Epistemology
Etymology
From Greek "episteme," "knowledge," plus "logos," "study of." The English term was coined by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854, though the questions reach back to Plato, who defined knowledge as something more than merely true opinion.
noun · /ih-pis-tuh-MOL-uh-jee/
The branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge — what it is, how we get it, and how we can tell what we truly know from what we merely believe.
What it names
A handle for the questions behind every argument about evidence, expertise, and truth: how do you actually know that, and how good is the knowing?
Example
The debate over trusting AI outputs is really an epistemology problem: on what grounds can we call a machine’s answer knowledge?
Related idea
Ontology asks what exists; epistemology asks how we could ever know it. They are the two great questions philosophers usually pursue side by side.