?

Our memories are one of our primary channels for knowledge, but much of what we “remember” is actually false memories or confabulations. Where does that leave us?

Media organizations developed a strong culture of fact-checking in the 20th century, but can they continue to sustain this pursuit of truth in a world of “click-bait”?

These questions merely scratch the surface of “epistemology,” the philosophical term for our inquiry into knowledge: what it is, the ways we acquire it, and how we justify our beliefs as knowledge. Delve into these issues, and many more, in Theories of Knowledge: How to Think about What You Know. Taught by acclaimed Professor Joseph H. Shieber of Lafayette College, these 24 mind-bending lectures take you from ancient philosophers to contemporary neurobiologists, and from wide-ranging social networks to the deepest recesses of your own brain.

Epistemology is as old as philosophy itself. This survey takes you back to Plato, who defined knowledge in terms of “true belief”—a person’s belief that corresponds with some external truth. You’ll see how this relationship between knowledge, belief, and the truth aligns with what 20th-century developmental psychologists have learned about children and the way we first begin to access information.

It is these types of connections—between philosophical history and our world today, and between abstract theory and observed, real-world examples—that make Theories of Knowledge: How to Think about What You Know such a treat. This course will transform how you think about yourself, the world around you, and the very nature of reality.

Unpack Competing Theoretical Approaches

As you delve into this course, you’ll soon discover there are several competing frameworks for defining and validating knowledge. For an influential and widely accepted explanation of knowledge, a great place to start is Descartes’s “evil demon” argument. Descartes understood he could not be certain the entire world was not the fabrication of some evil demon. All he knew for certain, all he could say infallibly, was cogito, ergo sum—I think, therefore I am.

Epistemology has come a long way since Descartes, and while most philosophers take issue with much of Descartes’s reasoning, his theory still offers a foundational approach to understanding knowledge.

After reviewing this foundation, you will survey a number of key frameworks that will allow you to dive into a number of epistemological debates, including:

The foundationalist vs. the coherentist understanding of knowledge;

Internalist vs. externalist frameworks for justifying belief; and

The rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz vs. the empiricism of Locke and Hume—which led to Kant’s distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge.

By examining these debates, you’ll not only gain a sense of the breadth of epistemology, but you’ll also gain the language and the insights necessary to understand epistemology today.

Investigate Individual Sources of Knowledge

Regardless of whether you find the internalists or the externalists, the foundationalists or the coherentists more persuasive, there are two general ways of accessing knowledge: through personal channels and through our social networks. To bring the old philosophical debates to life and make abstract theories concrete, Professor Shieber outlines the individual sources of knowledge, including:

Sensory Perception: The most fundamental way we encounter the world is through our senses, but we must also understand that our senses are fallible. Using examples from cutting-edge ocular field theory and neurobiology, you will find out just how rocky our knowledge would be if it were based solely on what we perceive.

Memory & Self-Awareness: Surely, we know ourselves if nothing else about the world … right? Delve into the world of denial, false memories, confabulation, and more to challenge this key belief. See what advancements in computer science tell us about the very nature of the “self” as you take a foray into the “extended mind.”

Logic & Inference: From syllogisms to inductive reasoning, logic tells us much about the world—but like all personal sources of knowledge, logic has its weaknesses. For instance, the “raven’s paradox” asks us to ponder the claim, “All ravens are black.” Logic suggests the converse is true: “All things that are not black are not ravens.” Does evidence for the latter claim count as evidence for the former?

Reflect on Social Sources of Knowledge

After exploring the individual sources of knowledge, Professor Shieber turns to our social sources of knowledge, which often raise the question of trustworthiness. How can we verify we are receiving reliable and accurate information? How do I know someone isn’t lying to me? How can I be sure? Your investigation takes you through:

Social Testimony: Much of our knowledge depends on testimony from others. Even facts as basic as our names and the identities of our parents are based on information from others. How do we evaluate the truthfulness of social testimony? Or do we even evaluate the accuracy of what others tell us? Thinkers from David Hume to contemporary social psychologists have wrestled with this issue.

Scientific Achievement: Much of modern science relies on knowledge via “socially distributed cognitive systems.” For example, a 19th-century French project to update mathematical tables depended on the labor of ordinary workers relying on basic arithmetic—but who couldn’t comprehend the project as a whole. This process lends credence to a “social externalist” view of knowledge from testimony.

Media Reliability: We are living amidst a battle between fact-checking and “fake news.” How do you gauge the accuracy and reliability of the media? What role do our social networks have to play in our media consumption? And how do we incentivize a culture of fact-checking rather than “click-bait” and confirmation bias in our media institutions?

An Exciting Field

Professor Shieber closes the course with a look into the future of epistemology. While the field of inquiry has been around for thousands of years, philosophers are constantly opening up new areas of thought, from epistemic logic to issues of systemic injustice in the world. How do we combat cognitive bias? Who should we include in our social networks? How do we know we are not just brains in a vat?

As you will learn from the very beginning of this course, rationality and common sense often lead you to wildly different conclusions when it comes to making transformative decisions. But you don’t have to be making a life-changing decision to make use of the types of critical thinking epistemologists employ. We live in a messy, imperfect, and often irrational world, but Theories of Knowledge: How to Think about What You Know offers an excellent step toward becoming a better thinker, and a more engaged citizen.