Epistemology †empiricism Essay

Principles like those Parmenides assumed ar said in contemporary jargon to be a fronti principles, or principles of reason, which just means that they argon gon prior to jazz. It is non that we hear these principles low chronologic t start ensembley but rather that our companionship of them does non calculate on our instincts. For caseful, consider the principle You arset cultivate nearlything bulge of nonhing. If you wished to defend this principle, would you proceed by conducting an experiment in which you tried to make any(prenominal)thing out of nonhing? In fact, you would not.You would base your defense on our inability to conceive of ever makingsomething out of nothing E preci embedhing we know originates from cardinal book of factss. The first, our whizs, piece of tail be thought of as our primary ascendent of in mixed bagation. both an otherwise(prenominal)(a) reservoirs, reason and intuition, ar derivative in the sentience that they gain new facts from data already supplied to our school principals. The fourth source, authority (or hearsay, or deposition of others), is by nature minute of arcary, and back uphand fact- contracts argon alship pileal much sinuate and difficult to validate.Other sources of cognition ar comm that claimed, and it is not insufferable that in that respect superpower hold out other sources but if they do exist,cognition derived from them is problematic, and c beful analysis usu all in all toldy rules that they toilet be subsumed under matchless or more of the four known sources and mustinessiness(prenominal) be staidly drumheaded as legitimate, separate sources of reliable information. In summary, what is the nature of our acquaintance closely the real mankind of objects/events? Our companionship of reality is composed of root words our oral sexs claim created on the basis of our sensory go steady. It is a fabric of association woven by the oral sex. Knowledge is not obligaten to the brainpower nothing is poured into it.Rather, the reason manufactures perceptions, concepts, suppositions, looks, and so forth and holdsthem as working hypotheses or so external reality. Every idea is a (subjective) working model that enables us to handle real objects/events with some degree of pragmatic efficiency. However persuasive our thoughts and images may be, they argon hardly remote diddleations of reality they be tools that enable us to impart with reality. It is as though we attain nondimensional mathematical functions to help us understand four-dimensional territory. The semanticists accept long re understandinged us to bew ar of confusing either manner of map with the real landscape. The map, they say, is not the territory. An abstraction, by definition, is an idea created by the mind to bring up to all objects which, possessing certain(p) characteristics in cat valium, are thought of in the same class. The good turn of objects in the class basin range from both to infinity. We corporation conjure to all men, all hurri sub social systemes, all books, all energy-formsall everything. musical composition abstraction-building is an inescapable mental processin fact it is the first ill-treat in the organization of our acquaintance of objects/eventsa serious problem is indwelling in the process.At high levels of abstraction we tend to group in concert objects that book but a few qualities in common, and our abstractionsmay be almost meaningless, without our kno realizeg it. We fall into the habit of using familiar abstractions and hand out to realize how empty they are. For example, what do the objects in the future(a) abstractions dupe in common? All atheists, all Western imperialists, all blacks or all whites (and if you value its skin color, think twice), all conservatives, all trees, all French people, all Christians. When we think in such high-level abstractions, it is very much dates the case t hat we are communicating nothing meaningful at all.The somebody object or event we are naming, of course, has no name and belongsto no class until we put it in one(a). Going as far backward as Plato, philosophers maintain traditionally defined knowledge as current justified belief. A priori knowledge is knowledge that is justified independently of (or prior to) experience. What kinds of knowledge could be justified without any appeal to experience? Certainly, we crapper know the truth of definitions and reproducible truths apart from experience. Hence, definitions and logi nominatey necessary truths are examples of a priori knowledge.For example, All unicorns are one-horned creatures is real by definition. Similarly, the by-line count is a sure bet Either my universitys football squad leave alone win their next game or they wont. even out if they tie or the game is canceled, this would fulfill the they wont win part of the prediction. Hence, this report expresses a lo gically necessary truth well-nigh the football team. These twain reports are cases of a priori knowledge. Notice that in the bad-tempered examples of a priori knowledge I have chosen, they do not fox us any real, factual information well-nigh the world. Even though the statement around unicorns is real, it does not manifest us whether in that respect are any unicorns in the world.Similarly, the football prediction does not tell us the actual out summate of the game. Experience of the world is required to know these things. The second kind of knowledge is a posteriori knowledge, or knowledge that is establish on (or posterior to) experience. Similarly, the adjective empirical adduces to anything that is based on experience. Any claims based on experience purport to add new information to the subject. Hence, pissing freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and Tadpoles be fall frogs would be examples of a posteriori knowledge. We know the freezing point of water and the life cycle of tadpoles with experience. thusly far, most philosophers would agree on these points. The difficult question now arises Is there any a priori knowledge that does give us knowledge somewhat the real world? What would that be like? It would be knowledge expressible in a statement such that (a) its truth is not set solely by the meaning of its terms and (b) it does permit information about the port the world is. Furthermore, since it is a priori, it would be knowledge that we could warrant by means of reason, independently of experience. The question, wherefore(prenominal), is whether or not reason alone can tell us about the ultimate nature of reality. 1.Is it possible to have knowledge at all? 2. Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? 3. Does our knowledge represent reality as it real is? Rationalism claims that reason or the feat is the primary source of our original knowledge about reality. Nonpositivists agree that we can use reason to draw conclusions from the information provided by sense experience. However, what distinguishes the rational numberists is that they claim that reason can give us knowledge apart from experience.For example, the rationalists point out that we can go in at mathematical truths about circlesor triangles without having to measure, experiment with, or experience circular or triangular objects. We do so by constructing rational, deductive proofs that current of air to absolutely indubitable conclusions that are al styluss universally true of the world removed our minds (a priori knowledge about the world). Obviously, the rationalists think the second question should be firmness of purposeed affirmatively. Empiricism is the claim that sense experience is the sole source of our knowledge about the world. Empiricists insist that when we start life, the original equipment of our intellect is a tabula rasa, or blank tablet. further by means of experience does that empty mind be come filled with content. Various empiricists give different explanations of the nature of logical and mathematical truths. They are all agreed, however, that these truths are not already latent in the mind before we discover them and that there is no certain a priori knowledge about the nature of reality. The empiricists would respond No to the second epistemological question. With respect to question 3, both the rationalists and the empiricists think that our knowledge does represent reality as it really is.Constructivism is used in this discussion to refer to the claim that knowledge is neery already in the mind nor passively received from experience, but that the mind constructs knowledge out of the materials of experience. Immanuel Kant, an 18th-century German philosopher, introduced this view.He was influenced by both the rationalists and the empiricists and attempted to r each(prenominal) a compromise betwixt them. While Kant did not agree with the rationalists on everyth ing, he did intend we can have a priori knowledge of the world as we experience it. Although Kant did not use this label, I call his position constructivismto capture his distinctive account of knowledge.One troubling consequence of his view was that because the mind imposes its own nine on experience, we can never know reality as it is in itself. We can merely know reality as it appears to us afterwards it has been filtered and processed by our minds. Hence, Kant answers question 3 negatively. Nevertheless, because Kant thought our minds all have the same cognitive structure, he thought we are able to get under ones skin at universal and clinical knowledge at heart the boundaries of the merciful property. before reading further, look at the high counselling picture for an example of a classicexperiment in perception. Did you get the right answer, or were your look fooled? One appearance that un confiders attack knowledge claims is to point to all the focal points in wh ich we have been deceived by illusions.Our experience with perceptual illusions shows that in the knightly we have been mistaken about what we thought we knew. These mistakes lead, the unbeliever claims, to the conclusion that we can never be certain about our beliefs, from which it follows that our beliefs are not justified. Another, mistakable strategy of the skeptic is to point to the possibility that our apprehension of reality could be systematically flawed in some way.The story of Ludwig, the brain in the vat who experienced a false virtual reality, would be an example of this strategy. Another strategy is to suppose that there is an inherent flaw in human psychology such that our beliefs never correspond to reality. I call these possible scenarios universal belief falsifiers. The characteristics of a universal belief falsifier are (1) it is a theoretically possible state of personal business, (2) we have no way of knowing if this state of affairs is actual or not, and (3) if this state of affairs is actual, we would never be able to distinguish beliefs that are truefrom beliefs that search to be true but are actually false.Note that the skeptic does not need to prove that these possibilities are actual. For example, the skeptic does not have to establish that we really are brains in a vat, but nevertheless that this condition is possible. Furthermore, the skeptic need not claim that all our beliefs are false. The skeptics point is simply that we have no fail-safe method for determining when our beliefs are true or false. Given this circumstance, the skeptic will argue that we cannot distinguish the situation of having evidence that leads to true beliefs from the situation of having the same sort of evidenceplus a universal belief falsifier, which leads to false beliefs.Obviously, the skeptic believes that nothing is beyond interrogative sentence. For any one of our beliefs, we can imagine a set of circumstances in which it would be false. For exa mple, I believe I was born in Rahway, New Jersey. However, my birth protection could be inaccurate. Furthermore, for whatever reasons, my parents may have wished to keep the truth from me. I will never know for sure. I also believe that there is overwhelming evidence that Adolf Hitler committed suicide at the close of orb War II.However, it could be true (as conspiracytheorists maintain) that his death was faked and that he lived a long life in South America after the war. The idea of the skeptic is that look of course is necessary for there to be knowledge, and if doubt is possible, then we do not have certainty. We now have the considerations in gravel that the skeptic uses to make his or her case. There are many varieties of questioning agate lines, each one exploiting some possible flaw in either human cognition or the alleged evidence we use to justify our beliefs. Instead of presenting various specific arguments, we can consider a generic wine disbelieving argument. Generic Skeptical Argument 1. We can find reasons for disbelieving any one of our beliefs. 2. It follows that we can doubt all our beliefs. 3. If we can doubt all our beliefs, then we cannot be certain of any of them. 4. If we do not have certainty about any of our beliefs, then we do not have knowledge. 5. Therefore, we do not have knowledge. Pyrrho of Elis (360270 B. C. ), a philosopher in antediluvian Greece, inspired a skeptical movement that bore his name (Pyrrhonian skepticism).Pyrrho was skeptical concerning sense experience. He argued that for experience to be a source of knowledge, our sense datamust agree with reality. further it is impossible to jump outside our experience to see how it compares with the external world. So, we can never know whether our experience is giving us accurate information about reality.Furthermore, rational argument cannot give us knowledge either, Pyrrho said, because for every argument supporting one side of an let out, another argument can be constructed to prove the contend case. Hence, the two arguments cancel each other out and they are as ineffective in leading us to the truth. The followers of Pyrrho stressed that we can make claims only about how things appear to us.You can say, The honey appears to me to be sweet but not, The honey is sweet. The best approach, according to these skeptics, was to suspend legal opinion whenever possible and make no assumptions at all. They believed that skeptical detachment would lead to serenity. Dont worry about what you cannot know, they advised. Some skeptics distilled these arguments down into two simple theses. First, nothing is taken for granted(predicate), for any axiom we start with can be doubted.Second, nothing can be proven, for either we will have an un restrict regress of reasons that support our previousreasons or we will end up assuming what we are trying to prove. Descartes began his quest for knowledge with the assumption that if he had rational certainty concerning his beliefs, he needfully had knowledge, and if he did not have certainty, he did not have knowledge.The skeptics who came after Descartes agreed with this assumption. However, as we will see in the next section, Descartes argues that there are a number of things of which we can be certain and, hence, we do have knowledge. On the other hand, the skeptics doubt whether Descartes or anyone can achieve such certainty.Lacking any grounds for certainty, the skeptics claim we cannot have knowledge about the real world. Thus, the skeptics think that Descartess arguments for skepticism are stronger than his proposed answers. Such a philosopher was David Hume, whom we will act as later when we examine empir EXAMINING THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF SKEPTICISM Positive military rank 1.Weeding a tend is not sufficient to make flowers grow, but it does do something valuable. In what way could the skeptics be viewed as providing a philosophical weeding service by undercutting beli efs that are naively taken for granted?2. The skeptics are unsettling because they force us to reexamine our most fundamental beliefs. Is it better to live in naive innocence, never questioning anything, or is it sometimes worthwhile to have your beliefs challenged? Negative Evaluation 1. The skeptics make the hobby claim Knowledge is impossible. besides isnt this claim itself a knowledge claim that they declare is true? Is the skeptic creation inconsistent? 2. The skeptics use the argument from illusion to show that we cannot trust our senses.But could we ever know that there are illusions or that sometimes our senses are deceivedunless there were occasions when our senses werent deceived? 3. Some skeptics would have us believe that it is possible that all our beliefs are false.But would the human race have survived if there was never a correspondence amongst some of our beliefs and the way reality is constituted? We believe that fire burns, water quenches thirst, vegetables nourish us, and eating sand doesnt. If we didnt have some sort of built-in instrument orienting us toward true beliefs, how could we be as successful as we are in dealing with reality? 4. Is skepticism liveable? raise yelling to someone who claims to be a skeptic, Watch outfor that go tree limb Why is it that a skeptic will ever look up? Think of other ways in which skeptics might demonstrate that they do believe they can find out what is true or false about the world. 5. Is Descartess demand for absolute certainty unreasonable? open firet we have justified beliefs based on inferences to the best explanation, probability, or practical certainty? Does certainty have to be either 100 percent or 0 percent? The answer is that our reason tells us that something cannot come from nothing and material objects do not vanish into thin air. We will distrust our senses beforewe will surrender these beliefs. Hence, our reason seems to have veto power over our sense experience. We often tr ust our reason even in the face of apparently solid, experiential evidence. The rationalists raise this trust in reason into a full-fledged guess of knowledge. Rationalism is a very influential theory about the source and nature of knowledge. This position may be summarized in terms of the iiisome prime points of rationalism. These one-third points are responses to the second question of epistemology, Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? indicate Is the basal or Most Superior initiation of Knowledge about reality According to the rationalist, it is through reason that we truly understand the fundamental truths about reality. For example, most rationalists would say the truths in the following lists are some very basic truths about the world that will never change. Although our experience for certain does illustrate most of these beliefs, our experiences ever so consist of par-ticular, concrete events. Hence, no experiences of see ing, feeling, hearing, tasting, or touching specific objects can tell us that these statements will always be true for everyfuture event we encounter.The rationalist claims that the following statements represent a priori truths about the world. They are a priori because they can be known apart from experience, notwithstanding they tell us what the world is like. dianoetic TRUTHS A and not-A cannot both be true at the same time (where A represents some proposition or claim). This truth is called the law of noncontradiction. (For example, the statement John is married and John is not married is necessarily false. ) If the statement X is true and the statement If X, then Y is true, then it necessarily follows that the statement Y is true. MATHEMATICAL TRUTHS.The area of a triangle will always be one-half the length of the base times its height. If X is big than Y and Y is larger than Z, then X is larger than Z. METAPHYSICAL TRUTHS Every event has a cause. An object with contradicto ry properties cannot exist. (No matter how long we search, we will never find a round square. ) ethical PRINCIPLES Some basic moral obligations are not optional. It is morally faulty to maliciously torture someone for the fun of it. Sense Experience Is an unreliable and In capable Route to Knowledge Rationalists typically emphasize the fact that sense experience is relative, changing, and often illusory.An object will look one way in artificial light and will look different in sunlight. Our eyes seem to see water on the road on a hot day, but the image is merely an optical illusion. The rationalist claims that we need our reason to sort out what is appearance from what is reality. Although it is obvious that a rationalist could not get through life without some credit on sense experience, the rationalist denies that sense experience is the only source of knowledge about reality. Furthermore, experience can tell us only about particular things in the world. However, it cannot giv e us universal, foundational truthsabout reality.receptive experience can tell me about the properties of this ball, but it cannot tell me about the properties of spheres in general. Experience can tell me that when I combine these two oranges with those two oranges, they add up to four oranges. However, only reason can tell me that two plus two will always follow four and that this result will be true not only for these oranges, or all oranges, but for anything whatsoever. The Fundamental Truths about the World Can Be Known A Priori They Are Either intrinsic or Self-Evident to Our Minds Innate ideas are ideas that are inborn.They are ideas or principles that the mind already contains prior to experience. The notion of ingrained ideas is commonly found in rationalistic philosophies, but it is rejected by the empiricists. The theory of innate ideas views the mind like a computer that comes from the factory with numerous programs already ridiculous on its disk, waiting to be activ ated. Hence, rationalists say that such ideas as the laws of logic, the concept of justice, or the idea of divinity are already contained deep at bottom the mind and only need to be brought to the level of conscious awareness. Innate ideas should not be confused with instinct.Instinct is a noncognitive set of automatonlike behaviors, such as blinking the eyes when an object approaches them. The theory of innate ideas is one account of how we can have a priori knowledge. Other rationalists believe that if the mind does not already contain these ideas, they are, at least, either self-evident or innate(p) to the mind and the mind has a natural predisposition to recognize them. For example, Gottfried Leibniz (16461716), a German rationalist, compared the mind to a block of stain that contains veins or natural splitting points that allow only one sort of shape to be formed within it.Thus, the mind, like the marble, has an innate structure that results in inclinations, dispositions, habits, or natural capacities to think in certain ways. In contrast to this view, John Locke (a British empiricist) said There is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses. In response, Leibniz tagged the following rationalistic qualification at the end of Lockes formula, except for the intellect itself. Obviously, in saying that the mind contains rational ideas or dispositions, the rationalists do not believe a baby is thinking about the theorems of geometry.Instead, they claimthat when a person achieves a certain level of cognitive development, he or she will be capable of realizing the self-evident truth of certain ideas. Leibniz pointed out that there is a difference between the mind containing rational principles and world aware of them. Rationalists give different accounts of how the mind acquired innate ideas in the first place. Socrates and Plato believed that our souls preexisted our current life and received knowledge from a previous form of existence. Theistic rationalists, such as Descartes, tend to believe that deity embed these ideas within us.Others simply claim that these principles or ideas naturally accompany rational minds such as ours. THE RATIONALISTS ANSWERS TO THE THREE EPISTEMOLOGICAL QUESTIONS Section 2. 0 contained three questions concerning knowledge (1) Is knowledge possible? (2) Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? and (3) Does our knowledge represent reality as it really is? While differing on the details, all the rationalists give the same answers to these three questions. First, they all believe that knowledge is possible. Generally, we are able to discern that some opinions are better than others.For example, in the discipline of mathematics some answers are true and some are false. We could not know this fact if obtaining knowledge was impossible. Second, the rationalists agree that only through reason can we find an adequate basis for knowledge.For example, in ma thematics and logic we are able through reason alone to arrive at truths that are absolutely certain and necessarily true. Third, rationalists agree that beliefs that are based on reason do represent reality as it truly is. In the following sections, I examine three classical rationalists to see how they illustrate the three anchor points of rationalism andanswer the three epistemological questions.Socrates answers to the three epistemological questions should be clear. (1) We are able to distinguish true opinions from false ones, so we must know the standards for making this distinction. (2) These standards could not be derived from experience so they must be unpacked through a rational investigation of the reservoir of all truththe soul. (3) Since our rational knowledge provides us with information that enables us to deal successfully with the world and our own lives, it must be giving us an accurate picture of reality.However, according to Plato, since thephysical world is consta ntly changing, sense perception gives us only relative and temporary information about changing, particular things. Being a typical rationalist, Plato thought that ultimate knowledge must be objective, unchanging, and universal. Furthermore, he argued that there is a difference between true opinions and knowledge, for our beliefs must be rationally justified to qualify as knowledge. Finally, Plato believed that the object of knowledge must be something that really exists. Plato and the Role of Reason Do mathematical truths, such as those in the multiplication tables, exist within the mindor do they exist outside the mind? Plato would say both. If mathematical truths exist only in the mind, then why does physical reality conform to these truths? If mathematical truths are only mind-dependent ideas, then why cant we make the truths about triangles be anything we make up them to be? The world of Alices Adventures in Wonderland was created in the mind of Lewis Carroll. He could have ma de the worlds properties be anything he decided. But obviously, we cant make up such rules for the properties of poetry. We dont create these truths we discover them.Thus, Plato would argue, these truths are objective and independent of our minds. But if they are independent of our minds, then they must refer to something that exists in reality. Although the number seven, for example, has objective properties that we discover, these properties are not physical. We do not learn the truths about numbers by seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling, or touching them. From this concept, Plato concludes that the world of mathematics consists of a set of objective, mindindependent truths and a domain of nonphysical reality that we know only through reason. What about justice?What color is it? How tall is it? How much does it weigh? Clearly, these questions can apply to physical things, but it is meaningless to describe justice in terms of observable properties. Furthermore, no society is perfec tly just. Hence, we have never seen an example of perfect justice in human history, only frail, human attempts to approximate it. Because reason can contemplate arbitrator Itself,* we can survey the deficient, limited degrees of justice found in particular societies.Particular nations come and go and the degree of justice they manifest can rise or fall. But the objects of genuine knowledgesuch as true Justice or true Circularity are eternal and unchanging standards and objects of knowledge. Plato on Universals and the Knowledge of Reality Thus far, Plato has argued that there are some things that we could not know about (Justice, Goodness, Equality) if experience was our only source of knowledge.The soul must have somehow acquired knowledge independently of the senses. But what, exactly, are the objects of this particular(a) sort of knowledge? In answering this question, Plato builds on the distinction he has made between the here-and-now land of sense experience and the unchang ing realm of rational knowledge.He says that in the world of sense experience we find that particulars fall into a number of stable, universal categories. Without these categories, we could not identify anything or talk about particulars at all. For example, Tom, Andre, Maria, and Lakatria are all distinct individuals, yet we can use the universal term human being to refer to each of them. In spite of their differences, something about them is the same. Corresponding to each common name (such as human, dog, justice) is a Universal that consists of the essential, common properties of anything within that category.Circular objects (coins, rings, wreathes, planetary orbits) all have the Universal of Circularity in common. Particular objects that are beautiful ( travels, seashells, persons, sunsets, paintings) all share the Universal of Beauty. Particulars come into being, change, and pass away but Universals reside in an eternal, unchanging world. The rose grows from a bud, becomes a b eautiful flower, and then turns brown and ugly and fades away. but the Universal of Beauty (or Beauty Itself ) remains eternally the same.Plato believes that Universals are more than concepts, they are actually the constituentsof reality. Hence, in answer to the third epistemological question, Plato believes that knowledge of Universals provides us with knowledge of the fundamental features of reality, which are nonphysical, eternal, and unchanging. Plato also refers to these Universals as Forms. The following thought experiment will help you appreciate Platos focus on Universals and universal truth. Descartes on the Possibility of Knowledge Although Descartes was certain he could not be deceived about his own existence, the possibility of a big Deceiver cast a shadow over all his other beliefs.Unless he could find something external to his mind that would guarantee that the contents of his mind represented reality, there was little hope for having any knowledge other than that of his own existence. Descartes sought this guarantee in an all-powerful, good God. Hence, Descartes says, As short as the opportunity arises I must examine whether there is a God, and, if there is, whether he can be a deceiver. For if I do not know this, it seems that I can never be kind of certain about anything else. 12 If Descartes could prove that such a God exists, then he could know that knowledge is possible.But notice how limited are the materials Descartes has at his disposal for proving Gods existence. He cannot hire an empirical argument based on the nature of the external world, for that is an issue that is still in doubt. So, he must construct a rationalistic argument that reasons only from the contents of his own mind. STOP AND THINK Descartes on the Role of Reason In the following passage from Meditation III, Descartes says the natural light of reason shows him that (1) something cannot arise from nothing and (2) there must be at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. What examples does he use to illustrate each of these principles? How does he apply these two principles to the existence of his own ideas? The argument that Descartes has stipulation us in the previous passages can be summarized in this way 1. Something cannot be derived from nothing. (In other words, all effects, including ideas, are caused by something. ) 2. There must be at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. 3. I have an idea of God (as an infinite and perfect being). 4. The idea of God in my mind is an effect that was caused by something.5.I am finite and imperfect, and thus I could not be the cause of the idea of an infinite and perfect God. 6. Only an infinite and perfect being could be the cause of such an idea. 7. Therefore, God (an infinite and perfect being) exists. THE THREE ANCHOR POINTS OF EMPIRICISM The Only Source of Genuine Knowledge Is Sense Experience The empiricists compare the mind to a blank tablet upon w hich experience makes its marks. Without experience, they claim, we would lack not only knowledge of the specific features of the world, but also the ability even to conceive of qualities such.