This area of philosophy is also known as theory of knowledge. It includes discussions of the nature of knowledge, its different kinds, scepticism, perception, justification.

The nature of reason and rationality and whether there are different or competing notions of rationality is a topic which has received much attention from philosophers such as Rorty, Davidson, Quine, Boghossian and is sometimes referred to as epistemic pluralism.

Another topic of recent interest is whether knowledge and knowledge states can be analyzed using notions such as virtue and exploring the connections between knowledge, understanding and wisdom.