Epistemology
Perception → Interpretation → Assumption → Belief → Knowledge
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"I know"
Epistemology is the inquiry into how knowing happens, not what is known.
It questions the validity of knowledge at its root. Every claim—scientific, personal, philosophical—depends on an implicit structure:
- There is something to be known
- There is a knower
- There is a valid connection between the two
Epistemology destabilizes all three.
Perception is not neutral. It is mediated. What is seen is already shaped by the structure of the senses and mind. Therefore, knowledge is not direct contact with reality, but a constructed relationship.
The central problem emerges:
How do you know that what you know is true?
Appeal to obviousness is insufficient.
Appeal to tradition is irrelevant.
Appeal to consensus is psychological comfort—not proof.
All inquiry ultimately collapses into a single undeniable fact:
“I am.”
Everything else is inferred.
Thus epistemology, when pursued deeply, does not expand knowledge—it turns inquiry back toward the knower—[[कोहम]].