This site is written by me, John R. Josephson, as a way to work out some basic issues in epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge), and to develop material for a book to be entitled Knowledge Without Certainty. I hope for help from critical readers in the form of comments and discussion. Accordingly, I strongly invite constructive comments and discussion (see rules).

Specifically, I want to work out a theory of knowledge that encompasses both ordinary and scientific knowledge, knowledge of language and of how things work, knowledge from perception and from deliberation, conscious and unconscious knowledge, explicit and implicit knowledge, innate and learned, a priori and empirical, general and particular, discursive knowledge and intuitive grasp.  This theory should clarify the nature of evidence, the logic of justification, and the logic of discovery.

I think a have stumbled upon an important key to understanding these things. That key is abductive inference, which I take to be Inference to the Best Explanation, and a part of “commonsense logic”.  This will be explained.

I hope to develop a robust theory of knowledge that defends the possibility of real knowledge from various forms of skepticism, preserving it from being dismissed as merely opinion, or merely the propaganda of the rulers.

Wish me well!