efficiently weed out error from our beliefs and our reasons for holding those beliefs, as well as makes us better inquirers in future opportunities for judging truth from error.
The Function of Epistemology
Often considered the running back for metaphysics — that which gets the mind to reality, and consequently, concerned deeply with skepticism, perception, subjectivity, the psychology of knowing, religious knowing, certainty, the different kinds of knowledge, whether or not we can know anything, and all other issues related to the definitions and problems of knowledge.
One key distinction in epistemology is that between realism (the view that what we perceive is real) and solipsism (the view that we are locked in our own minds).
This example highlights multiple epistemological interests simultaneously: psychology, perception, the subject-object distinction, and the mind-world relationship — all with clearly overlapping interest in the nature and process of knowing anything, from an apple on a table to the God-concept.