Simmel first examines the possibility of history. He sets up a critique saying that the realism of history commits the same error as realism in art, which he says “pretends to copy reality without being aware how thoroughly this act of copying in fact stylizes the contents of reality” (3). I take this to mean that as we copy, or capture the qualia, as the qualia moves from its state as a phenomenon outside the perceiver, and then is enveloped by the perceiver, the perceiver undergoes a change as the qualia goes through the conditions of the mind. The conditions of the mind, which I believe are the perceiver par excellence, change the natural phenomena into something which can be understood in the mind itself, this understanding encapsulated in the mind, is what I take to be consciousness. This change does not diminish or embellish the natural phenomena in itself. For the change does not take place within the natural phenomena, rather the change takes place within the perceiver. The perceiver sees this natural phenomena, or qualia, and then copies it. As a result, I read Simmel as adopting an ideology from Hume’s Fork and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and applying this epistemological disconnect of natural phenomena, to the understanding of the natural phenomena, phenomenologically, to history. Further I find this is a valid problem to address, the problem I believe to be specifically-- if we cannot fully know a natural phenomena in itself, but only through which the
This paper deals with ways history can be interpreted and influences different interpretations have on society and individuals. This is explored through
In reading a Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich you realize that history seems so much less complicated when you are the one standing back and reflecting on the past. You realize how easy it is to often forget that every single new idea, religion and war was a struggle that lasted generations upon generations. History is more than just a page or a story, its our account of the world. That goes to show how short life and history is, you realize that history is always repeating, war after war, peace then war. There are good and bad periods in history and its up to us to learn from them. In a way history is much like a human being it goes through stages, learns about life, and has inner struggles or wars about their ideas and their beliefs.
"It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light
In Meditation Two of René Descartes’ Meditation on First Philosophy, he notes the sight of “men crossing the square.” This observation is important as Descartes states, “But what do I see aside from hats and clothes, which could easily hide automata? Yet I judge them to be men.” This is an important realization as Descartes argues that instead of purely noticing the men through sight, it is actually “solely with the faculty of judgement,” the mind, that perceives and concludes that the thing wearing a hat and clothes are men. I argue that this view of the outside world by Descartes is incomplete as his idea of “I” is faulty, as well as having a misunderstanding on the importance of the senses.
The apparent realism of the representation: The model always seemed to stand in perfect correspondence to the external world
In Telling the Truth About History, three historians discuss how the expanded skepticism and the position that relativism has reduced our capacity to really know and to expound on the past. The book talks about the written work of history and how individuals are battling with the issues of what is “truth.” It likewise examines the post-modernist development and how future historians
Despite this problem, we believe it is the same piece of wax we see, touch, or imagine. But it is not our feelings or imagination that gives us the idea. If we had evaluated these abilities, and if the wax is distorted, we would not be able to agree that it is the same wax. This study enables us to recognize that the imagination, just like sensation, does not convey the true nature of wax; rather, this difficulty indicates that only understanding, exercising its powers of conception and judgment, performs the unifying function that constitutes the self-identity of the piece of wax: “our perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining… but the mind alone” (68). Although the changing characteristics of the body has been transported through our senses and imagination, the identity of the matter is provided by the understanding of the wax itself. This analysis confirms Descartes’ view that “what we thought we had seen with our eyes, we actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in our mind” (68). Therefore, any sense of the body is actually an introspection of our mind, not an external inspection.
Seeking The Main Point- What arguments does this chapter make for paying serious attention to human history before the coming of “civilization.”?
The insight into human consciousness that Lewis H. Lapham discussed in Homo Faber is set within experience. The experiences of new discoveries as recorded by Alexander Humboldt and Charles Darwin was something exciting, wonderful, and vast which gave them the power to learn, and recognize the surrounds around them. The Earth is always changing and the discoveries that these men made was through their own senses and emotions which then was translated to word. The very words that we read on a page in a book is the experiences of others because humans learn through the new experience of other before them. George Santayana once said "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." This was something that wasn’t directly quoted in the essay
The authors talks about remaking identities, for Angel this was possible. Angel did not feel comfortable in his new environment. When Suarez-Orozco mention, “Immigrants are by definition in the margins of two cultures. Paradoxically, they can never truly belong either “here” nor “there.” (p.92) He did fit in somewhat with the wrong crowd. That got him nowhere and he had to repeat the school year. He actually tells his parents how he feels and that the teachers feel superior to the Hispanic students because most of them where white. He was sent back to Puerto Rico by his parents to finish school.
How does the way history is told have power in our understanding of the past and present?
In the selection, ‘Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding’, David Hume poses a problem for knowledge about the world. This question is related to the problem of induction. David Hume was one of the first who decided to analyze this problem. He starts the selection by providing his form of dividing the human knowledge, and later discusses reasoning and its dependence on experience. Hume states that people believe that the future will resemble the past, but we have no evidence to support this belief. In this paper, I will clarify the forms of knowledge and reasoning and examine Hume’s problem of induction, which is a challenge to Justified True Belief account because we lack a justification for our
Philosophers David Hume and Renee Descartes have opposing views about the origination of ideas. Hume claims that all ideas are copies of impressions, which come from sensation. Descartes disagrees with this, arguing that in order to obtain knowledge, there must be a rational method for obtaining it, and that the senses are not a reliable source. This essay will present both philosopher’s arguments and compare and contrast each perspective regarding matters of knowledge and ideas. I will then argue how Hume’s philosophy is the more viable theory, and give you my reason’s as to why it is a stronger argument, in comparison to Descartes’ more rational take on the origin of ideas and knowledge.
As with many philosophers worth studying, a common theme present amongst René Descartes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant is the fact that all three philosophers challenged the traditional ways of thinking about philosophy respective to their eras. In certain aspects, all three of these philosophers also grappled with understanding, discovering, and logically explaining the power of the mind to shape whole truths. From Descartes’ foundational work with methodological doubt to Kant’s contribution to previous philosophical concepts such as synthetic judgments, all three men made undeniably valuable advances in epistemological thought despite the occasional controversies associated with their forward thinking during their time.
What is History? This is the question posed by historian E.H. Carr in his study of historiography. Carr debates the ongoing argument which historians have challenged for years, on the possibility that history could be neutral. In his book he discusses the link between historical facts and the historians themselves. Carr argues that history cannot be objective or unbiased, as for it to become history, knowledge of the past has been processed by the historian through interpretation and evaluation. He argues that it is the necessary interpretations which mean personal biases whether intentional or not, define what we see as history. A main point of the chapter is that historians select the facts they think are significant which ultimately