Thinking about Thinking: A Physician’s Guide to Epistemology

Description

At the root of everything we do is the knowledge we possess. We begin to acquire knowledge in infancy and never stop for the rest of our lives. Without knowledge we would be helpless and vulnerable. But how do we acquire knowledge? Where does it come from, and how do we know if it is true or not? These questions have troubled philosophers since antiquity and gradually over millennia we have discovered the mechanisms necessary to acquire knowledge and to verify it. This book surveys these methods, starting with our most basic functions of common sense and intuition and moving on to more complex cognitive activity such as deductive and inductive inference and causality. Later, the scientific method, statistics, and probability are discussed. The book concludes with newer contributions to the field, including decision analysis, game theory, computers and artificial intelligence. Written for a lay audience, it surveys the field of epistemology in an approachable and engaging way.