---
title: "<EPISTEMICANALYSIS />"
language: en
date: 2026-09-12
canonical: "https://andreasvieth.de/en/ppi/epistemic-analysis/"
format: markdown
generator: "TYPO3 LLMs.txt Extension"
---

# <EPISTEMICANALYSIS />

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## <EPISTEMICANALYSIS />

<EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE /> poses a question that classical epistemology systematically overlooks: **What does it feel like to know—and what exactly occurs when someone gains insight, doubts, understands, or becomes confused?** Whereas <ERKENNTNISTHEORETISCHEANALYSE /> asks *whether* and *under what conditions* knowledge obtains, <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE /> asks about the *act* of knowing itself: about cognitive acts, their phenomenal quality, and their function within the argument.

The module’s most methodologically fundamental tool is a distinction that C. D. Broad rigorously maintains and that is constantly blurred in philosophical texts: the distinction between **Sensum and Sensation**. The *Sensum* is the apprehended datum—the object, quality, or state of affairs that is cognized. The *Sensation* is the mental act of perceiving itself—the event of enactment that differs categorically from what is apprehended. Anyone who blurs this boundary—who equates the act with its object or identifies the datum with the experience—generates pseudo-problems that cannot be resolved on the basis of this confusion. <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE /> identifies precisely these confusions.

Closely related to this is a second key distinction: that between **Acquaintance** and **Knowledge about**. *Acquaintance*—also termed *Prehension* by Broad—denotes the direct, unanalyzed apprehension of a particular: immediate access to a sensory datum that is not mediated by descriptions or inferences. *Knowledge about*, by contrast, is discursive knowledge—knowledge through descriptions, inferences, and concepts. Both are epistemically legitimate, but they are categorically distinct. A text that presents discursive knowledge as providing the same epistemic proximity as direct acquaintance claims more than it can demonstrate. Conversely, a text that recognizes only Acquaintance and devalues discursive knowledge deprives itself of the very means of argumentation.

Equally central is the distinction between **Pure Feeling** and **Cognition**. A *Pure Feeling*—a pain, a mood, a diffuse sense of unease—has no intentional object: it is not *of* something or *about* something. A *Cognition*, by contrast, is a cognitive act with cognitive content: it is directed toward an object or state of affairs and is therefore intentionally structured. Many philosophical texts treat experiences as cognitive acts, or vice versa—and <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE /> renders this confusion diagnostically visible.

Beyond these fundamental distinctions, the module turns its attention to a dimension that classical epistemology largely disregards: **epistemic feelings** and **epistemic virtues**. The *experience of evidence*—the phenomenon of “it is evident,” of insight, of certainty—is not merely a psychological by-product of cognition, but an epistemic quality in its own right that shapes and guides texts about cognition. Likewise, epistemic feelings such as intellectual curiosity, the discomfort of confusion, or the aha experience are not peripheral phenomena, but indicators of the state of the cognitive process. And a text’s implicit *epistemic virtues*—openness, precision, intellectual humility, or their opposites: dogmatism and carelessness—constitute a normative dimension of cognition that is reflected in the language and structure of arguments.

→ <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE /> differs from <ERKENNTNISTHEORETISCHEANALYSE /> through its **focus on the act** rather than on the conditions: it brackets the question of truth in order to describe the *how* of cognition—this is its phenomenological reduction. → Its guiding methodological question is not “Is this belief justified?”, but rather: **“What kind of cognitive act is present here—and is it what the text purports it to be?”** → Its most sensitive diagnostic point is the **act-content confusion**: if a text equates the experience of clarity with the presence of truth, or the feeling of evidence with evidence itself, then it has crossed an epistemic boundary that <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE /> identifies with precision.

#### <EPISTEMICANALYSIS> ... <EPISTEMICANALYSIS>

```markup
<PTL>

  <ZIELE>
    <ZIEL>Analysis of the phenomenology of cognitive performance: How are cognitive acts, experiences of evidence, and perceptual processes described in the text?</ZIEL>
    <ZIEL>Strict separation between cognitive content (What is cognized?) and epistemic act (How is it cognized?)</ZIEL>
    <ZIEL>Distinction between direct acquaintance (Acquaintance/Prehension) and discursive knowledge (Knowledge about) according to Broad</ZIEL>
    <ZIEL>Identification and classification of cognitive acts: perceiving, judging, understanding, remembering, inferring, explaining</ZIEL>
    <ZIEL>Reconstruction of the experience of evidence: the phenomenology of insight, clarity, certainty, and confusion</ZIEL>
    <ZIEL>Analysis of epistemic feelings and virtues as a normative dimension of cognition</ZIEL>
    <ZIEL>Assessment of introspective access: the limits and status of self-knowledge concerning one’s own acts</ZIEL>
  </ZIELE>

  <THEMA>Phenomenology of cognitive performance: cognitive acts, experiences of evidence, and epistemic states</THEMA>

  <PERSPEKTIVEN>
    <PERSPEKTIVE>Phenomenological (performance of cognition; experience of evidence and clarity)</PERSPEKTIVE>
    <PERSPEKTIVE>Act-theoretical (types of cognitive acts and their functions within the argument)</PERSPEKTIVE>
    <PERSPEKTIVE>Intentional (object-directedness: knowledge of what, about what?)</PERSPEKTIVE>
    <PERSPEKTIVE>Metacognitive (self-monitoring, error control, revision)</PERSPEKTIVE>
    <PERSPEKTIVE>Normative (epistemic virtues and vices as standards of assessment)</PERSPEKTIVE>
  </PERSPEKTIVEN>

  <METHODEN>
    <METHODE>Search for indicators of act vocabulary: search for verbs and adverbs of cognition (discern, comprehend, clarify, be confused, doubt)</METHODE>
    <METHODE>Act typology: classification of cognitive acts (perceiving, judging, inferring, understanding, remembering) and their functions within the argument</METHODE>
    <METHODE>Analysis of prehension (Broad): decomposition of the perceptual act into the direct apprehension (Prehension) of a sensory particular and the attribution of specific qualities</METHODE>
    <METHODE>Intentional analysis: determination of object-directedness—which object or state of affairs is ‘cognized’?</METHODE>
    <METHODE>Phenomenological reduction: bracketing the question of whether what is cognized is true in order to describe the performance of cognition itself</METHODE>
    <METHODE>Extraction of passages and functional commentary: quotations plus an explanation of the epistemic function fulfilled by the passage within the text as a whole</METHODE>
  </METHODEN>

  <KERNFRAGEN>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Akttypologie">Which cognitive states or acts are described—doubt, belief, certainty, understanding, inferring, remembering?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Acquaintance/Prehension">Is this direct acquaintance (Acquaintance/Prehension) or discursive knowledge by description (Knowledge about)?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Intentionalität">How is intentionality marked—knowledge of what, cognition about what? Toward which object or state of affairs is the act directed?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Kognitiver Gehalt">Does the experience described have an epistemological object—or is it a non-intentional feeling (Pure Feeling)?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Evidenzerleben">How is the experience of evidence and clarity addressed—‘it is evident,’ insight, certainty, the aha experience?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Epistemische Gefühle">Which epistemic feelings accompany cognitive processes—surprise, confusion, intellectual curiosity, frustration?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Verstehen vs. Wissen">How is the difference between knowledge and mere understanding characterized phenomenologically—as the ability to explain, pattern recognition, or conceptual mastery?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Unsicherheit">How are uncertainty and doubt operationalized—calibration, confidence, provisionality, and the handling of uncertainty?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Epistemische Tugenden">Which epistemic virtues or vices are implicitly established as norms—openness, accuracy, intellectual humility versus dogmatism?</KERNFRAGE>
    <KERNFRAGE dim="Introspektion">How is introspective access assessed—what status does self-knowledge concerning one’s own acts have, and where do its limits lie?</KERNFRAGE>
  </KERNFRAGEN>

  <KATEGORIEN>
    <KATEGORIE>Pure Feeling vs. Cognition (non-intentional experience vs. object-directed cognitive act)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Sensum vs. Sensation (apprehended datum vs. mental act of perceiving)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Acquaintance vs. Knowledge about (Prehension vs. discursive knowledge by description)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Intentionality (directedness of cognitive acts)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Experience of evidence (insight, clarity, certainty)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Metacognition (self-monitoring, error control, revision)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Epistemic feelings (pleasure in clarity, discomfort of confusion, curiosity, doubt)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Understanding (as structural knowledge and the ability to explain)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Attention / salience (the role of focus and prominence in cognition)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Confidence / uncertainty (degrees of belief; calibration)</KATEGORIE>
    <KATEGORIE>Epistemic virtues (accuracy, humility, openness)</KATEGORIE>
  </KATEGORIEN>

  <REGELN>
    <REGEL1>Systematically identify all passages in which cognitive acts, states, or performances are described—explicitly through act vocabulary or implicitly through descriptions of clarity, insight, or confusion</REGEL1>
    <REGEL2>Strictly distinguish between cognitive content (What is cognized?) and epistemic act (How is it cognized? With what quality?)</REGEL2>
    <REGEL3>For every cognitive act, examine whether it constitutes direct prehension (Acquaintance) or discursive knowledge by description—and what consequences this distinction has for the argument</REGEL3>
    <REGEL4>Examine intentionality: Does the cognitive state described have an object (Cognition), or is it objectless (Pure Feeling)? Conflating these two types is a typical error in philosophical texts</REGEL4>
    <REGEL5>Analyze experiences of evidence and epistemic feelings: Are clarity, insight, or confusion treated as epistemic qualities in their own right, or are they reduced to propositional justification?</REGEL5>
    <REGEL6>Examine epistemic virtues and vices: Which normative standards of cognition are implicitly applied, and are they applied consistently?</REGEL6>
  </REGELN>

  <ANALYSEKRITERIEN>
    <KRITERIUM>Strict separation of cognitive content and epistemic act in every passage analyzed</KRITERIUM>
    <KRITERIUM>Correct distinction between Pure Feeling (without object-directedness) and Cognition (with object-directedness)</KRITERIUM>
    <KRITERIUM>Precise determination of the Acquaintance/Prehension-versus-Knowledge-about status of each cognitive act</KRITERIUM>
    <KRITERIUM>Demonstration of experiences of evidence and epistemic feelings through supporting passages and functional commentary</KRITERIUM>
    <KRITERIUM>Explication of the normative dimension: Which epistemic virtues are applied?</KRITERIUM>
    <KRITERIUM>Fidelity to the text and internal consistency; consistent adherence to phenomenological reduction</KRITERIUM>
  </ANALYSEKRITERIEN>

  <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE
    ziel="Analyse der Phänomenologie kognitiver Vollzüge: Erkenntnisakte, Evidenzerleben, epistemische Zustände und Tugenden"
    kernbegriffe="Klarheit, Einsicht, Verstehen, Bewusstsein, Introspektion, Erlebnis, Zweifel, Konfusion, Prehension, Acquaintance"
    typischeVerben="einsehen, begreifen, verstehen, klären, zweifeln, prüfen, reflektieren, erkennen, unterscheiden"
    fragetypen="Unterscheidung Gefühl vs. Akt; Beschreibungen von 'es leuchtet ein'; Metareflexion über eigene Denkvorgänge"
    analyseFokus="phänomenologisch|akttheoretisch|intentional|metakognitiv|normativ"
    methodik="stufenweise|phänomenologisch-reduzierend|typologisch"
    schnittstellen="ErkenntnistheoretischeAnalyse|AxiologieAnalyse"
  >
    <!-- Analytical steps:
    1. Identify act vocabulary: verbs/adverbs of cognition and descriptions of clarity and confusion
    2. Classify cognitive acts according to act typology (perceiving, judging, understanding, remembering, inferring)
    3. Separate cognitive content (What?) from epistemic act (How? With what quality?)
    4. Examine intentionality: Cognition (with an object) vs. Pure Feeling (without an object)?
    5. Examine Acquaintance/Prehension vs. Knowledge about according to Broad
    6. Analyze Sensum vs. Sensation: What is apprehended (datum), and how is it apprehended (act)?
    7. Reconstruct experiences of evidence and epistemic feelings using supporting passages
    8. Identify epistemic virtues/vices as implicit norms of cognition
    9. Examine the status of introspection: the limits of self-knowledge concerning one’s own acts
    10. Map interfaces with ErkenntnistheoretischeAnalyse and AxiologieAnalyse
    -->
  </EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE>

  <METAPRUEFUNGEN>
    <PRUEFEKOHAERENZ />
    <PRUEFETEXTBEZUG />
    <FINDEARGUMENTALTERNATIVE />
    <PRUEFEANNAHMEN />
    <ERLAEUTERERELEVANZ />
  </METAPRUEFUNGEN>

  <TEXTERSTELLUNG>
    <ANTWORESTRIKTANALYSEORIENTIERT />
  </TEXTERSTELLUNG>

</PTL>
```

 *<EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE> ... <EPISTEMISCHEANALYSE>*