Epistemology
Related papers: 20
About
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge — examining questions such as what it means to know something, how beliefs are justified, and what distinguishes reliable understanding from mere assumption. In robotics and AI, epistemological questions are deeply practical: they shape how autonomous systems represent the world, form beliefs from sensor data, reason under uncertainty, and update knowledge through experience. Debates about embodied cognition, for instance, challenge purely symbolic models of machine intelligence by arguing that genuine understanding is grounded in physical interaction with the environment. Epistemology also informs how robots model human intentions, why humans trust or distrust AI decisions, and how systems can explain their reasoning transparently. As robots take on roles in healthcare, education, and scientific discovery, these questions become urgent — poorly designed epistemic frameworks lead to brittle, unpredictable, or ethically problematic behavior. Understanding epistemology equips engineers and researchers to build systems that not only perform tasks, but do so with accountable, well-founded reasoning.
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