Bridging Epistemic Traditions: A Syncretic Approach to Knowledge and Belief Formation
This essay presents a syncretic epistemological framework that integrates coherentism, reliabilism, and transcendental idealism to provide a robust and flexible approach to belief formation. Drawing on insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, the framework combines various belief formation strategies, such as thought-experiments, Bayesian inference, falsification, and hypothesis generation, to help individuals navigate complex cognitive challenges and develop well-justified beliefs.
The essay and its addendums delve into the implications and applications of the proposed framework, highlighting its positive psychological impacts, including intellectual humility, cognitive flexibility, enhanced self-awareness, and resilience in the face of uncertainty. The essay explores the framework's flexibility and modularity, enabling the adoption and swapping of belief formation strategies depending on the context, and presents additional strategies such as counterfactual reasoning, internal debates, and playing devil's advocate.
Addendums provide in-depth analyses of use cases, such as everyday Gettier cases and out-of-context conjectures like solipsism and the simulation hypothesis, demonstrating the framework's applicability in various contexts. Moreover, recent findings from neuroscience research are discussed, offering empirical support for the framework and its belief formation strategies. The essay also examines the reliability of sensory perception, considering qualia and subjective experiences across sensory modalities, and discusses methods for appraising the reliability of perception within the syncretic framework.
