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Introduction to Epistemic Logic and Epistemology

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Awareness in Logic and Epistemology

Part of the book series: Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science ((LEUS,volume 52))

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Abstract

This chapter summarizes the most relevant preliminary concepts from Epistemic Logic and Epistemology. Regarding the former, the problem of logical omniscience and its different solutions are revised, with Awareness Logic as the chosen solution for carrying out this research. With respect to Epistemology, a brief historical background is presented and the view of Awareness Justification Internalism is highlighted as the one that will serve as a theoretical background for the logical approach. To conclude, some aspects of the disconnection between both disciplines are pointed out and the concept of Epistemic Awareness is defined as the bridge-notion through wich the theoretical re-connection will be developed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    What follows is one possible contemporary presentation of EL.

  2. 2.

    In doxastic logic, the logic of belief, the necessity operator is interpreted as what the agent believes.

  3. 3.

    For an updated overview and contemporary proposal about this topic see Hawke et al. (2019).

  4. 4.

    The first research that considers the appearance of DEL a change of paradigm is Gochet (2002). DEL as it is considered here is best developed in van Benthem (2011).

  5. 5.

    Despite of the fact that the topic is very old, the term itself was coined for the first time in Ferrier (1854).

  6. 6.

    In https://www.lexico.com/definition/epistemology, accessed 01/02/2020.

  7. 7.

    In https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epistemology, accessed 01/02/2020.

  8. 8.

    See, for instance, Chamizo-Domínguez (1984) and Gilson (1950) for a discussion about the origin of Descartes’ thoughts and motivations.

  9. 9.

    Though the term ‘thought experiment’ corresponds to the common terminology of Epistemology, some specialists on Descartes would claim that this example is a hypotheses, instead of an experiment.

  10. 10.

    Stated for the first time in these terms in Cohen (1984).

  11. 11.

    In many places, like MacMillan (2012), this understanding is referred to as ‘conceptual awareness’.

  12. 12.

    In https://www.lexico.com/definition/awareness, accessed 01/12/2020.

  13. 13.

    In https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awareness, accessed 01/12/2020.

  14. 14.

    In https://www.lexico.com/definition/realize, accessed 01/12/2020.

  15. 15.

    In https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/realize, accessed 01/12/2020.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    Claudia Fernández-Fernández

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  1. Claudia Fernández-Fernández
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Correspondence to Claudia Fernández-Fernández .

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Fernández-Fernández, C. (2021). Introduction to Epistemic Logic and Epistemology. In: Awareness in Logic and Epistemology. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69606-1_1

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