Epistemics: Why Our Knowledge Depends on Models

This essay offers an accessible introduction to the basic idea of epistemics and at the same time serves as a guide to the research program of Epistemics.de. Its aim is not yet to work out all the project’s theoretical details, but to make its conceptual core visible, explain in a clear way why a distinct epistemic framework is needed, and provide an initial orientation to the structure and function of the individual papers. At the heart of the essay is the thesis that human beings do not understand the world directly, but only through selective and ordered forms of access. From this follows the need to look not only at individual models, but also at the question of how models emerge under finite conditions, gain stability, come under pressure, and are revised. The essay therefore introduces the basic domains of reality, the operative dynamics of model orders, and the project’s internal architecture. In the end, the individual papers on Epistemics.de are presented in terms of their respective roles, so that the text functions at once as an introduction, an orientation, and an entry point into the overall program.