What is the origin of the word "epistemic"?

"Episteme" is a philosophical term derived from the Ancient Greek word ἐπιστήμη "epistēmē", which can refer to knowledge, science or understanding, and which comes from the verb, meaning "to know, to understand, or to be acquainted with".

Episteme

Plato contrasts episteme with "doxa": common belief or opinion. Episteme is also distinguished from "techne": a craft or applied practice. The word "epistemology" is derived from episteme.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault used the term "épistémè" in a specialized sense in his work "The Order of Things" to mean the historical, but non-temporal, "a priori" which grounds knowledge and its discourses and thus represents the condition of their possibility within a particular epoch.

In subsequent writings, he made it clear that several "épistémè" may co-exist and interact at the same time, being parts of various power-knowledge systems. But he did not discard the concept:
Yet in Foucault's "The Order of Things" he describes "épistémè" as:

However, if in any given culture and at any given moment, there is always only one episteme that defines the conditions of possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in a theory or silently invested in a practice. (Foucault, 168)

Foucault's use of "épistémè" has been asserted as being similar to Thomas Kuhn's notion of a "paradigm", as for example by Jean Piaget. However, there are decisive differences.

Whereas Kuhn's "paradigm" is an all-encompassing collection of beliefs and assumptions that result in the organization of scientific worldviews and practices, Foucault's "episteme" is not merely confined to science but to a wider range of discourse (all of science itself would fall under the "episteme" of the epoch).

Kuhn's paradigm shifts are a consequence of a series of conscious decisions made by scientists to pursue a neglected set of questions. Foucault's "episteme" is something like the 'epistemological unconscious' of an era; the resultant configuration of knowledge of a particular "episteme" is, to Foucault, based on a set of primordial, fundamental assumptions that are so basic to the "episteme" that they're experientially "invisible" to the constituents (such as people, organizations, or systems) operating within the "episteme."

Moreover, Kuhn's concept corresponds to what Foucault calls "theme" or theory of a science, but Foucault analyzed how "opposing" theories and themes could "co-exist" within a science. Kuhn doesn't search for the conditions of possibility of opposing discourses within a science, but simply for the invariant dominant paradigm governing scientific research (supposing that "one" paradigm always "is" pervading, except under paradigmatic transition).

Foucault attempts to demonstrate the constitutive limits of discourse, and in particular, the rules enabling their productivity; however, Foucault maintained that though ideology may infiltrate and form science, it need not do so: it must be demonstrated how ideology actually forms the science in question; contradictions and lack of objectivity is not an indicator of ideology. "Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its "general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true." Kuhn's and Foucault's notions are possibly influenced by the French philosopher of science Gaston Bachelard's notion of an "epistemological rupture", as indeed was Althusser.

In 1997, Judith Butler used the concept of episteme in her book "", examining the use of speech-act theory for political purposes.

The term episteme is related to the Greek word επιστήμη, which translates literally as "standing near or by that which causes" but is often simplified as "knowledge" or "science". By ignoring ego interests the core impetus or the essence of a deed, real or imagined, is recovered.

Epistemological psychology

Epistemological psychology is a multi-sided perspective in psychology uncovering simple primary hidden inklings (images) in ideas, actions, feelings and all social interactions.

The inkling is presumed to trigger an affect which encapsulates and saturates all human experience. In everyday life, inklings induce detection either via human enactments (through habitual behavior) or through spontaneous devotion (conscious expression in the arts).

Episteme psychology began with the 1940s written works of Gaston Bachelard, whose many books focused on poetics and (day-) dreaming. Episteme psychology was established as a separate discipline in the late 1980s through the work of v.d. Stok v. Altenæ.

The word "epistemology" is derived from the ancient Greek "epistēmē" meaning "knowledge" and the suffix "-logy", meaning "logical discourse" (derived from the Greek word "logos" meaning "discourse"). It is analogue to the German "Wissenschaftslehre" (literally, theory of science) which was introduced by philosophers Johann Fichte and Bernard Bolzano in the late 18th century. The word first appeared in English in 1847 as a translation of the German in New York's "Eclectic Magazine" review of a philosophical novel by German author Jean Paul:

Epistemology

Epistemology (; ) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge.

Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much debate in epistemology centers on four areas: (1) the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification, (2) various problems of skepticism, (3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and (4) the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?", "What does it mean to say that we know something?", and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"

Skepticism questions whether knowledge is possible at all. Skeptics argue that belief in something does not justify whether or not it is necessarily true. Characterizing knowledge as strong or weak is dependent on a person's viewpoint and their characterization of knowledge. Much of our knowledge on epistemology is derived from, in particular, rational and philosophical skepticism.

The evil demon skepticism described by Descartes (previously known from Plato's cave; with an updated version from sci-fi literature describing it as the brain in a vat) supposes that our sensors have been placed under the control of some external power such as a demon, mad scientist, etc. As such, everything we see is a fake, and we can never know anything about the'real' world inhabited by the demon or mad scientist. Even if these external powers do not exist, we still must depend on only the information provided by our senses and can therefore make no definite statement about anything beyond that information.

Skeptics oppose what they sometimes call dogmatic foundationalism, which states that there must be some basic positions that are self-justified or beyond justification without reference to others. (One example of such foundationalism may be found in Spinoza's "Ethics".) The skeptical response to this can take several approaches. First, claiming that "basic positions" "must" exist amounts to the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance combined with the slippery slope.

Among other arguments, skeptics used Agrippa's trilemma, named after Agrippa the Skeptic, to claim certain belief could be achieved. Foundationalists have used the same "trilemma" argument as justification for demanding the validity of basic beliefs.

This skeptical approach is rarely taken to its pyrrhonean extreme by most practitioners. Several modifications have arisen over the years, including the following :

Fictionalism would not claim to have knowledge but adheres to conclusions on some criterion such as utility, aesthetics, or other personal criteria without claiming that any conclusion is actually "true".

Philosophical fideism (as opposed to religious Fideism) would assert the truth of some propositions, but does so without asserting certainty.

Some forms of pragmatism would accept utility as a provisional guide to truth but not necessarily a universal decision-maker.

There are two different categories of epistemological skepticism, which can be referred to as "mitigated" and "unmitigated" skepticism. The two forms are contrasting but are still true forms of skepticism. Mitigated skepticism does not accept "strong" or "strict" knowledge claims but does, however, approve specific weaker ones. These weaker claims can be assigned the title of "virtual knowledge", but only to justified beliefs. Unmitigated skepticism rejects both claims of virtual knowledge and strong knowledge. Characterizing knowledge as strong, weak, virtual or genuine can be determined differently depending on a person's viewpoint as well as their characterization of knowledge.

In mathematics, it is known 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing to add two numbers, and knowing a (e.g., knowing other persons, or knowing oneself), (e.g., one's hometown), (e.g., cars), or (e.g., addition). Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between "knowing that" (know a concept), "knowing how" (understand an operation), and "acquaintance-knowledge" (know by relation), with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these.

While these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are defined explicitly in other languages (N.B. some languages related to English have been said to retain these verbs, e.g. Scots: and ). In French, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Dutch 'to know (a person)' is translated using,, and (both German and Dutch) respectively, whereas 'to know (how to do something)' is translated using, (both Portuguese and Spanish),, and. Modern Greek has the verbs () and (). Italian has the verbs and and the nouns for 'knowledge' are and. German has the verbs and ; the former implies knowing a fact, the latter knowing in the sense of being acquainted with and having a working knowledge of; there is also a noun derived from, namely, which has been said to imply knowledge in the form of recognition or acknowledgment. The verb itself implies a process: you have to go from one state to another, from a state of "not-" to a state of true. This verb seems the most appropriate in terms of describing the "episteme" in one of the modern European languages, hence the German name "". The theoretical interpretation and significance of these linguistic issues remains controversial.

In his paper "On Denoting" and his later book "Problems of Philosophy" Bertrand Russell stressed the distinction between "knowledge by description" and "knowledge by acquaintance". Gilbert Ryle is also credited with stressing the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in "The Concept of Mind." In "Personal Knowledge," Michael Polanyi argues for the epistemological relevance of knowledge how and knowledge that; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded. This position is essentially Ryle's, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how leads to infinite regress.

In recent times, epistemologists including Sosa, Greco, Kvanvig, Zagzebski and Duncan Pritchard have argued that epistemology should evaluate people's "properties" (i.e., intellectual virtues) and not just the properties of propositions or of propositional mental attitudes.

In common speech, a "statement of belief" is typically an expression of faith or trust in a person, power or other entity—while it includes such traditional views, epistemology is also concerned with what we believe. This includes 'the' truth, and everything else we accept as 'true' for ourselves from a cognitive point of view.

Whether someone's belief is true is not a prerequisite for (its) belief. On the other hand, if something is actually "known", then it categorically cannot be false. For example, if a person believes that a bridge is safe enough to support her, and attempts to cross it, but the bridge then collapses under her weight, it could be said that she "believed" that the bridge was safe but that her belief was mistaken. It would "not" be accurate to say that she "knew" that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported her weight, then the person might say that she had believed the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to herself (by crossing it), she "knows" it was safe.

Epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true propositions, and others as a system of justified true sentences. Plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer.

In the "Theaetetus", Socrates considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, the last being that knowledge is true belief "with an account" (meaning explained or defined in some way). According to the theory that knowledge is justified true belief, to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but also have a good reason for doing so. One implication of this would be that no one would gain knowledge just by believing something that happened to be true. For example, an ill person with no medical training, but with a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that he will recover from his illness quickly. Nevertheless, even if this belief turned out to be true, the patient would not have "known" that he would get well since his belief lacked justification.

The definition of knowledge as justified true belief was widely accepted until the 1960s. At this time, a paper written by the American philosopher Edmund Gettier provoked major widespread discussion. (See theories of justification for other views on the idea.)

Edmund Gettier is best known for a short paper entitled 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?' published in 1963, which called into question the theory of knowledge that had been dominant among philosophers for thousands of years. This in turn called into question the actual value of philosophy if such an obvious and easy counterexample to a major theory could exist without anyone noticing it for thousands of years. In a few pages, Gettier argued that there are situations in which one's belief may be justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. That is, Gettier contended that while justified belief in a true proposition is necessary for that proposition to be known, it is not sufficient. As in the diagram, a true proposition can be believed by an individual (purple region) but still not fall within the "knowledge" category (yellow region).

According to Gettier, there are certain circumstances in which one does not have knowledge, even when all of the above conditions are met. Gettier proposed two thought experiments, which have become known as "Gettier cases", as counterexamples to the classical account of knowledge. One of the cases involves two men, Smith and Jones, who are awaiting the results of their applications for the same job. Each man has ten coins in his pocket. Smith has excellent reasons to believe that Jones will get the job and, furthermore, knows that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (he recently counted them). From this Smith infers, "The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket." However, Smith is unaware that he also has ten coins in his own pocket. Furthermore, Smith, not Jones, is going to get the job. While Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones will get the job, he is wrong. Smith has a justified true belief that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket; however, according to Gettier, Smith does not "know" that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket, because Smith's belief is "...true by virtue of the number of coins in "Jones's" pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his belief...on a count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job." (see p. 122.) These cases fail to be knowledge because the subject's belief is justified, but only happens to be true by virtue of luck. In other words, he made the correct choice (believing that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket) for the wrong reasons. This example is similar to those often given when discussing belief and truth—wherein a person's belief of what will happen can coincidentally be correct without the actual knowledge to base it on.

The responses to Gettier have been varied. Usually, they have involved substantial attempts to provide a definition of knowledge different from the classical one, either by recasting knowledge as justified true belief with some additional fourth condition, or proposing a completely new set of conditions, disregarding the classical ones entirely.

In one response to Gettier, the American philosopher Richard Kirkham has argued that the only definition of knowledge that could ever be immune to all counterexamples is the infallibilist one. To qualify as an item of knowledge, goes the theory, a belief must not only be true and justified, the justification of the belief must "necessitate" its truth. In other words, the justification for the belief must be infallible.

Yet another possible candidate for the fourth condition of knowledge is "indefeasibility." Defeasibility theory maintains that there should be no overriding or defeating truths for the reasons that justify one's belief. For example, suppose that person "S" believes he saw Tom Grabit steal a book from the library and uses this to justify the claim that Tom Grabit stole a book from the library. A possible defeater or overriding proposition for such a claim could be a true proposition like, "Tom Grabit's identical twin Sam is currently in the same town as Tom." When no defeaters of one's justification exist, a subject would be epistemologically justified.

The Indian philosopher B.K. Matilal has drawn on the Navya-Nyāya fallibilism tradition to respond to the Gettier problem. Nyaya theory distinguishes between "know p" and "know that one knows p"—these are different events, with different causal conditions. The second level is a sort of implicit inference that usually follows immediately the episode of knowing p (knowledge "simpliciter"). The Gettier case is examined by referring to a view of Gangesha Upadhyaya (late 12th century), who takes any true belief to be knowledge; thus a true belief acquired through a wrong route may just be regarded as knowledge simpliciter on this view. The question of justification arises only at the second level, when one considers the knowledge-hood of the acquired belief. Initially, there is lack of uncertainty, so it becomes a true belief. But at the very next moment, when the hearer is about to embark upon the venture of "knowing whether he knows p", doubts may arise. "If, in
some Gettier-like cases, I am wrong in my inference about the knowledge-hood of the given occurrent belief (for the evidence may be pseudo-evidence), then I am mistaken about the truth of my belief—and this is in accordance with Nyaya fallibilism: not all knowledge-claims can be sustained."

Reliabilism has been a significant line of response to the Gettier problem among philosophers, originating with work by Alvin Goldman in the 1960s. According to reliabilism, a belief is justified (or otherwise supported in such a way as to count towards knowledge) only if it is produced by processes that typically yield a sufficiently high ratio of true to false beliefs. In other words, this theory states that a true belief counts as knowledge only if it is produced by a reliable belief-forming process. Examples of reliable processes include: standard perceptual processes, remembering, good reasoning, and introspection.

Reliabilism has been challenged by Gettier cases. Another argument that challenges reliabilism, like the Gettier cases (although it was not presented in the same short article as the Gettier cases), is the case of Henry and the barn façades. In the thought experiment, a man, Henry, is driving along and sees a number of buildings that resemble barns. Based on his perception of one of these, he concludes that he has just seen barns. While he has seen one, and the perception he based his belief that the one he saw was of a real barn, all the other barn-like buildings he saw were façades. Theoretically, Henry does not know that he has seen a barn, despite both his belief that he has seen one being true and his belief being formed on the basis of a reliable process (i.e. his vision), since he only acquired his true belief by accident.

Robert Nozick has offered the following definition of knowledge:
"S" knows that "P" if and only if:
Nozick argues that the third of these conditions serves to address cases of the sort described by Gettier. Nozick further claims this condition addresses a case of the sort described by D.M. Armstrong: A father believes his daughter innocent of committing a particular crime, both because of faith in his baby girl and (now) because he has seen presented in the courtroom a conclusive demonstration of his daughter's innocence. His belief via the method of the courtroom satisfies the four subjunctive conditions, but his faith-based belief does not. If his daughter were guilty, he would still believe her innocent, on the basis of faith in his daughter; this would violate the third condition.

The British philosopher Simon Blackburn has criticized this formulation by suggesting that we do not want to accept as knowledge beliefs, which, while they "track the truth" (as Nozick's account requires), are not held for appropriate reasons. He says that "we do not want to award the title of knowing something to someone who is only meeting the conditions through a defect, flaw, or failure, compared with someone else who is not meeting the conditions." In addition to this, externalist accounts of knowledge, such as Nozick's, are often forced to reject closure in cases where it is intuitively valid.

Timothy Williamson has advanced a theory of knowledge according to which knowledge is not justified true belief plus some extra condition(s), but primary. In his book "Knowledge and its Limits," Williamson argues that the concept of knowledge cannot be broken down into a set of other concepts through analysis—instead, it is "sui generis." Thus, according to Williamson, justification, truth, and belief are necessary but not sufficient for knowledge.

Alvin Goldman writes in his "Causal Theory of Knowing" that knowledge requires a causal link between the truth of a proposition and the belief in that proposition.

A central debate about the nature of justification is a debate between epistemological externalists on the one hand, and epistemological internalists on the other.

Externalists hold that factors deemed "external", meaning outside of the psychological states of those who gain knowledge, can be conditions of justification. For example, an externalist response to the Gettier problem is to say that for a justified true belief to count as knowledge, there must be a link or dependency between the belief and the state of the external world. Usually this is understood to be a causal link. Such causation, to the extent that it is "outside" the mind, would count as an external, knowledge-yielding condition. Internalists, on the other hand, assert that all knowledge-yielding conditions are within the psychological states of those who gain knowledge.

Though unfamiliar with the internalist/externalist debate himself, many point to René Descartes as an early example of the internalist path to justification. He wrote that, because the only method by which we perceive the external world is through our senses, and that, because the senses are not infallible, we should not consider our concept of knowledge infallible. The only way to find anything that could be described as "indubitably true", he advocates, would be to see things "clearly and distinctly". He argued that if there is an omnipotent, good being who made the world, then it's reasonable to believe that people are made with the ability to know. However, this does not mean that man's ability to know is perfect. God gave man the ability to know but not omniscience. Descartes said that man must use his capacities for knowledge correctly and carefully through methodological doubt.

The dictum "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) is also commonly associated with Descartes' theory. In his own methodological doubt—doubting everything he previously knew so he could start from a blank slate—the first thing that he could not logically bring himself to doubt was his own existence: "I do not exist" would be a contradiction in terms. The act of saying that one does not exist assumes that someone must be making the statement in the first place. Descartes could doubt his senses, his body, and the world around him—but he could not deny his own existence, because he was able to doubt and must exist to manifest that doubt. Even if some "evil genius" were deceiving him, he would have to exist to be deceived. This one sure point provided him with what he called his Archimedean point, in order to further develop his foundation for knowledge. Simply put, Descartes' epistemological justification depended on his indubitable belief in his own existence and his clear and distinct knowledge of God.

We generally assume that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. If so, what is the explanation? A formulation of the value problem in epistemology first occurs in Plato's Meno. Socrates points out to Meno that a man who knew the way to Larissa could lead others there correctly. But so, too, could a man who had true beliefs about how to get there, even if he had not gone there or had any knowledge of Larissa. Socrates says that it seems that both knowledge and true opinion can guide action. Meno then wonders why knowledge is valued more than true belief and why knowledge and true belief are different. Socrates responds that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief because it is tethered or justified. Justification, or working out the reason for a true belief, locks down true belief.

The problem is to identify what (if anything) makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief, or that makes knowledge more valuable than a more minimal conjunction of its components, such as justification, safety, sensitivity, statistical likelihood, and anti-Gettier conditions, on a particular analysis of knowledge that conceives of knowledge as divided into components (to which knowledge-first epistemological theories, which posit knowledge as fundamental, are notable exceptions). The value problem reemerged in the philosophical literature on epistemology in the twenty-first century following the rise of virtue epistemology in the 1980s, partly because of the obvious link to the concept of value in ethics.

The value problem has been presented as an argument against epistemic reliabilism by philosophers including Linda Zagzebski, Wayne Riggs and Richard Swinburne. Zagzebski analogizes the value of knowledge to the value of espresso produced by an espresso maker: "The liquid in this cup is not improved by the fact that it comes from a reliable espresso maker. If the espresso tastes good, it makes no difference if it comes from an unreliable machine." For Zagzebski, the value of knowledge deflates to the value of mere true belief. She assumes that reliability in itself has no value or disvalue, but Goldman and Olsson disagree. They point out that Zagzebski's conclusion rests on the assumption of veritism: all that matters is the acquisition of true belief. To the contrary, they argue that a reliable process for acquiring a true belief adds value to the mere true belief by making it more likely that future beliefs of a similar kind will be true. By analogy, having a reliable espresso maker that produced a good cup of espresso would be more valuable than having an unreliable one that luckily produced a good cup because the reliable one would more likely produce good future cups compared to the unreliable one.

The value problem is important to assessing the adequacy of theories of knowledge that conceive of knowledge as consisting of true belief and other components. According to Kvanvig, an adequate account of knowledge should resist counterexamples and allow an explanation of the value of knowledge over mere true belief. Should a theory of knowledge fail to do so, it would prove inadequate.

One of the more influential responses to the problem is that knowledge is not particularly valuable and is not what ought to be the main focus of epistemology. Instead, epistemologists ought to focus on other mental states, such as understanding. Advocates of virtue epistemology have argued that the value of knowledge comes from an internal relationship between the knower and the mental state of believing.

The nature of this distinction has been disputed by various philosophers; however, the terms may be roughly defined as follows:
A priori knowledge is a way of gaining knowledge without the need of experience. In Bruce Russell's article "A Priori Justification and Knowledge" he says that it is "knowledge based on a priori justification," (1) which relies on intuition and the nature of these intuitions. A priori knowledge is often contrasted with posteriori knowledge, which is knowledge gained by experience. A way to look at the difference between the two is through an example. Bruce Russell gives two propositions in which the reader decides which one he believes more. Option A: All crows are birds. Option B: All crows are black. If you believe option A, then you are a priori justified in believing it because you don't have to see a crow to know it's a bird. If you believe in option B, then you are posteriori justified to believe it because you have seen many crows therefore knowing they are black. He goes on to say that it doesn't matter if the statement is true or not, only that if you believe in one or the other that matters.

The idea of a priori knowledge is that it is based on intuition or rational insights. Laurence BonJour says in his article "The Structure of Empirical Knowledge", that a "rational insight is an immediate, non-inferential grasp, apprehension or'seeing' that some proposition is necessarily true." (3) Going back to the crow example, by Laurence BonJour's definition the reason you would believe in option A is because you have an immediate knowledge that a crow is a bird, without ever experiencing one.

Evolutionary psychology takes a novel approach to the problem. It says that there is an innate predisposition for certain types of learning. "Only small parts of the brain resemble a tabula rasa; this is true even for human beings. The remainder is more like an exposed negative waiting to be dipped into a developer fluid".

Immanuel Kant, in his "Critique of Pure Reason", drew a distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" propositions. He contended that some propositions are such that we can know they are true just by understanding their meaning. For example, consider, "My father's brother is my uncle." We can know it is true solely by virtue of our understanding what its terms mean. Philosophers call such propositions "analytic"". Synthetic propositions, on the other hand, have distinct subjects and predicates. An example would be, "My father's brother has black hair." Kant stated that all mathematical and scientific statements are analytic priori propositions because they are necessarily true but our knowledge about the attributes of the mathematical or physical subjects we can only get by logical inference.

The American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", famously challenged the distinction, arguing that the two have a blurry boundary. Some contemporary philosophers have offered more sustainable accounts of the distinction.

Science is viewed as a refined, formalized, systematic, or institutionalized form of the pursuit and acquisition of empirical knowledge. As such, the philosophy of science may be viewed variously as an application or foundation of the philosophy of knowledge acquisition.

The regress problem is the problem of providing a complete logical foundation for human knowledge. The traditional way of supporting a rational argument is to appeal to other rational arguments, typically using chains of reason and rules of logic. A classic example that goes back to Aristotle is deducing that "Socrates is mortal." We have a logical rule that says "All humans are mortal" and an assertion that "Socrates is human" and we deduce that "Socrates is mortal". In this example how do we know that Socrates is human? Presumably we apply other rules such as: "All born from human females are human." Which then leaves open the question how do we know that all born from humans are human? This is the regress problem: how can we eventually terminate a logical argument with some statement(s) that do not require further justification but can still be considered rational and justified? As John Pollock stated:

... to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified belief. This means that one of two things can be the case. Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of (potential) justification [the nebula theory]. On this theory there is no rock bottom of justification. Justification just meanders in and out through our network of beliefs, stopping nowhere.

The apparent impossibility of completing an infinite chain of reasoning is thought by some to support skepticism. It is also the impetus for Descartes' famous dictum: "I think, therefore I am". Descartes was looking for some logical statement that could be true without appeal to other statements.

Many epistemologists studying justification have attempted to argue for various types of chains of reasoning that can escape the regress problem.
Foundationalists respond to the regress problem by asserting that certain "foundations" or "basic beliefs" support other beliefs but do not themselves require justification from other beliefs. These beliefs might be justified because they are self-evident, infallible, or derive from reliable cognitive mechanisms. Perception, memory, and a priori intuition are often considered possible examples of basic beliefs.

The chief criticism of foundationalism is that if a belief is not supported by other beliefs, accepting it may be arbitrary or unjustified.
Another response to the regress problem is coherentism, which is the rejection of the assumption that the regress proceeds according to a pattern of linear justification. To avoid the charge of circularity, coherentists hold that an individual belief is justified circularly by the way it fits together (coheres) with the rest of the belief system of which it is a part. This theory has the advantage of avoiding the infinite regress without claiming special, possibly arbitrary status for some particular class of beliefs. Yet, since a system can be coherent while also being wrong, coherentists face the difficulty of ensuring that the whole system corresponds to reality. Additionally, most logicians agree that any argument that is circular is trivially valid. That is, to be illuminating, arguments must be linear with conclusions that follow from stated premises.

However, Warburton writes in 'Thinking from A to Z', "Circular arguments are not invalid; in other words, from a logical point of view there is nothing intrinsically wrong with them. However, they are, when viciously circular, spectacularly uninformative. (Warburton 1996)."
A position known as "foundherentism", advanced by Susan Haack, is meant to unify foundationalism and coherentism. One component of this theory is what is called the "analogy of the crossword puzzle." Whereas, for example, infinitists regard the regress of reasons as "shaped" like a single line, Susan Haack has argued that it is more like a crossword puzzle, with multiple lines mutually supporting each other.
An alternative resolution to the regress problem is known as "infinitism". Infinitists take the infinite series to be merely potential, in the sense that an individual may have indefinitely many reasons available to them, without having consciously thought through all of these reasons when the need arises. This position is motivated in part by the desire to avoid what is seen as the arbitrariness and circularity of its chief competitors, foundationalism and coherentism.

It was properly introduced in the philosophical literature by Scottish philosopher J.F. Ferrier in his "Institutes of Metaphysics" (1854):

French philosophers then gave the term "épistémologie" a narrower meaning as philosophy of science. E.g., Émile Meyerson opened his "Identity and Reality", written in 1908, with the remark that the word 'is becoming current' as equivalent to 'the philosophy of the sciences.'

The idea of epistemology predates the word. John Locke describes his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) as an inquiry "into the original, certainty, and extent of HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, together with the grounds and degrees of BELIEF, OPINION, and ASSENT".. According to Brett Warrent, the character "Epistemon" in King James VI of Scotland's Daemonologie (1591) "was meant to be a personification of a philosophical concept currently known as ‘’epistemology’: the investigation into the differences of a justified belief versus its opinion."

The historical study of philosophical epistemology is the historical study of efforts to gain philosophical understanding or knowledge of the nature and scope of human knowledge. Since efforts to get that kind of understanding have a history, the questions philosophical epistemology asks today about human knowledge are not necessarily the same as they once were. But that does not mean that philosophical epistemology is itself a historical subject, or that it pursues only or even primarily historical understanding.

In philosophy, empiricism is generally a theory of knowledge focusing on the role of experience, especially experience based on perceptual observations by the senses. Certain forms exempt disciplines such as mathematics and logic from these requirements.

There are many variants of empiricism: positivism, realism and common sense being among the most commonly expounded. But central to all empiricist epistemologies is the notion of the epistemologically privileged status of sense data.

Many idealists believe that knowledge is primarily (at least in some areas) acquired by "a priori" processes or is innate—for example, in the form of concepts not derived from experience. The relevant theoretical processes often go by the name "intuition". The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human mind (as in Kant's theory of transcendental idealism), or they may be said to exist independently of the mind (as in Plato's theory of Forms).

By contrast with empiricism and idealism, which centres around the epistemologically privileged status of sense data (empirical) and the primacy of Reason (theoretical) respectively, modern rationalism adds a third'system of thinking', (as Gaston Bachelard has termed these areas) and holds that all three are of equal importance: The empirical, the theoretical and the "abstract". For Bachelard, rationalism makes equal reference to all three systems of thinking.

Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all "knowledge is a compilation of human-made constructions", "not the neutral discovery of an objective truth". Whereas objectivism is concerned with the "object of our knowledge", constructivism emphasizes "how we construct knowledge". Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge and truth that form a new paradigm, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical objectivity, and on viability instead of truth. Piagetian constructivism, however, believes in objectivity—constructs can be validated through experimentation. The constructivist point of view is pragmatic; as Vico said: "The norm of the truth is to have made it."

Pragmatism is an empiricist epistemology formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, which understands truth as that which is practically applicable in the world. Peirce formulates the maxim: 'Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.' This suggests that we are to analyse ideas and objects in the world for their practical value. This is in contrast to any correspondence theory of truth that holds that what is true is what corresponds to an external reality. William James suggests that through a pragmatist epistemology 'Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas in which we can rest.' A more contemporary understanding of pragmatism was developed by the philosopher Richard Rorty who proposed that values were historically contingent and dependent upon their utility within a given historical period.

Closely related to Pragmatism, naturalized epistemology considers the evolutionary role of knowledge for agents living and evolving in the world. It de-emphasizes the questions around justification and truth, and instead asks, empirically, what beliefs should agents hold in order to survive. It suggests a more empirical approach to the subject as a whole—leaving behind philosophical definitions and consistency arguments, and instead using psychological methods to study and understand how knowledge actually forms and is used in the natural world. As such it does not attempt to answer the analytic questions of traditional epistemology but replace them with new empirical ones.

Indian philosophical schools such as the Hindu Nyaya, and Carvaka, and later, the Jain and Buddhist philosophical schools, developed an epistemological tradition termed "pramana" independently of the Western philosophical tradition. Pramana can be translated as "instrument of knowledge" and refers to various means or sources of knowledge that Indian philosophers held to be reliable. Each school of Indian philosophy had their own theories about which pramanas were valid means to knowledge and which were unreliable (and why). A Vedic text, Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (c. 9th–6th centuries BCE), lists "four means of attaining correct knowledge": "smṛti" ("tradition" or "scripture"), "pratyakṣa" ("perception"), "aitihya" ("communication by one who is expert", or "tradition), and "anumāna" ("reasoning" or "inference").

In the Indian traditions, the most widely discussed pramanas are: "Pratyakṣa" (perception), "Anumāṇa" (inference), "Upamāṇa" (comparison and analogy), "Arthāpatti" (postulation, derivation from circumstances), "Anupalabdi" (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof) and "Śabda" (word, testimony of past or present reliable experts). While the Nyaya school (beginning with the Nyāya Sūtras of Gotama, between 6th-century BCE and 2nd-century CE) were a proponent of realism and supported four pramanas (perception, inference, comparison/analogy and testimony), the Buddhist epistemologists (Dignaga and Dharmakirti) generally accepted only perception and inference.

The theory of knowledge of the Buddha in the early Buddhist texts has been interpreted as a form of pragmatism as well as a form of correspondence theory. Likewise, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti has been interpreted both as holding a form of pragmatism or correspondence theory for his view that what is true is what has effective power ("arthakriya"). The Buddhist Madhyamika school's theory of emptiness (shunyata) meanwhile has been interpreted as a form of philosophical skepticism.

The main Jain contribution to epistemology has been their theory of "many sided-ness" or "multi-perspectivism" (Anekantavada), which says that since the world is multifaceted, any single viewpoint is limited ("naya" – a partial standpoint). This has been interpreted as a kind of pluralism or perspectivism. According to Jain epistemology, none of the pramanas gives absolute or perfect knowledge since they are each limited points of view.

The Carvaka school of materialists only accepted the pramana of perception and hence were one of the first empiricists. There was also another school of philosophical skepticism, the Ajñana.

Skepticism is a position that questions the validity of some or all of human knowledge. Skepticism does not refer to any one specific school of philosophy, rather it is a thread that runs through many philosophical discussions of epistemology. The first well known Greek skeptic was Socrates who claimed that his only knowledge was that he knew nothing with certainty. In Indian philosophy, Sanjaya Belatthiputta was a famous skeptic and the Buddhist Madhyamika school has been seen as taking up a form of skepticism. Descartes' most famous inquiry into mind and body also began as an exercise in skepticism. Descartes began by questioning the validity of all knowledge and looking for some fact that was irrefutable. In so doing, he came to his famous dictum: I think, therefore I am.

Foundationalism and the other responses to the regress problem are essentially defenses against skepticism. Similarly, the pragmatism of William James can be viewed as a coherentist defense against skepticism. James discarded conventional philosophical views of truth and defined truth as based on how well a concept works in a specific context, rather than objective rational criteria. The philosophy of Logical Positivism and the work of philosophers such as Kuhn and Popper can be viewed as skepticism applied to what can truly be considered scientific knowledge.


When did Final Fantasy Type-0 come out?

"Final Fantasy Type-0" was originally titled "Final Fantasy Agito XIII", envisioned as a game for mobile devices. It was conceived in 2005 as part of "Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy", a subseries of "Final Fantasy" games linked by a common mythos. "Agito XIII" was the final original "Fabula Nova Crystallis" game to be created. The decision to make it a mobile game was based on the popularity of "". Hajime Tabata, who contributed to the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" mythos, was searching for a new project after finishing "Before Crisis" and became the game's director. "Before Crisis" producer Kosei Ito acted as producer before his move to Capcom prior to 2009. Beginning development in 2006, it was first announced at that year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). It was said to offer on-the-go access to the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" universe, using gameplay functions exclusive to mobile phones of the time. The concept was to deliver a game for mobile platforms equivalent to a console game from the main "Final Fantasy" series, and to make it available in its entirety upon release rather than in episodic format.

Final Fantasy Type-0

The story focuses on Class Zero, a group of fourteen students from the Vermillion Peristylium, a magical academy in the Dominion of Rubrum. When the Militesi Empire launches an assault on the other Crystal States of Orience, seeking to control their respective crystals, Class Zero is mobilized for the defense of Rubrum. Eventually, the group becomes entangled in the secrets behind both the war and the reason for their existence. The setting and presentation were inspired by historical documentaries, and the story itself was written to be darker than other "Final Fantasy" titles.

The game was originally announced as a title for mobile phones and the PSP called It was directed by Hajime Tabata, who took up the project after completing "". Initially designed to provide players with easy access to the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" universe, the mobile version was eventually cancelled and the game's title was changed to distance it from the subseries' flagship title "Final Fantasy XIII". Releasing to strong sales, it received praise for its story and gameplay, but was criticized for its camera control and artificial intelligence. Further games related to "Type-0" have also been developed, including a high definition remaster that released internationally in March 2015.
"Final Fantasy Type-0" is an action role-playing video game in which the player controls the 14 members of Class Zero, who are sent on missions across Orience. Outside environments such as the Vermillion Peristylium (Class Zero's home base) and dedicated missions, the game world of Orience is navigated via a scaled-down world map. Class Zero are sent on missions across Orience during the course of the game. The player initially travels to preset destinations in the world on an airship supplied by the Peristylium, but gains their own airship to freely navigate the world map with after defeating a powerful enemy guarding it. The main gameplay is presented in a mission-based structure. The two types of missions encountered are story-based missions, and "Practice" missions, which act as side-quests. During missions, optional orders are issued which can be obeyed or ignored as the player chooses. Should they be accepted, the characters receive a temporary power boost, and completing the objectives yields rewards. Players can also engage in real-time strategy battles on the world map, with the player taking control of allied military divisions. Missions involve liberating cities and towns from enemy forces. Timed aerial missions are also available where the characters shoot down attacking dragons using their airship's weapons.

While outside combat, players can breed chocobos, recurring galliform birds in the "Final Fantasy" series. Players must capture two chocobos on the world map and take them to a special ranch within the Peristylium: by pairing certain chocobos and adding specific items, a special chocobo can be bred for use. Players can visit the Peristylium Crystarium to review defeated enemies, character information, in-game lore and special video clips. Moogles, another recurring creature in the series, hand out missions to the player: the objectives of missions can change during gameplay. Items and new equipment can be bought from shops managed by non-player characters (NPCs) both within the Peristylium and across Orience. Towns liberated during missions give access to a wider range of shops. After completing the game once, players unlock a "New Game+" option: in this mode, players keep their stats and weapons from the previous playthrough, while also unlocking story scenes and character-specific missions. "Type-0" features three difficulty levels; "normal", "hard", and "impossible".

"Type-0" uses a real-time, action-based battle system similar to the system used in "". The player is allowed access to three characters, which they can swap between at any time. The two not being controlled are managed by the game's artificial intelligence. Each character has a specific weapon, and special attacks unique to a character are unlocked as they gain experience levels. During combat, characters lock onto targets while attacking and can switch targets. Characters are able to perform precisely timed attacks during the period when an enemy unit is attacking: the "Break Sight", which deals high damage, and the "Kill Sight", which kills a standard enemy with a single hit. Three characters can also be commanded to use a combining their attacks to deal higher damage to a target. Aside from human enemies, the game features multiple recurring "Final Fantasy" monsters. In addition to enemies encountered in missions, there are special enemies that can be encountered while exploring the world map.

Defeated enemy units drop a substance called Phantoma. The color of Phantoma indicates what aspect of the character it will replenish, though in general they automatically replenish a set amount of magic points. Phantoma are used in the game's leveling system, the Altocrystarium, to strengthen a character's magic skills. The game's magic skills are divided into five basic groups named after types of guns: for example, "Rifle" fires the spell in a straight line, while "Missile" homes in on and chases targeted enemies. Holding down the assigned action button increases the power of the attack. Many combat situations involve timed challenges. Success rewards the character, while failure drains their health. If a character is defeated in battle, the player can instantly select another to replace it, and the defeated character must be revived outside the mission. The game features an arena where practice fights take place. While these fights are not against real foes, the characters continue to level up and gain Phantoma after the battle, and twenty battles can be arranged at any one time. Each character has access to summoned monsters called which act as temporary playable characters and have their own set of skills. Summoning them empties the selected character's health gauge, removing them from battle until they are revived. Summons are also affected by the current environment: as an example, Shiva's powers are stronger in snowy weather. After a limited time in battle, the Eidolons are dismissed. Those available to players are series staples Shiva, Ifrit, Golem, Odin, Diablos and Bahamut. Each Eidolon has variants of its original form, many of which are unlocked as the game progresses.

Characters can continue to level up through activities within the Peristylium while the PSP is in sleep mode, the game's UMD is running, and the PSP is charging. The multiplayer function, activated through the game's configuration screen, allows two other players to jump into another host player's game via an online connection. The allotted time for multiplayer is limited to a few minutes, with transitions between zones triggering the end of a multiplayer section. The time limit can be extended by players helping their current host. The first and last segments of the game are not open to multiplayer. There is also a function called Magical Academy Assist, in which NPCs named after members of the game's production team are summoned into battle to assist the cadets.

"Note: The plot of Type-0 is the same in its original version and the high-definition remaster Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, so the terms and quotes used in the text are from the localization of the high-definition remaster rather than unofficial translations."

"Final Fantasy Type-0" is set within Orience, a land divided between four nations or "Crystal States". Each nation has crystals of power based on the Four Symbols, which are in turn their national emblems. The Dominion of Rubrum uses the Vermillion Bird Crystal, which controls magic; the Milites Empire controls the White Tiger Crystal, containing the power of science and weapons; the Kingdom of Concordia uses the Azure Dragon Crystal, containing the power of Dragons; and the Lorican Alliance is home to the Black Tortoise Crystal, containing the power of shielding. Each nation has an academy, or Peristylium, to research and protect the country's respective crystal. The crystals have the ability to mark humans as their countries' servants. These servants, called l'Cie, are branded with a symbol and are given a "Focus", a task to complete. While blessed with long life and the ability to transform into crystal, l'Cie are cursed to lose their memories over time. The people of Orience also lose their memories of the dead so they will not be held back by any past regrets and continue strengthening their souls through conflict, a mechanism put in place by the crystals for the convenience of the deities who crafted them. The main aim of many characters is to become Agito, a legendary figure who will appear and save the world from Tempus Finis, an apocalyptic event that will destroy Orience.

The main characters of "Final Fantasy Type-0" are Class Zero, an elite group of 14 students from the Vermillion Peristylium. The first 12 are card wielder Ace, flute wielder Deuce, the archer Trey, magic-gun wielder Cater, the mace-wielding Cinque, scythe wielder Sice, whip wielder Seven, martial artist Eight, spearman Nine, katana wielding Jack, swordswoman Queen and dual pistol wielding King. The last two, Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya, double as narrators and the focus for the game's main subplot. Supporting Class Zero are their mentor Kurasame Susaya, and Arecia Al-Rashia, Class Zero's former mentor and the overseer for magical development at the Vermillion Peristylium. Other important characters from Rubrum are Khalia Chival VI, the current leader of Rubrum and headmaster of the Vermillion Peristyrium, and the l'Cie Caetuna. Multiple Militesi figures, led by Marshal Cid Aulstyne, act as the game's main antagonists. Other important characters include the Concordian queen Andoria, Gala, leader of the Rursus Army and the instigator of Tempus Finis, and Joker and Tiz, two mysterious figures who observe the events of the game.

Marshal Cid Aulstyne leads the army of Milites against the other nations of Orience, launching a devastating attack against the Vermillion Peristylium and neutralising the Vermillion Bird Crystal using a crystal jammer. Class Zero, immune to the effects of the jammer, repel the invasion. During the conflict Izana Kunagiri, Machina's older brother, is killed while on a mission for Class Zero. This event later creates a rift between Machina and Class Zero. Coordinated by Kurasame and Arecia Al-Rashia, Class Zero plays a key role in freeing Rubrum's territories and launching counterattacks in alliance with Concordia, while Lorica's capital is destroyed by a Militesi bomb. Andoria, Concordia's queen, then forces a ceasefire between the remaining nations. During peace talks in the Militesi capital, Class Zero is framed for Andoria's murder, resulting in Concordia's puppet government and Milites launching a united assault on Rubrum. During their flight, Machina storms off after clashing with Class Zero, and becomes a White Tiger l'Cie to protect Rem from his brother's fate before returning to them. The White Tiger Crystal's will eventually forces him to leave.

With help from its l'Cie soldiers and Class Zero, Rubrum destroys the forces of Concordia and Milites, uniting Orience under its flag. This triggers the arrival of Tempus Finis, with the Rursus Army emerging from the magical fortress Pandaemonium to wipe out Orience's population. Cid and Class Zero each travel to Pandaemonium: Cid attempts to become Agito and is transformed into the Rursus Arbiter by Gala, while Class Zero resolve to halt Tempus Finis. As Class Zero face the trials of the Arbiter, the Vermillion Bird Crystal offers them the chance to become l'Cie. During the original playthrough, if Class Zero accepts the offer, they go into battle against the Rursus and die, dooming Orience to be destroyed in Tempus Finis and reborn in another spiral of history.

Class Zero refuse the Crystal's offer and Rem is made a l'Cie in their place. Machina and Rem end up fighting each other in Pandaemonium: Rem is mortally wounded, and she and Machina turn to crystal. Severely weakened by the trials and demoralized at seeing Machina and Rem's condition, Class Zero are initially unable to defeat the Arbiter. Machina and Rem's spirits give them the strength they need to defeat the Arbiter and halt Tempus Finis. Fatally injured, Class Zero spend their final minutes imagining their possible post-war lives. They are found by Machina and Rem, who have returned to human form and, along with the rest of Orience, are allowed to remember the dead. In a post-credits sequence, it is said that the Crystal States fall into turmoil as the Crystals lose their powers. Machina and Rem unite Orience and rebuild the world, and Machina records Class Zero's history before dying with Rem at his side.

A second playthrough reveals that Orience is trapped in a stable timeloop created by Arecia and Gala, the respective servants of the deities Pulse and Lindzei, as part of an experiment to find the gateway to the Unseen Realm. Competing with each other to open the gateway using a different method, both failed and reset the world for another attempt. By the events of "Type-0", the experiment had been performed over six hundred million times. Cid, aware of the cycle, wanted to free Orience from the Crystals' control, and killed himself in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Gala from using him. In a sequence unlocked during the second playthrough, Joker and Tiz speak with Arecia after the Arbiter's defeat and show her the memories of Class Zero and the people of Orience to make her reconsider restarting the experiment. After speaking with Machina and Rem, Arecia decides to abandon the experiment and returns the two to human form. In an alternate ending, Arecia chooses to remove the crystals from Orience's history, creating a new timeline where the war never occurred and the world's population can live happily.

Developers had been planning a release on the next generation of mobile phones, as those available at the time could not offer all the capabilities they would need. While it was originally claimed to be a mobile exclusive, versions for both mobiles and the PlayStation Portable were being developed, with the latter to be revealed when the former was sufficiently advanced. The original staff members were Tabata, Yusuke Naora and Tetsuya Nomura. Nomura acted as a character designer and creative producer. Between 2006 and 2008, development wavered between inactivity and sluggishness since most of the team was devoted to "". In 2008, it was said to be facing serious problems due to the scale of the project. An issue developers had grappled with was whether or not to make the command buttons used in the game visible on the mobile screen. "Agito XIII" was described as an online RPG using fully rendered 3D graphics similar to console games, as well as having gameplay elements from multiple genres such as MMORPGs, smaller-scale multiplayer-focused games, and standard role-playing games. Other unfinished concepts being developed were a day-night cycle, a calendar system linked to real-world time and dates, and a story influenced by player votes.

In 2008, it was decided to make "Type-0" a PSP exclusive, cancelling the mobile version of the game as the developers did not want to wait for mobile technology to reach a level which could handle their full vision for the game. Full development began that year by the same team who developed "Crisis Core", but was again slowed as most of them were completing work on "The 3rd Birthday". Because of these conflicting projects, "Type-0" came close to being cancelled outright. Between 2009 and 2011, the title was changed to distance it from "Final Fantasy XIII", since after the platform change the two games had little in common other than their shared mythos. One of the titles considered and rejected was "Final Fantasy Live", referring to the game's multiplayer element. The new title, "Final Fantasy Type-0," was intended to indicate the game's separation from the main series. It was also the beginning of an alternative numbering system parallel to the main series. The game made its first official public appearance under the new title at the Square Enix 1st Production Department Premier in Tokyo, along with a new trailer that was released to the public on January 27, 2011.

"Type-0"s scenario was conceived by Tabata and written by Hiroki Chiba and Sarah Okabe. While the game was still titled "Agito XIII", Tabata described it as "a major title [...] formed from a variety of concepts" which included the collision of four fantasies (the game's view of Orience), a battle between magic and weapons, and the two sides of reality. The early story concept drew heavily from popular manga and anime, but little survived after the platform change. Tabata instead chose a new style similar to historical films and documentaries. The new story's concept started with the idea of a war story told by young people caught up in the event, with its story themes revolving around death and its impact on others. A major inspiration was the Japanese documentary series "Centuries of Picture". The final story was darker than many other "Final Fantasy" games. Despite its title change, the game was kept within the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" mythos. The approach taken with the mythos was to portray the roles of its deities from a historical standpoint, while telling a story focused on the human side of events. The cyclic nature of the game's universe was created to help incorporate aspects of the mythos. The roles and backgrounds for each character in the game were conceived and put into place after the setting and main story had been finalized. After the game's release, Tabata commented that when he was writing the story he would have liked to have been more thorough, and to have made the story easier for players to understand.

The game's logo artwork was drawn by regular series artist Yoshitaka Amano. The kanji symbol used in the logo was drawn by Naora, who had designed the Shinra logo in "Final Fantasy VII" and its companion media. Naora specifically requested that he draw the logo due to this previous experience. To achieve the grittier atmosphere, Naora took a research trip to a Japanese military camp to learn what being a military cadet was like. The island of the Vermillion Perystilium was based on an offshore Japanese island he had visited prior to his involvement with the game, adding elements in-game such as an offshore ship wreck to symbolize his fear of the sea. He was also influenced by an incident where he saw a dead cat surrounded by other cats to portray the bond between members of Class Zero, and the game's themes, in promotional artwork.

The gameplay was inspired by the multi-character system of "Before Crisis", while the naming of magic styles after weapons of war made reference to first-person shooters. The combat was designed to be filled with tension and portray each playable character's personality on the battlefield. The Eidolons were originally not controlled in realtime, but during the development of Ifrit, Tabata did some testing with real-time commands. The results impressed him enough that he decided to overcome the technical difficulties involved and make the Eidolons controllable. Due to technical restrictions and the presence of the Academy Assist function, the game's artificial intelligence for playable characters needed to be limited to healing, survival and other minor actions. The game's multiplayer was deliberately designed around restricted segments. Its development was still ongoing during the summer of 2011, with a temporary stoppage of PlayStation Network that year negatively affecting its development. Because of the size of the project, debugging the game took far longer than anticipated. Between the release of the demo and the full game, adjustments were made to gameplay mechanics and the in-game camera. In a post-release interview, Tabata commented that he would have liked to expand the multiplayer functions to include an ad-hoc function and expanded cooperative gameplay, and create a more forgiving learning curve for players.

The music for "Type-0" was composed by Takeharu Ishimoto. He had previously composed the music for "Before Crisis", "Crisis Core" and "The World Ends with You". Ishimoto gave the music a dark and heavy feel, describing the themes as "war, life, and death". He used less rock elements than in his previous games to promote a feeling of immersion. One of his primary instruments was the guitar, which Ishimoto played himself during recording sessions. Although the title was for the PSP, the team did not want to hold back despite hardware limitations, recording a quantity of tracks unusual for a spin-off "Final Fantasy" title. Wherever possible, the recording was done live. The orchestral and choral elements were performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Cantillation chamber choir, and the recording and mixing of these tracks was done at the Sydney Opera House. Recording for other tracks was done at Ishimoto's studio in Japan. After recording, Ishimoto combined the orchestral and choral elements, and rearranged the main leitmotifs to create more variety in the score. Arrangements for the orchestral tunes were done by Kentaro Sato, while arrangements for other tracks were done by Rieko Mikoshiba.

The game's theme song, "Zero", was composed and performed by Japanese rock band Bump of Chicken. The band, which was a big fan of the "Final Fantasy" series, was contacted by Square Enix to compose and perform the song and agreed readily. It was brought in after the platform move onto the PSP, but while the game was still titled "Agito XIII". While looking for inspiration, the band was able to see in-development screenshots of the game, samples of the script, and character illustrations. The band was mostly given a free hand while composing the song. Its one guideline was provided by Tabata, who suggested the theme song for "Centuries of Picture", "Is Paris Burning?" by Takeshi Kako, as a source of inspiration. Multiple versions of "Zero" were composed for use in different areas of the game. At the request of band leader Motoo Fujiwara, Amano's logo artwork was used for the cover of the single's limited edition.

"Final Fantasy Type-0 Original Soundtrack" was released on October 26, 2011. The soundtrack was released in a standard edition, as well as a limited edition that could be purchased both separately and with the collector's edition of the game. A promotional album featuring five tracks was sold by Square Enix at their booth at the Odaiba Expo 2011. The album stayed on the Oricon charts for seven weeks, reaching a high of #25. The soundtrack has received positive reviews in the west from dedicated music outlets "Original Sound Version" and "Game-OST", with the sites giving both individual tracks and the work in general high praise. "Zero" was released on October 19, 2011. It was released as a single instead of being part of the main soundtrack, receiving both a limited and standard edition. The single remained in the Oricon charts for thirty-two weeks, peaking at #2.

"Type-0" was released on October 27, 2011, receiving both physical and digital releases. It was initially announced for release in summer of that year, but unspecified difficulties with development including the stoppage of PlayStation Network caused a delay. It was then announced for released on October 13, but was delayed by two weeks. While Square Enix stated it wanted to improve its quality, no other information was given. It was speculated to be due to complaints surrounding the camera control and other gameplay elements. The releases of the soundtrack and the theme song were also delayed. "Type-0" was one of a few releases for the PSP to be released on two UMDs, as Tabata wanted to cut as little content as possible, which would have been impossible if they had settled for using one UMD. A demo for the original game was released in August 2011, featuring seven playable characters and four missions at locked difficulty levels. Save data could be transferred to the full game, unlocking special costumes and items and keeping experience points. A second demo was released on November 22, a month after the full game's release. It replaced the original demo and gave players access to exclusive items and costumes. A collector's edition was released exclusively through Square Enix's online store, containing artwork, a limited edition version of the soundtrack, postcards and a booklet of character introductions. The title was later added to their Ultimate Hits budget title collection.

"Type-0" has never received an official localization in its original form. During development, while it was still titled "Agito XIII", Tabata said he was trying to make the game appealing to North American players. Despite a localization being confirmed as in development in an official guidebook interview, the original version of "Type-0" was not released in the west. In the wake of the game's release in Japan, 1UP.com and Joystiq speculated that the game could be successfully brought west as a port to the PlayStation Vita. Tabata later commented that the main reasons for the game not being localized were the flagging Western PSP market and uncertainties surrounding the Vita's commercial success.

An unofficial fan translation patch was announced in mid-2012. Work on the fan translation took place over the following two years, during which time Square Enix was noncommittal concerning an official Western release. The patch was initially announced for an August 2014 release, but was instead was released on June 9, 2014. According to the translation team leader, the patch was downloaded 100,000 times in the first four days. It was taken down in July of the same year after Square Enix allegedly threatened unspecified legal action, originally thought to be a cease-and-desist order. Later statements revealed that the patch was released earlier than originally announced due to the lead translator on the project wanting fans to see their achievements, which ended up causing a rift between him and the rest of the team. Before the release, Square Enix and the translation team had been in friendly communication concerning the translation. The formal requests to take the patch down were made in the weeks following its release, shortly before the announcement of "Type-0 HD". Work on the patch was eventually resumed and a second version, which included unofficial compatibility with the PlayStation 3 system and further translation bugfixes, was eventually released in 2015.

Multiple pieces of merchandise were created for the game. An "Ultimania", part of a series of dedicated guidebooks, was released in the same month as the original game. It contained story and character breakdowns, concept art, and interviews with developers. A different book, was also released in October. It featured character biographies, details on the world of Orience, and interviews with the voice actors for Class Zero. The following year, a dedicated art book was released containing artwork of the game's characters and monsters, and an interview with Tabata. Characters from the game, including Ace, Machina and other members of Class Zero, appeared in the fourth series of releases for the "Final Fantasy Trading Card Game". In November 2011, a manga adaptation of "Type-0", illustrated by Takatoshi Shiozawa, began serialization in "Young Gangan" magazine. The manga has been collected into a tankōbon volume and was released on April 21, 2012. Another manga titled also illustrated by Shiozawa, began publication in "Young Gangan" in April 2012. It ended in January 2014, with a bonus chapter being published in February of that year, and was later released in five compiled volumes. Yen Press began distribution of the manga in the west in July 2015. Square Enix released two novel adaptations, in April and June 2012, depicting an alternate version of "Type-0"s story: and The novels were written by Sōki Tsukishima.

In the first week on sale, "Final Fantasy Type-0" sold 472,253 units, topping Japanese sales charts and selling through 79.08% of its initial shipments. As of January 16, 2012, the game had sold 746,203 copies in Japan. It was the best-selling game of 2011 for Japanese media retail shop Tsutaya, beating "Monster Hunter Portable 3rd" (PlayStation Portable) and "Final Fantasy XIII-2" (PlayStation 3). It was also the store's best-selling PSP title of the year, followed by "Monster Hunter Portable 3rd" and "Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy".

"Famitsu" and "Dengeki PlayStation" both praised the story, with "Famitsu" saying it "vividly portrays the fact that this is a deep, intense "Final Fantasy" experience, something beyond just a side story". Gaming website PlayStation LifeStyle's Heath Hindman was impressed by the darker presentation, calling it "powerful and well done throughout", and was impressed with the characters despite some awkward introductory scenes. Erren Van Duine, writing for RPG Site, said that fans would appreciate the scale of the narrative, and praised the handling of the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" mythos. She did note that some plot points seemed only included for the sake of convenience, and that the ending forced a second playthrough to see the whole story.

"Famitsu" called the original version's gameplay a "stressless experience", praising the game's size and saying the action-oriented battle system made it "a very different "Final Fantasy"". "Dengeki PlayStation" similarly praised its size and the tense combat, though the review found aspects of the navigation less appealing. Hindman was generally positive about most aspects of gameplay and the high replay value, but found faults with the scripted opening of the overworld and the real-time strategy segments. Van Duine said the gameplay encouraged immersion and was harsh on novices; she praised several aspects of gameplay, but described the leveling system as "tricky". The multiplayer functions were universally praised in Japan. Opinions were divided on the original camera, with "Famitsu" praising its movement, while Van Duine and "Dengeki PlayStation" found issues with it getting stuck in the environment or impeding visibility. The character AI also received criticism for being unresponsive or wayward.

"Type-0" affected several other works in multiple ways. During its development, several staff members and voice actors who had worked on "Final Fantasy X" reunited. Their meeting triggered the development of "Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster". In the September 2013 issue of "Famitsu Weekly", Square Enix revealed "Final Fantasy Agito", an online companion game to "Type-0" for iOS and Android mobile devices. The game was released in May 2014, and a localization was announced alongside that of "Type-0". Its servers were closed down in November 2015, with its localization being cancelled as a result. A new online game set in the "Type-0" universe, "Final Fantasy Awakening", released in Asian and English-speaking territories between 2016 and 2018.

While working on "Final Fantasy XV", Tabata decided to make a high-definition remaster of "Type-0" for eighth-generation consoles. Developed by Square Enix and HexaDrive, "Final Fantasy Type-0 HD" was originally announced at E3 2014, and released worldwide in March 2015. After "Type-0"s release, Tabata stated in an interview that he wished to explore the distant history of Orience after the events of the game. Trademarks for "Type-1", "Type-2" and "Type-3" were registered shortly after the "Type-0" trademark, but it was suggested that they were simply a protective measure. During interviews given in 2014, Tabata commented that he wished to work on "Type-1" after completing "XV", and later explained the conceptual "Type" series as a means of publishing "Final Fantasy" games too experimental for the main series. He hoped to continue with the "Type" series if "Type-0 HD" was commercially successful.

Final Fantasy Type-0


By what margin did Carlos Saúl Menem Akil win the presidential election?

Although Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999, won the first round of the election on April 27, 2003, he only got 24% of the valid votes — just 2% ahead of Kirchner. This was an empty victory, as Menem was viewed very negatively by much of the Argentine population and had virtually no chance of winning the runoff election. After days of speculation, during which polls forecast a massive victory for Kirchner with about a 30%–40% difference, Menem finally decided to stand down. This automatically made Kirchner president of Argentina, despite having secured only 22% of the votes in the election, the lowest percentage gained by the eventual winner of an Argentine presidential election. He was sworn in on May 25, 2003 to a four-year term of office.

Presidency of Néstor Kirchner

The Presidency of Néstor Kirchner began on May 25, 2003, when Néstor Kirchner became President of Argentina. He was the Governor of Santa Cruz during the 2003 general election, he was elected second to Carlos Menem but became president when Menem refused to go for a required runoff election.

Even though Kirchner ran for presidency with the support of Eduardo Duhalde, he was not the initial candidate chosen by the president. Trying to prevent a third term of Carlos Menem, he sought to promote a candidate that may defeat him, but Carlos Reutemann (governor of Santa Fe) did not accept and José Manuel de la Sota (governor of Córdoba) did not grow in the polls. He also tried with Mauricio Macri, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, Felipe Solá and Roberto Lavagna, to no avail. He initially resisted helping Kirchner, fearing that he may ignore Duhalde once in the presidency.

Kirchner's electoral promises included "returning to a republic of equals". After the first round of the election, Kirchner visited the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received him enthusiastically. He also declared he was proud of his radical left-wing political past.

Argentina had faced a serious economic crisis in previous years, which led to the 2001 riots and the fall of Fernando de la Rúa. Eduardo Duhalde was appointed president, and with his minister Roberto Lavagna he improved national economy. Although Duhalde had to resign as well, for political reasons, and the economic improvement was not enough to turn him into a popular candidate, by the time he handed government to Kirchner the most critical periods were already endured and the economy was already in a growing tendency. The growth of Argentina during 2003, an effect of the economic recovery, was the highest in all Latin America.

Kirchner kept the Duhalde administration's Minister of the Economy, Roberto Lavagna. Lavagna also declared that his first priority now was social problems. Argentina's default was the largest in financial history, and it gave Kirchner and Lavagna significant bargaining power with the IMF, which loathes having bad debts on its books. During his first year of office, Kirchner achieved a difficult agreement to reschedule $84 billion in debts with international organizations, for three years. As of 2004, the initial indulgence ended, and the economic recovery induced the foreign powers to request a normalization in debt payment. Although the IMF was highly unpopular in Argentina, Kirchner's good image (nearing 71% by that point) did not lower more than three or five points; with the exception of the far-left, most society was concerned with the possible consequences of a complete default.

In the first half of 2005, the government launched a bond exchange to restructure approximately $81 billion of national public debt (an additional $20 billion in past defaulted interest was not recognized). Over 76% of the debt was tendered and restructured for a recovery value of approximately one third of its nominal value.

On 15 December 2005, following Brazil's initiative, Kirchner announced the cancellation of Argentina's debt to the IMF in full and offered a single payment, in a historic decision that generated controversy at the time (see Argentine debt restructuring). Some commentators, such as Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, suggest that the Argentine experiment has thus far proven successful. Others, such as Michael Mussa, formerly on the staff of the International Monetary Fund and now with the Peterson Institute, question the longer-term sustainability of Pres. Kirchner's approach.

In a meeting with executives of multinational corporations on Wall Street—after which he was the first Argentine president to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange—Kirchner defended his "heterodox economic policy, within the canon of classic economics" and criticized the IMF for its lack of collaboration with the Argentine recovery.

When he was elected, Kirchner represented Duhalde in the long conflict between Menem and Duhalde. This allowed him to secure the loyalty of most of the Justicialist Party, but also limited his chances of being seen as a political renovator. The low support in the elections became a problem for him, due to the high presidentialism in the politics of Argentina. The new governors, legislators and mayors took office nearly 6 months after Kirchner. As a result, he sought support from other social forces, such as Hugo Moyano from the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) or the "piquetero" Luis D'Elía. Although this forces shared a common leader, they had disputes with each other. A political parade on March 11, 2004, in remembrance of the electoral victory of Héctor José Cámpora in 1973, ended in a violent dispute between Moyano and D'Elía. This extrapartidary support, known as "transversalism", was combined with the supremacy of the Justicialist Party. The Justicialist congress was summoned on March 26, 2004, and gave the presidency of the party (headed by former president Carlos Menem by that point) to the governor of Jujuy, the kirchnerist Eduardo Fellner. Kirchner refused to run for the presidency of the party himself, in order to give priority and credibility to the "transversalist" project. Other supports from outside the party were the mayors Aníbal Ibarra (Buenos Aires), Miguel Lifschitz (Rosario) and Luis Juez (Córdoba), from centre-left local parties, and the last two in ongoing conflicts with the local branches of the PJ. As a response, Duhalde, the vicepresident Daniel Scioli and governors as José Manuel de la Sota and Jorge Obeid gathered in a congress and reaffirmed their peronist loyalty, rejecting the transversalism.

Shortly after coming into office, Kirchner made changes to the Argentine Supreme Court. He accused certain justices of extortion and pressured them to resign, while also fostering the impeachment of two others. In place of a majority of politically right-wing and religiously conservative justices, he appointed new ones who were ideologically closer to him, including two women (one of them an avowed atheist). Kirchner also retired dozens of generals, admirals, and brigadiers from the armed forces, a few of them with reputations tainted by the atrocities of the Dirty War.

Kirchner saw the 2005 parliamentary elections as a means to confirm his political power, since Carlos Menem's defection in the second round of the 2003 presidential elections had not allowed Kirchner to receive the large number of votes that surveys predicted. Kirchner explicitly stated that the 2005 elections would be like a mid-term plebiscite for his administration, and he actively participated in the campaign in most provinces. Due to internal disagreements, the Justicialist Party was not presented as such on the polls but split into several factions. Kirchner's "Frente para la Victoria" ("FPV", Front for Victory) was overwhelmingly the winner (the candidates of the FPV got more than 40% of the national vote), following which many supporters of other factions (mostly those led by former presidents Eduardo Duhalde and Carlos Menem) migrated to the FPV.

Néstor Kirchner made a priority of his presidency to reopen the cases related with the 1970s Dirty War. His main perspective was that the conflict was still ongoing. He started by removing the top military personnel, annulling a decree by Fernando de la Rúa that prevented extraditions, and promoted the annulment of the laws of Full Stop and Due Obedience that benefited the military of the National Reorganization Process in the 1980s.

Under Duhalde, Argentine foreign policy shifted from the "automatic alignment" with the United States during the 1990s, to one stressing stronger ties (economic and political) within Mercosur and with other Latin American countries, and rejecting the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Néstor Kirchner kept that policy.On July 2, 2007, President Kirchner announced he would not seek re-election in the October elections, despite having the support of 60% of those surveyed in polls. Instead, Kirchner intended to focus on the creation of a new political party.