...really know anything? With reference to Descartes’ first meditation justify your answer in full and respond to possible objections. A belief is any opinion or any view whether you are committed to the view or not. Thus, if you know something, you are entitled to believe in it. The subjective nature of knowledge partly is based on the idea that beliefs are things that individuals have and those beliefs are either justified or not justified (Pardi, 2011). However, Descartes notices that over the course of his life, he has from time to time accepted false beliefs and the falsity of these beliefs have influenced other beliefs. Thus, Descartes aim in his first meditation is to find out if what we know is truly correct (Blackburn, 1999:15). Once we have figured out what beliefs are beyond any possible doubt, it is suggested that we can use reason to deduce the rest of what is knowable (Pardi, 2011). There are three conditions when one can say they know something is true (Pardi, 2011). Firstly, you believe in something, secondly, it is in fact true and lastly you are justified in believing a statement is true. Of course it is possible that there are no complete unshakeable truths, it is also possible that we might discover that our prejudices cannot be detached or that the beliefs we think are our grounds for all our other beliefs are not really ultimate at all. For this reason, it is why rationalist say that knowledge comes from within, the only beliefs we can really know are those...
Words: 1630 - Pages: 7
...Englishman as their inferior. The Germans have been taught that Englishman are only a little above animals in the social hierarchy of the world. The two men have a very difference of opinions regarding some of their beliefs and ideas of the world, but actually...
Words: 1682 - Pages: 7
...obligation to form belifs responsibly and this obligation can only be filled if we can jusify our beliefs. Not only should we have good reasons to hold a particular belief, but we should know what those reasons are. We should know not only that we know, but we should know why we know. • What is the motivation behind externalism? This accors with our basic intuitions concerning most our beliefs. Most people do not always know why they believe as they do but they still believe they are rational in believing as they do. Many beliefs we hold are not capable of being justified from an internalist perspective. The reliability of our memories. Our senses are providing an accurate representation of the world. • How does externalism answer the question of quality control? • How does this presentation suggests bringing internalism and externalism together? There are some beliefs that we are warranted in holding which we do not seem to be able to justify: memories and senses are reliable. We have an epistemic duty to withhold affirming some beliefs without sufficient evidence: discovery for cancer, life on other planets. Both internalism and externalism are necessary. Externalism can incorporate internalism (but not vice versa) Read and take notes of chapter 7 of How Do You Know? A Short Introduction to the Issues of Epistemology, “Do We Need Justification?” As you do,...
Words: 1077 - Pages: 5
...obligation to form belifs responsibly and this obligation can only be filled if we can jusify our beliefs. Not only should we have good reasons to hold a particular belief, but we should know what those reasons are. We should know not only that we know, but we should know why we know. • What is the motivation behind externalism? This accors with our basic intuitions concerning most our beliefs. Most people do not always know why they believe as they do but they still believe they are rational in believing as they do. Many beliefs we hold are not capable of being justified from an internalist perspective. The reliability of our memories. Our senses are providing an accurate representation of the world. • How does externalism answer the question of quality control? • How does this presentation suggests bringing internalism and externalism together? There are some beliefs that we are warranted in holding which we do not seem to be able to justify: memories and senses are reliable. We have an epistemic duty to withhold affirming some beliefs without sufficient evidence: discovery for cancer, life on other planets. Both internalism and externalism are necessary. Externalism can incorporate internalism (but not vice versa) Read and take notes of chapter 7 of How Do You Know? A Short Introduction to the Issues of Epistemology, “Do We Need Justification?” As you do, make...
Words: 291 - Pages: 2
...KNOWLEDGE VS BELIEF Abstract: How do we decide on what to believe when someone tells you one thing but the evidence shows differently? When someone tells us they love us how do we really know what to believe? Are our thoughts based on what we know or what we choose to believe? We are taught that one of life’s greatest treasures is a freedom of knowing. Introduction Human knowledge has attained great heights and established a body of knowing facts for beyond the capacity of any person to master. Plato philosophy, stated in order to have knowledge, one must also have justified true belief (anayambaker.hubpages.com). One person I know and believe that loves me is my parents. In this paper, I will argue the difference in knowledge and belief. I will submit evidence and logic reason to support my arguments. After going thru the evidence, the reader will understand why I maintain my original cauterization of knowledge and belief. The theory of knowledge can guide us in deciding what to believe what to ignore, what to question, and what we don’t know (emotionalcompetency.com). I know without a doubt that my mother loves me. do know and believe my parents love me, as people we learn about physical objects empirically, by means of the senses: we look at them, taste them, listen to them, and so on. Only thing we don’t have real knowledge of the visible world jut mere opinion. Good allows us to understand, and Plato thinks we can’t know the good without wanting to do...
Words: 363 - Pages: 2
...Basic Beliefs Must Exist The root of knowledge has always been a great question of philosophy. What do we know? Or do we really know what we think we know? What justifies our beliefs as knowledge? It all comes down to the same question, same question asked in cosmology, biology and many others: How did it all begin? Where scientific data is inadequate, epistemology tried to find answers and possibilities and asked their version of the question: Are there any epistemically basic beliefs? In other words, how does knowing begin? Or to some, does knowledge exist at all? Foundationalism suggested that after all there must be an epistemically basic belief at the root of the rest of them, a starting point that doesn’t need justification because it justifies itself. In this essay I will explain that there are epistemically basic beliefs, which has been proven and exemplified by various philosophers of Foundationalism. First I will explain Foundationalism and give examples to epistemically basic beliefs, then I will explain how coherentism refutes the idea of a basic belief and lastly I will examine how both stand in front of the regress argument, proving the existence of basic belief for the existence of knowledge. If there is knowledge it must have a starting point. Foundationalism is an epistemological view that suggests that the chain of justification of beliefs has a starting point, which is called basic belief. All our beliefs are justified by these basic or foundational...
Words: 1180 - Pages: 5
...to find out how true our existence is? Beliefs and religion is based off of knowledge of certain doctrines. But evidence is needed to support whatever your beliefs are. The human race tends to have a variety of beliefs throughout both concrete and abstract areas of knowledge, in this essay I will explore to what degree beliefs need evidence. Using examples, I will focus on the following knowledge issues; does our perception of evidence justify our beliefs? And are we able to have beliefs without evidence? Noticeably, all areas of knowledge are benefited by support from evidence. It is a question of how much evidence is needed for sufficient support. Title holds many concepts that can be explored in different ways. ‘Beliefs’ can be described as spontaneous occurrences of vivid ideas in the mind’ (Pojman). More abstract areas of knowledge such as art can adopt this meaning as they require less ‘evidence’ ;being subjective means that it does not necessarily require physical proof. ‘Beliefs can also be caused by experiencing things in constant conjunction to each other’ (Pojman). This depicts the fact that belief is more of a ‘reasoned process.’ More concrete areas of knowledge like Human and Natural sciences will usually follow this meaning. Science is a methodical process in which we experiment to test theories which constantly use evidence. ‘Evidence’ can be defined as the ‘availability of facts or information indicating whether a ‘belief’ or proposition is true or valid’. In...
Words: 1187 - Pages: 5
...debate question Huemer touches on is “can humans truly know anything?” He takes the negative position, stating that no human can or will ever truly possess knowledge. He breaks his main theory into an argument, which is then separated into three sections that he uses to support his disputation: ‘the infinite regress argument,’ ‘the problem of criterion,’...
Words: 992 - Pages: 4
...KNOWLEDGE VS BELIEF Kimberly Johnson Introduction to Philosophy Dr. Nwonye AIU 02/24/2013 Abstract: How do we decide on what to believe when someone tells you one thing but the evidence shows differently? When someone tells us they love us how do we really know what to believe? Are our thoughts based on what we know or what we choose to believe? We are taught that one of life’s greatest treasures is a freedom of knowing. Introduction Human knowledge has attained great heights and established a body of knowing facts for beyond the capacity of any person to master. Plato philosophy, stated in order to have knowledge, one must also have justified true belief (anayambaker.hubpages.com). One person I know and believe that loves me is my parents. In this paper, I will argue the difference in knowledge and belief. I will submit evidence and logic reason to support my arguments. After going thru the evidence, the reader will understand why I maintain my original cauterization of knowledge and belief. The theory of knowledge can guide us in deciding what to believe what to ignore, what to question, and what we don’t know (emotionalcompetency.com). I know without a doubt that my mother loves me. do know and believe my parents love me, as people we learn about physical objects empirically, by means of the senses: we look at them, taste them, listen to them, and so on. Only thing we don’t have real knowledge of the visible world jut mere opinion. Good allows us...
Words: 374 - Pages: 2
...Knowledge and Justified Belief What is knowledge? This is the question we used to be sure of according to Plato’s theory of recollection, which tells that the knowledge is the justified belief; if this belief is true, then there is some fact make the proposition for this belief to be true; since the belief is justified by some evidence; therefore people comes up with the standard analysis of knowledge. This idea has been generally agreed till Edmund Gettier came up with the article questioning if knowledge is the justified true belief. Gettier provides two cases wherein intuitively the subject gains a justified true belief does not equal to knowledge. By contrast, Gettier’s arguments indicate the situation in which someone has a belief that is both true and well supported by evidence but fails to be knowledge. That is, it is sufficient and necessary to have belief, truth and justification to define knowledge as in classical theory, yet, the Gettier’s theory by questioning knowledge that justifiably believe one of the true proposition and dismiss the other is necessary and sufficient add-on to the classical theory to redefine knowledge. First of all, according to Plato’s theory of knowledge, that knowledge is justified true belief, or as Gettier concluded Plato’s classical theory of knowledge as: “ S knows that P if and only if P is true; S believes in P and S is justified in believing P” (Gettier 1). In the Meno, written by Plato, he believes that knowledge appears to...
Words: 1447 - Pages: 6
...Cognitive scientists connected pretend play with the false belief task. Both require the use of metarepresentations. However, Cognitive scientists have realized that although children are able to pretend play, they are unable to pass the false belief task. The false belief task goes like this: A child is seated in front of an experimenter, who has two puppets, Sally and Anne. There is a basket and a box on the table between the child and the experimenter. Sally places a marble in the basket and then leaves the room, and while she’s away, Anne transfers the marble from the basket to the box. Sally then returns, and at this point, the experimenter asks the child: Where will Sally look for her marble? The child passing the task would be realizing...
Words: 1551 - Pages: 7
...conscious of the fact that we are living in a state of uncertainty. It raises the question: what should we believe? We need to know whether it is enough for our beliefs to be true on face value, or whether we have to come to believe them for certain reasons. We need to know whether or not we have a choice in what we believe. Finally, we need to know if a person is entitled to believe what they want. William Clifford in his, The Ethics of Belief, argues that “It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” I believe Clifford is correct in stating this because in order for something to be true it requires sufficient evidence. The presence of sufficient evidence entitles us to believe in whatever ideas our evidence supports. Thus it would be wrong to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. Clifford opens up with an anecdote of a shipowner who was to send his ship across the sea. Doubts had been suggested that the ship might not be seaworthy. The owner removed all the doubts and acquired a sincere conviction that the ship would make it across the sea safely as it had many times in the past. Mid-way through the journey the ship sank and the shipowner collected his insurance money. Was the shipowner guilty? Clifford responds, “The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether...
Words: 1651 - Pages: 7
...Emily Simpson Philosophy 2745 11-20-2014 Epistemology For the most part, philosophers agree that knowledge requires truth, justification, and belief. However, the debate lies in whether or not a theory of knowledge accurately and fully satisfies these conditions. The standard account of knowledge has three conditions that need to be met in order for an individual to have knowledge. S must know that p if and only if: (1) S believes that p, (2) p is true and (3) S is justified in believing that p. On the surface, it seems that this account implicates knowledge; however, Edmund Gettier showed through the Gettier cases that you can believe yourself to be justified, but not actually have knowledge. This epistemic setback is known as the Gettier Problem. Since the standard account of knowledge was essentially done away with, philosophers have been in search of the best way to solve the Gettier problem. Alvin Goldman in particular has published many papers detailing his thoughts on the matter. “A Causal Theory of Knowing” was the first in a series of works in which Goldman sought a theory that could handle Gettier’s cases. Unfortunately, Goldman’s own causal theory was undermined by his and Carl Ginet’s fake barn case. The Ginet-Goldman fake barn case first appeared in Goldman’s “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge”. It describes a boy, Henry, who is traveling through the countryside and sees what he believes to be a barn. Unbeknownst to Henry, the area he is in is actually...
Words: 1042 - Pages: 5
...Philosophers sometimes view the idea of human freedom of action as the real problem of free will, but this classification is one of the main misunderstandings in both subject matters. The misunderstanding between freedom and free will may have begun as early as the time when Thomas Hobbes and David Hume, argued their cases to support the theory of the modern concept of compatibilism. From both Hobbes’ and Hume’s perspective, to be free to act on one's will is basically to be free of external restrictions, limitations, constraints, and controls. From their perspective, the absence any external constraint gives makes the agent freedom to do as he or she wills, even if the person’s will itself is determined (or predetermined) by causal laws of nature. Factors That Affect Personal Development Take a moment to consider all of the genetic and environmental factors that have shaped who you are today, and you will quickly become overwhelmed. From gender, race, and socioeconomic background—to family dynamics, education, and genetics—there are millions of factors that have converged to make you who you are. Most people believe that humans are responsible for their own actions and that they all have the opportunity to make the right choices. But when you consider how large a role race, gender, wealth, and family upbringing all play in shaping an individual, can you truly believe that everyone has the same opportunities? Furthermore, are there some conditions under which people cannot...
Words: 1945 - Pages: 8
...rationalist. According to Descartes, before we can describe the nature of reality (as is done in metaphysics) or say what it means for something to be or exist (which is the focus of ontology), we must first consider what we mean when we say we know what reality, being, or existence is. He suggests that it is pointless to claim that something is real or exists unless we first know how such a claim could be known as a justified true belief. But to say that our beliefs are justified, we have to be able to base them ultimately on a belief that is itself indubitable. Such a belief could then provide a firm foundation on which all subsequent beliefs are grounded and could thus be known as true. This way of thinking about knowledge is called foundationalism. In his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Descartes indicates how we are able to guarantee our beliefs about reality by limiting what we believe to what is indubitable or is based on what is indubitable. That involves him in a series of six "meditations" (of which we will focus on only the first two) about the proper method of philosophical reflection and the conclusions that can be drawn from using that method. Throughout these Meditations Descartes insists that (1) we should claim to know only that for which we have justification, (2) we cannot appeal to anything outside of our ideas for such justification, and (3) we judge our ideas using a method that guarantees that our ideas are correct. In the first Meditation Descartes...
Words: 1949 - Pages: 8
