Abstract
This chapter is devoted to the analysis of the concept of ‘knowledge’ both taken as an abstract notion and in its applications in Epistemic Logic. It starts with a review of the epistemological theories that have been developed since its inception. Afterwards it analyses the different interpretations that have been made of this concept in Epistemic Logic and its contemporary developments, highlighting the difference between ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ knowledge and the strategies for drawing this distinction. Finally, it offers a new understanding of these notions, which supports the correlation between human knowledge and ‘Explicit Aware Knowledge’ (EAK), the central notion of the theoretical framework: the EAK-Schema.
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Notes
- 1.
For a general overview of Epistemology see the introductory Sect. 1.2.
- 2.
In https://www.lexico.com/definition/knowledge, accessed 02/20/2020.
- 3.
In https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowledge, accessed 02/20/2020.
- 4.
I refrain from considering other standard or specialised dictionaries, since I do not intend to make a lexicographic point. The use of these dictionary definitions, here and in other sections of this book, helps me relate my arguments with the common sense intuitions I wish to take into account.
- 5.
In https://www.lexico.com/definition/belief, accessed 02/20/2020.
- 6.
A review of these views and a personal choice is provided in Sect. 1.2.
- 7.
Note that Konolige ’s critique might be applied to his own proposal, since the agents he describes reason on the basis of an incomplete set of inference rules (procedures) and, thus, are also “perfect reasoners” in some sense.
- 8.
They also correspond to authors from the same tradition. I could have chosen other papers for this review, but since part of my own research has been in collaboration with authors from this tradition, I preferred to take their work as paradigmatic examples of the concepts I am analysing.
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Fernández-Fernández, C. (2021). Knowledge as an Epistemological and Logical Concept. In: Awareness in Logic and Epistemology. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69606-1_3
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