Epistemology is a part of psychology that deals with nature, opportunities, and restrictions of understanding. A more precise statement of epistemology would be the process of evaluating awareness levels and distinguishing opinions from accepted beliefs, as illustrated by the numerous models and approaches (Guyon et al., 2018). There are three models that demonstrate the assurance that people’s views accurately represent reality. The naĂŻve realist, anti-realist, as well as the critical realist are the three concepts. The naive believe that senses convey direct experience of objects, which they do (Guyon et al., 2018). As a result of the foregoing, these persons obtain knowledge through their intuition.
Anti-realists, on the other hand, see an inversion of naive realists. These people believe that what one can see or perceive is unrelated to reality, and that underlying assumptions, biased views, and public preconceptions determine what one perceives (Guyon et al., 2018). Finally, critical realists are somewhere between the other two groups of individuals. This critical persons believe that assertions and preconceived notions influence perceptions and what one anticipates and is probable to see (Entwistle, 2015). Among these three frameworks, I consider myself to be a critical realist. This is because I trust in uncompromising genuineness and recognize the fact that I have experienced things that have shaped my perception of certain occurrences.
Rationality, pragmatism, revelation or interpretation, as well as hermeneutics happens to be examples of different ways of knowing. The level-headedness way of comprehending assumes that by examining someone’s rational dependability of thinking, evidence as well as conviction may be distinguished. Deductive logic and inductive logic are the two forms of logic. Inductive reasoning makes use of particular promises to arrive at a reasonable but incorrect conclusion. Deductive approach, on the other hand, may lead to proper judgments if the stakes leading up to them are valid (Van Loon, 2018). Furthermore, empiricism is a mode of knowing in which information is gained by sensory experiences.
Assumptions emerge as a result of a particular contact with empiricism. The following technique of knowing is a revelation, according to which knowledge is received by conversation with God (Van Loon, 2018). Christians believe that the word of GOD is without error, but that our interpretation and comprehension of the word are prone to error. Finally, there is the hermeneutics style of knowing, which is defined as interpretation principles (Van Loon, 2018). Hermeneutics is used by messengers to guarantee that communications are accurately read and comprehended.
The weakness of these methods of comprehension is that one’s senses have limits and can sometimes mislead the individual. Furthermore, not all phenomena are easily observable with empiricism (Entwistle, 2015). Limitations of logic are about the abstractions, which are actually used with reason and could be isolated to the factual domain in which one lives. Furthermore, with logic, what appears to be logical at first may be culturally invented instead. The limitation of revelation is that it is prone to personal misconception (Entwistle, 2015). Furthermore, because it is a personal as well as a private way of understanding, it may be difficult to translate to someone else.
Hermeneutics has the limitation of being easily misinterpreted or misunderstood. According to the Bible, in 2 Peter 1:20 states that, above everything, one should recognize that no revelation of the Word of God came about as a result of the prophet’s personal interpretation of events. (Biblica, 2022). Thus, this passage illustrates that the Bible has just one interpretation. I believe that each of the above method would be a great way of knowledge for anybody, and particularly a Christian. Nonetheless, if I had to decide on the best one for me, I would choose hermeneutics as well as revelation because it is extremely crucial that people interact with God and better comprehend His word.
References
Biblica. (2022). The International Bible Society. Web.
Entwistle, D. N. (2015). Integrative approaches to psychology and Christianity: An introduction to worldview issues, philosophical foundations, and models. (3rd ed.) Cascade.
Guyon, H., Kop, J. L., Juhel, J., & Falissard, B. (2018). Measurement, ontology, and epistemology: Psychology needs pragmatism-realism. Theory & Psychology, 28(2), 149-171. Web.
Van Loon, A., Bailenson, J., Zaki, J., Bostick, J., & Willer, R. (2018). Virtual reality perspective-taking increases cognitive empathy for specific others. PloS one, 13(8), 1-19. Web.