Epistemology & ontology: what’s their relationship?

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Epistemology and ontology sometimes go hand in hand because people who study epistemology assume that objects exist, and ontology is the study of existing objects. Also, people who study ontology can study knowledge, which is the main focus of epistemology, but not in the same way as epistemologists. Philosophers also use these two fields together in an attempt to determine certain things, such as the location of knowledge.

epistemology
People who study epistemology focus on all aspects of knowledge. This includes what it is, how humans acquire and use it, and whether or not something can be fully known. In doing this, they generally have to assume that objects exist so that they can study how people learn and know about them. Since ontology is the study of the existence and how objects exist, epistemologists must assume that some of ontology’s findings are true before they can begin arguing about knowledge.

ontology
While epistemologists study the nature of knowledge, ontologists can also study it. They have a different goal, however; as they want to determine whether knowledge is an object or an idea. In ontological study, if knowledge is an object, then it must exist independently of the human mind, whereas if it is just an idea, then it can only exist subjectively in someone’s mind. If this is true, it raises questions about how two people can have equal knowledge about something, such as how two people can know that the Sun rises in the east. Despite the difference in focus, ontologists still use some of the concepts of epistemology when constructing arguments.

Common applications
A philosophical debate where both epistemology and ontology are used is whether knowledge objectively exists or whether one must have a mind to have knowledge. For example, if a person thinks of a certain characteristic of a cat, then a philosopher would like to know whether knowledge of that characteristic exists in his mind or if it exists somewhere outside his body.

This is also used to study how a person can lose consciousness without knowing it. For example, a person may know what time it is one day, but if they forget to change the time for daylight saving time the next day, they will have lost that knowledge without knowing it, as they will still think they know the time, even though in fact you are wrong. Since philosophers define knowledge as always true, they would not say that the person is wrong or has false knowledge, but rather that he has lost knowledge.

Furthermore, both fields come into play in studying the existence of ethical concepts such as “Murder is wrong” in a person’s mind or in society. If a concept exists only in one person’s mind, then the question arises of how certain moral concepts are widespread in society and appear intuitive. If the concept exists in society, then a philosopher would try to find out how it can exist in a society outside people’s minds without actually being a physical object.

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