Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge.Also called theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience.
It examines the nature of knowledge and justification, how knowledge arises, and what value it has. Further topics include the different types of knowledge and the limits of what can be known. [13] Despite agreements about the general characteristics of knowledge, its exact definition is disputed.
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. [1] [2] Modern science is typically divided into two or three major branches: [3] the natural sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, and biology), which study the physical world; and the behavioural sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology ...
Applied science is the use of existing scientific knowledge to achieve practical goals, like technology or inventions. Within natural science, disciplines that are basic science develop basic information to explain and perhaps predict phenomena in the natural world. Applied science is the use of scientific processes and knowledge as the means ...
The scientific revolution, which began to take hold in the 17th century, represented a sharp break from Aristotelian modes of inquiry. [66] One of its principal advances was the use of the scientific method to investigate nature. Data was collected, and repeatable measurements were made in experiments. [67]
Despite extensive study, disagreements about the nature of knowledge persist, in part because researchers use diverging methodologies, seek definitions for distinct purposes, and have differing intuitions about the standards of knowledge. An often-discussed definition asserts that knowledge is justified true belief.
The following outline is provided as a topical overview of science; the discipline of science is defined as both the systematic effort of acquiring knowledge through observation, experimentation and reasoning, and the body of knowledge thus acquired, the word "science" derives from the Latin word scientia meaning knowledge.
Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge. A scientific theory differs from a scientific fact or scientific law in that a theory seeks to explain "why" or "how", whereas a fact is a simple, basic observation and a law is an empirical description of a relationship between facts and/or other ...