epistemology

Abstract: Traditional metaphysical investigations into ultimate grounding inevitably confront the Münchhausen Trilemma, leaving inquiry to choose among infinite ontological regress, circular explanation, or brute contingency. This paper presents a foundational rationalist ontology—Stability-Filtered Plenitude—designed to establish an ungrounded, non-dependent, atemporal terminus without relying o…

Scepticism is the view that we know almost nothing. Despite its historical pedigree, and its centrality both as a topic of research and as a staple of undergraduate syllabi, this view has few contemporary defenders. Instead, it is primarily evoked in ways that presuppose its falsity, as when epistemologists… The post Skepticism and Fallibilism, appeared first on Philosophy News .

This paper develops the thesis that nothing cannot exist because “nothing” lacks identity, reference, and meaning, and therefore cannot satisfy the minimal conditions for existence. Using the Identity–Continuity–Determinism–Propagation (ICDP) communication law, I show that meaning is the primordial invariant of reality: when CDP collapses—removing continuity, determinism, and propagation—the univ…

I was recently given the following argument while debating an Idealist friend from the Hindu Trika tradition: Solidifying the epistemological defense by redefining error or confusion (bhrāntiḥ). When ...

This paper defends a conditional, exhaustively disjunctive thesis concerning the epistemic limits surrounding any fundamental reality—an ungrounded entity that partially explains the contingent order without itself being explained. Either its intrinsic character is exhausted by its structural role, leaving nothing further to know, or it has a role transcending character that no contingent inquire…

_Social Epistemology_ 41:1 - 17. 2026Hinge epistemology has recently entered the conversation of social epistemology by offering novel accounts of testimonial justification. If these accounts are to be taken seriously, then they should also be able to address cases of authoritative testimony and present novel benefits. In this article, I test whether social hinge epistemology can provide a framew…

[Revised entry by Jan-Erik Jones on September 1, 2026. Changes to: Bibliography] The technical term ‘real essence’ is heavily utilized by the English philosopher John Locke (1632 – 1704) in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding[1] (hereafter “Essay”) that was first published in London, in December of 1689. In order to understand a great many […] The post Locke on Real Essence appeared first…

The hard problem of consciousness asks why physical or functional processing is accompanied by subjective experience. This paper argues that the problem may presuppose an ontological separation that has never itself been established: the separation between physical process and felt experience. Differences between first-person experience and third-person physical description are genuine, but diffe…

Published on August 31, 2026 2:50 PM GMT When we talk about AI safety and what’s at stake, the discussion usually centers around three categories: misuse, misalignment, and systemic risk. These are valid concerns about likely irreversible harms. However, while we still speculate on the arrival of AGI and ASI, there is something that’s softly and steadily pulling the carpet from under our feet, so…