Gnoseology is the most important branch of philosophy
Philosophy is that area of knowledge, an objectwhich is almost impossible to determine accurately. The questions she is called upon to answer are very diverse and depend on many factors: an era, a state, a concrete thinker. Traditionally, philosophy is divided into several industries in accordance with the subject matter that it considers. The most important components of philosophical knowledge are ontology and gnoseology, respectively, the doctrine of being and the doctrine of cognition. Of great importance are such industries as anthropology, social philosophy, the history of philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of science and technology, as well as some others. In this article, we will dwell in detail on the section that studies the nature of human cognition.
Gnoseology and epistemology are two terms,pointing to the same phenomenon - the theory of knowledge in philosophy. The existence of two different terms is due to a temporal and geographical factor: in the German philosophy of the XVIII century. the doctrine of man's cognitive abilities was called epistemology, and in the Anglo-American philosophy of the twentieth century. - epistemology.
Gnoseology is a philosophical discipline thatdeals with the problem of man's knowledge of the world, the possibilities of cognition and its limits. This branch explores the prerequisites of cognition, the relation of the obtained knowledge to the real world, the criteria for the truth of cognition. Unlike such sciences as psychology, epistemology is that science that seeks to find universal, universal grounds for cognition. What can be called knowledge? Do our knowledge have any relation to reality? The theory of knowledge in philosophy does not focus on the particular mechanisms of the psyche, with the help of which the cognition of the world occurs.
The history of epistemology begins in the AncientGreece. It is believed that for the first time the problem of the truth of knowledge in Western philosophy is posed by Parmenides, who in his treatise On Nature talks about the difference between opinion and truth. Another thinker of antiquity, Plato, believed that originally the soul of each person belonged to the world of ideas, and true knowledge is possible as a remembrance relating to the period of the soul's stay in this world. This problem was not ignored by Socrates and Aristotle, who were engaged in the development of methods of consistent knowledge. Thus, already in ancient philosophy, we find many thinkers who do not question that gnoseology is an important branch of philosophical knowledge.
The problem of cognition occupied one of the centralpositions throughout the history of philosophy - from antiquity to our days. The most important question, which is given by epistemology, is the fundamental possibility of knowing the world. The nature of the solution of this problem serves as a criterion for the formation of such philosophical currents as agnosticism, skepticism, solipsism and epistemological optimism. The two extreme points of view in this case represent, respectively, the absolute unknowability and complete cognizability of the world. In epistemology, the problems of truth and meaning, essence, form, principles and levels of cognition are touched upon.
