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Epistemology (from Greek ep?st?µ? - episteme, "knowledge" + ?????, "logos") or theory of knowledge is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.[1] The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).[2] Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. In other words, epistemology primarily addresses the following questions "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?" The primary question that epistemology addresses is "What is knowledge?" This question is several millennia old. In this article, and in epistemology in general, the kind of knowledge usually discussed is propositional knowledge, also known as "knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge-how." For example in mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers. Many (but not all) philosophers thus think there is an important distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how", with epistemology primarily interested in the former. This distinction is recognized linguistically in many languages, though not in modern Standard English (N.B. some languages related to English still do retain these verbs, as in Scots "ken" and "wit").[3] In Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi articulates a case for the epistemological relevance of both forms of knowledge; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded. It is worth pointing out that in recent times, some epistemologists (see Sosa, Greco, Kvanvig, Zagzebski) have argued that we should not think of knowledge this way. Epistemology should evaluate people's properties (i.e., intellectual virtues) instead of propositions' properties. This is, in short, because higher forms of cognitive success (i.e., understanding) involve non veritic features that can't be evaluated from a justified true belief view of knowledge.
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