Epistemology within the Empirical-Axiomatic Framework

Abstract

The Empirical-Axiomatic Framework (EAF) is a broader foundational framework concerned with existence, ontological structure, consistency, logic, information, representation, knowledge, scientific modelling, consciousness, and related philosophical questions. This paper develops the epistemological part of EAF by establishing a conceptual relation between underlying structures, representations, information, self, epistemic architecture, epistemic capacity, and knowledge. The paper distinguishes the Universal Information Space from the Ontological Information Space and defines knowledge as information possessed by a self, where a self is understood as a well-defined system. It further distinguishes generalised knowledge from Traditional Knowledge, with Traditional Knowledge requiring comprehended structural correspondence between a representation and the underlying structure it represents. The paper analyses epistemic activities, knowledge generation, representation changes, generator bases, and the limitations of epistemic systems. It distinguishes incomplete representations from incorrect representations and epistemic limitations from ontological limitations. A computer is examined as a detailed example of a non-biological epistemic system capable of acquiring, storing, processing, transforming, representing, and communicating information without these capacities necessarily implying consciousness or Traditional Knowledge. The framework is then applied to major epistemological and related philosophical problems, including induction, Gödel’s incompleteness problem, material implication, the philosophy of mathematics, Benacerraf’s problem, Gettier’s problem, demarcation, the Münchhausen trilemma, Sorites, and universals. The paper does not claim to provide final solutions to all these problems. Rather, it offers a unified conceptual basis for reframing them through the relations among existence, structure, representation, information, and epistemic systems. The resulting framework provides a foundation for further formal, scientific, and philosophical development within EAF.