epistemological component of philosophy
Discussion
The metaphysical, axiological, and epistemological components of philosophy all add value to the given philosophy in different measures. Of the three, I consider the epistemological part to carry more significance.
Epistemology is simply the pool of knowledge surrounding a philosophical proposition. It gives credibility to philosophy by attempting to answer the question, “How do we know?” By this, epistemology encompasses the definition and construction of concepts, the quality of rational reasoning, and the validity of thoughts, emotions, memories, ideas, and all things senses or mental. In other words, it gives credibility to every sense of reasoning by first establishing how our minds are related to reality, and whether the relationship is valid or not.
Being a necessity in determining the true from the false of every reasoning makes epistemology the prime component of philosophy. This is especially true considering that without the epistemological aspect, it would be impossible to distinguish between delusions and logics, or separate truth from error. For instance, epistemologists ask for the set of criteria that must be satisfied for something that we believe in to count as something we know, and how we can be sure that we actually know what we know.
Epistemology is particularly essential for a teacher. Students are always dependent, or at least in part, on what their teachers know. There is a tendency for students to wait on their teachers for affirmation of a new concept- even for basic ideas that could otherwise be plainly understood without the guidance of the teacher. Students see the teacher as one who creates the validity of knowledge. Teachers must dig for and possess the knowledge, and therefore needs to have a deeper foundation on epistemology. The teacher relies on epistemology to establish the foundations of knowledge to satisfy the student’s curiosity about any new concepts they come across.