The Argument of Ethno-Epistemology on Knowledge

Abstract

This article aims to present a new way to solve problems in epistemology proposed by a group of philosophers who call themselves “experimental philosophers.” These philosophers have presented a series arguments based on what is known as Ethno-Epistemology. The main idea is that scientific methods should be used to solve philosophical problems. These philosophers believe that epistemological arguments cannot be solved by relying on the old way of analytic philosophy, since all arguments are based on the skeptical argument, whose origins can be traced back to Descartes. This type of argument makes use of one or more premises which the philosophers believe to be intuitively obvious. They suggest that the intuitions underpinning these skeptical arguments are universal and shared by everyone who thinks reflectively about knowledge. The experimental philosophers offer evidence indicating that these intuitions are far from universal, and they did so by asking many people around the world and from different cultures questions about their intuitive judgment of certain well known philosophical and epistemological problems. The result is that those with different cultures, social status and educational attainment, whether or not they have studied philosophy before do not share the same epistemological intuitions. This suggests that epistemological intuitions, in fact, vary according to different cultural backgrounds, socio-economic status and educational backgrounds. Because of this, the skeptical argument maybe not completely false but it is far from being shared universally. Thus, if we accept the prominent account of the link between universal epistemic intuitions and universal epistemic concepts, the related arguments based on this link, according to the findings of the ethno-epistemologies, are in fact much less interesting and worrisome than analytic philosophers have generally taken them to be.