Knowabilism: A Philosophical Theory of Knowledge

Knowabilism is the philosophical doctrine which states that knowledge is a process and not a state, and hence, the term knowledge should be replaced by the term knowable, which implies the commitment to a continuous process of forming belief systems, modifying and/or replacing them by alternative and better belief systems. From this perspective, instead of saying “we know something as being so and so”, we should say “it is knowable to be so and so”, because knowledge is a mental process and not a static mental state. The term knowledge should be ultimately erased and replaced by an accurate concept, namely knowable. This is because we don’t actually know, but instead, things are just knowable for us´-or-unknowable. And we don’t actually know because knowledge is a continuous mental process, which implies the probability of replacing our beliefs by different and more accurate beliefs.

According to knowabilism, and for practical purposes only, knowledge is the following philosophical equation: knowledge = a priori reasoning + a posteriori reasoning. But a priori and a posteriori reasoning are processes and not static states of the mind. Therefore, knowledge is a process and not a static state. In light of these considerations, and our intellectual commitment to replace the concept of knowledge by the concept of knowable, we could successfully analyze the knowable in the following way: something is knowable if and only if it is the actual and/or the possible result of acceptable a priori reasoning and/or acceptable a posteriori reasoning in our past, present, and/or future inquiries. This analysis accounts for the fact that the knowable is a continuous process of reasoning exactly as a priori and a posteriori reasoning are.

For knowabilism, knowledge = a priori reasoning + a posteriori reasoning. This means that knowledge is a continuous process consisting of a priori reasoning and a posteriori reasoning at the same time, leading to the unification between rationalism (which relies on a priori reasoning, i.e., reasoning without relying on the senses, in order to gain knowledge) and empiricism (which relies on a posteriori reasoning, i.e., reasoning through relying on the senses, in order to obtain knowledge). This is a basic virtue of knowabilism, namely its success in unifying between rationalism and empiricism and dissolving the conflict between these two competing philosophical theories.

Knowabilism successfully accounts for knowledge obtained through a priori reasoning (such as in mathematics) and knowledge obtained through a posteriori reasoning (such as in physics, chemistry,or biology). Since knowledge = a priori reasoning + a posteriori reasoning, it follows that a priori reasoning = knowledge minus a posteriori reasoning, and hence, knowledge could be gained solely through a priori reasoning, such as in mathematics, and it also follows that a posteriori reasoning = knowledge minus a priori reasoning, and hence, knowledge could also be gained solely through a posteriori reasoning, such as in the natural sciences. The success of knowabilism in accounting for these two forms of knowledge speaks for knowabilism. In other words, the best explanation of the fact that knowabilism is successful (in accounting for the two previous forms of obtaining knowledge, namely, a priori and a posteriori reasoning) is that knowabilism is true.

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