Gnosiology ("study of knowledge") is "thephilosophy of knowledge and cognition".[1] In Soviet and post-Soviet philosophy, the word is often used as a synonym forepistemology.[2][3] The term is also currently used in regard toEastern Christianity.[4]
The term is derived from theAncient Greek wordsgnosis ("knowledge", γνῶσις) andlogos ("word" or "discourse", λόγος). Linguistically, one might compare it toepistemology, which is derived from the Greek wordsepisteme ("certain knowledge") andlogos.
The term "gnosiology" is not well known today, although found in Baldwin's (1906)Dictionary of Psychology and Philosophy.[5] TheEncyclopædia Britannica (1911) remarks that "The term Gnosiology has not, however, come into general use."
The term "gnosiology" (Modern Greek: γνωσιολογία) is used more commonly inModern Greek than in English. As aphilosophical concept, gnosiology broadly means the theory of knowledge, which in ancient Greek philosophy was perceived as a combination ofsensoryperception andintellect and then made into memory (called themnemonic system). When considered in the context ofscience, gnosiology takes on a different meaning: the study of knowledge, its origin, processes, and validity. Gnosiology being the study of types of knowledge i.e. memory (abstract knowledge derived from experimentation being "episteme" or teachable knowledge), experienceinduction (orempiricism),deduction (orrationalism), scientificabductive reasoning,contemplation (theoria),metaphysical and instinctual orintuitive knowledge. Gnosiology is focused on the study of thenoesis andnoetic components of humanontology.[6][7]
Within gnosiology, gnosis is derived bynoesis.[8] Noesis refers to the experiences or activities of the nous. This makes the study and origin of gnosis and gnosiology the study of the intuitive and or instinctual.
Inphilosophy,gnosology (also known asgnoseology orgnostology[10]) literally means the study ofgnosis,[11] meaningknowledge oresoteric knowledge. The study of gnosis itself covers a number of subjects, which includemagic,noetics, gnostic logic, and logical gnosticism, among others.[12] Gnosology has also been used, particularly byJames Hutchison Stirling,[10] to renderJohann Gottlieb Fichte's term for his own version oftranscendental idealism,Wissenschaftslehre, meaning "Doctrine of Knowledge".[13]
The so-called "intellectus ectypus" derives its knowledge of objects from intuitions of things-in-themselves without the forms of intuition while the "intellectual archetypus" creates the objects of its knowledge through the act of thinking them.[14] Emilii Medtner drew from Kant's gnosology along with the Kantian theory of knowledge to respond toCarl Jung'sZofingia Lectures, particularly to criticize the way intuition was conceived as a knowledge organ that is capable of functioning with validity and independence.[15]
