No doubt about it — how you and I come to believe what we do is a fascinating and sometimes vexing subject. The branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of belief and knowledge is epistemology — how do we know and how do we know that we know? It asks the important question of what truly distinguishes justified belief (truth) from opinion. The epistemic model directs us to think critically (examination without bias), clearly (achieving clarification), correctly (resulting in formal argumentation for the truth), and lastly, comprehensively (evaluating everything, culminating in a systematized framework). It’s a breathtakingly elegant process that has such power for good when used as intended. It’s a shame so few use it today. Instead, our world has whole-heartedly embraced the combined philosophy of post-truth and John Dewey-styled pragmatism, with Blaise Pascal summing up current events nicely by saying, “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive… (READ MORE)

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