Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History

The theory of knowledge, or epistemology, is often regarded as a dry topic that bears little relation to actual knowledge practices. This book aims to correct this by showing the exciting roots, developments and prospects of epistemology from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to the present day. Contemporary epistemology draws on the insights of a wide range of disciplines. Philosophy has always been concerned with how we balance aspiration, belief, experience and knowledge. Science has come to represent a very highly privileged knowledge, whilst recent insights from psychology and sociology have questioned how knowledge is acquired and structured. Meanwhile, theology has shaped the quest for knowledge in ways which have only relatively recently become separate from more secular knowledge systems. The book offers readers a very broad, cross-disciplinary, and historically-informed assessment of the ways in which knowledge has been and continues to be pursued, questioned, contested, expanded, and shaped.