This was a great episode.
Epistemology comes from Ancient Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistḗmē) ‘knowledge’, and -logy) is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in contemporary epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas – Wikipedia
In short, it is where truth and belief interact with knowledge. Or how you know what you know at a more certain level.
This is kind of funny because I took a philosophy class in college and I thought it was the dumbest and most unnecessary class I was required to take. However, while listening to this, it started to all make sense. This whole discussion is philosophy. The knowledge of existence and reality is philosophy. And, the understanding of knowledge through the spirit is philosophy. I’m sure I better understood what they were talking about because I took that philosophy class 20 years ago in college. I think, therefore I am.
There is some great meat and potatoes in here related to knowledge I do recommend you listen to the whole thing.
Jacob breaks this down to 5 Witnesses
- Intuition
- Sensory Data
- Reason
- Moral Outcomes
- Authority
I’m only going to focus on a few of these.
INTUITION
Intuition would be what we call the “Spirit.” Intuition is also discounted. But as Jacob says, “From the spirit emerges all the rest.”
There is a great snippet here on the term “self-evident.” These are basic truths that are self-evident as natural laws. I guess I would express them as understanding through the Light of Christ. They are a basic natural understanding of how things should be. Things like moral right and wrong, biology, and rights. And that all things witness there is a God.
AUTHORITY
There is an overemphasis on the 5th witness. Authority. People get too hung up on the idea that the “bible” is the only authority.
A great segment here was asking the question, who translated the bible? Honestly, who translated it from its original document? Some random monk in the 4th century? 3rd century? Some person we have no idea who they were transcribing document to document and we are supposed to put all of our faith in him (or them) as the authority?
There is a reason why Joseph Smith did a translation of the bible. And that was to fix the errors in the book. If you think about it. Genisis was probably originally passed through an oral history. Then written, and written again. These histories were handed down through dictation and translation again and again for four thousand years. How could there be an error?
There was a great segment in here about the origins of Universities being the monasteries and churches. They established the “bible” as the one authority and abolished intuition and moral outcomes. Then they established themselves as the sole authority.
CONOCER & SABER
There is a point where Jacob talks about the differences between “conocer” and “saber” two Spanish works that both mean “to know.”
Conocer – means to know someone personally
Saber – means to know something
Moroni’s promise in the Book of Mormon uses the word “conocer” to know God personally. That deeper spiritual knowledge that falls on the “intuition” spectrum of knowledge talked about earlier.
HOW DO I KNOW THE CHURCH IS TRUE?
I found this discussion fascinating. As I listened to it, I thought of all the ways I knew things were. The most powerful were spiritual manifestations.
- Voices
- Dreams
- Spiritual Experiences
Then all of the self-evident truths.
- The planets
- Trees
- Animals
- People
- The human body
- Nature
- Natural Laws
All things testify there is a God. I see his hand in all things. In Alma 30:44 Alma says to Korihor, ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.
And Moses 6:63 And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.
I truly believe when we pass to the next life we will recognize him and his hand in all that we experienced on earth. We will be shocked that did not see and understand more.