My Own Epistemology: In the Making
Am I living in an illusion? What will happen to me after I die? Is there really such thing as a God? I have struggled with these three questions throughout my entire life, and I was very intrigued to discover that all of these questions were addressed throughout the many different readings in Libs 201: Exploring the Unknown. Author Chris Frith dissects the idea that the mental world is an illusion created by the brain in his book Making Up The Mind. Antony Flew, a former atheist, argues that there is such thing as a God or an “agent” and backs up his theory using science. Emile Durkheim writes about the foundation of religious thought in primitive people thousands of years ago, and addresses the
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Whether it is Emile Durkheim discussing the foundation of religious thought in primitive people thousands of years ago, or Michael Shermer writing about how the human brain constructs beliefs and reinforces them as truths, I am constantly absorbing brilliant new ideas and perspectives regarding the foundation of philosophical and religious thought in humans. I have come to the conclusion that my epistemology is still in the making, and my sponge of a brain has not yet absorbed enough experience and knowledge for me to feel confident in my own thoughts and beliefs at this point in my life. I believe that with every new book or article that I read, I feel my mind expanding more and more, and maybe one day I will finally be able to say “There really is a God out there, and I know this because…”. There is also a chance that I’ll discover that I am more like Shermer and I will come to the conclusion that our brain simply creates the idea of a God due to the process of patternicity, the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless data. For now, all I can do is retain as many different concepts and philosophies as I can in order to bring me one step closer to discovering my own
It is said that man, to survive, has always needed something or some belief to hold on; be it science, religion or magic. Man without a belief lacks hope (Walker, 1997). Lack of hope makes a man vulnerable to unforeseen circumstances. To avoid this vulnerability man has been holding onto different belief systems.
The aim of this essay is to carry out a research on why black people are more likely to be stop and search than a white or Asian. The assignment will be using literature explore the logic behind stop and search in the country and analyze the power police have when they are undertaking stop and search. This essay will be utilising the epistemology approach to find out the true about stop and search and determine limitation of knowledge. The essay going to be looking at ethical issues that would need to take into consider when carrying out a research on stop and search the reason why you need to have ethical consideration as researcher. This paper will be inspecting practical issue that are involve when performing a stop and search research project. The paper will be using quantitative method to measure how many people are affected by stop and search and who disagree with the power of the police. The quantitative method will give an overall statistic on how many people experience stops and search in
Reading, following, and believing someone, a common trait, is adopting that person’s thoughts, arguments, imaginations, hypothesis, and above all, the skill to convince. Most writers, thinkers, leaders, preachers, etc. always exhibit some sort of prejudice or inclination towards some particular beliefs. In fact, non-believers are also believers; they believe in non-existence of God. Effectively articulated arguments cannot be true always. But, one starts accepting the reading/explanations that falls in line with his/her own perceptions. Most theories start with assumptions and proceed with rational and irrefutable explanations. However, many theories with logical justifications keep changing
As we have discussed many times in class, an ethical issue is an issue that focuses on whether an action is morally right or wrong. Epistemic issues focus on how we know that certain facts are true or how we know what is possible. An example of an epistemic issue could be "how do we know that God is real?". This would be an epistemic question because it inquires about our knowledge and how we have come to that conclusion. An ethical issue could be, "how should we respond to humanitarian issues in foreign countries?". This can be considered an ethical issue because it asks what would be considered a moral decision in a certain situation.
Growing up I always had a strange but curious fascination with the way the world works. I was brought into religion at a young age and I will always remember the uneasy feeling I had when no teacher of religion was capable of explaining the fundamental principles of how all of their claims came to be. As I aged I noticed that the unanswerable questions that I always asked myself had been multiplying in number. It seemed as if no one was capable of giving me closure to any of these fundamental questions of our universe. This in turn grew my curiosity exponentially and allowed me to occupy my time solely on trying to find the solutions to my questions. Throughout middle school and highschool I have always pondered about the ideas that have been coming to my head. My questions slowly transformed from philosophical to more crucial topics such as physics. Instead of asking myself “why” I began asking myself “how”. This shift in consciousness changed my world. I became incredibly interested in physics and the properties of our universe like I have never been before. That is when I realized maybe I had something going for me. None of my
In conclusion I have found this a very interesting research activity. Not for the first time have I had to pick up Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ and fight to get past chapter two! Considering the Humanist approach was probably the most difficult as it meant reading past why there is no god, as opposed to two Christian theodicies and delving deeper into my studies of Buddhism and Hinduism. Having considered which offer the most successful arguments in making their case I find the Irenaen theodicy most successful. Reading further into the topic and John Hicks’ The Philosophy of Religion, I feel that ‘soul-making’ lies at the heart of the argument.
I doubted religion at a young age. “How does anyone know God is real?” I’d scribble in my notebook. As a scientist at heart, I wanted physical proof to fuel the fantasies. In our book Prophet Ibrahim had at first doubted God, but then God sent him birds to kill, yet make alive again. Prophet Ibrahim was convinced, but I was not. Until I had experienced my own revelation, everything was just a story. And then I realized, maybe I had to ask. “Dear god, if you’re true please make a dove appear right next to me! Now!”
Whoever who has watched Steven McQueen's movie Hunger, he/she will assimilate the tittle of this post quickly. An epistemological film is one that makes you feel what you are seeing on the screen. For the subtitle, fragmented sophisticated word for broken. As we all know literature is aesthetic, which means the style matters.
This essay will lay out my current views of epistemic topics we have discussed throughout the course. I will explain my current views on Skepticism, Perception, Gettier Problem, Justification, A Priori, and the role of the Two Systems. I will first explain my current views I hold and the reasons behind why I hold my current viewpoints of the six topics listed above.
Boghossian’s claim that Epistemic Relativism is a plausible way to interpret knowledge is explained by three dogmatic affirmations. Firstly, there exists no absolute epistemic facts that explain what specific beliefs a piece of information justifies, known as Epistemic non-absolutism. Secondly, if a person, S’s, epistemic judgements are even just slightly possible, it is unjust to express that, ’’E justifies belief B’’ as articulating the claim E justifies belief B. S’s epistemic judgement should be expressed like so— “According to the epistemic system C, that I, S, accept, information E justifies belief B.” (Boghossian 73). This is known as epistemic relationism. Lastly, there exists a multitude of fundamentally different yet equally rational
Discuss epistemology and its relevance to intelligence analysis. Select at least two principal “ways of knowing,” and describe their respective characteristics/attributes, strengths, weaknesses, and potential for improving the quality of intelligence analysis.
Although many cannot articulate their reasons for believing in the existence of God, their faith is nonetheless definite
Epistemological assumptions focus on what can be known and how knowledge can be acquired (Bell, 8). I am a positivist; we believe that knowledge is found via empirical observations (obtained through the senses). Positivism follows an identical approach as the study of natural sciences in the testing of a theory. Though their is a difference between the two fields the deductive approach works just as well in both. You create a theory, generate a hypothesis, test with empirical data, and see whether or not it confirms or rejects it (6). If it is confirmed by empirical means, then it is knowledge (9). I believe that the world can be objectively experienced and described, via quantitative research: collecting data, transforming it into statistics which then formulate into facts and uncover patterns (14). Ontology as Bell states is split up into two camps, by two questions, firstly: is social reality real, or is it a set of mental constructions? (12) Secondly, is social reality pre-existing or is it created through our actions? (12) I am an objectivist; I believe there is a pre-existing social reality, were social phenomena exist outside the influence of social actors. My assumptions, would impact my choice of research design by limiting my selection. For me to research a social phenomenon, I would need a research design that would allow me to study it as a physical object. Something that provides a lot of quantitative data, and that if given to other researchers would reveal the
Fred Dretske (2005) rejects the claim that closure holds over known entailment. Dretske argues that propositions, P, have heavyweight implications, Q, which cannot be known by the same reasons that P is known by; and that if Closure holds this leads to scepticism. However, Dretske argues that we can rule out closure by acknowledging that relevant alternatives for P are distinct and separate from those for Q. Thus closure fails and scepticism is avoided. Intuitively I find myself agreeing with Dretske, but think that this intuition itself is part of the larger problem within epistemology. Using ideas from Nagel et al, I contend that the analytic approach to the problems of closure and knowledge itself is potentially limited; that gaps between thought modes can explain cases of apparent loss of knowledge as exposed by Dretske. Moreover, that if we want to further success regarding problems within epistemology a new approach may be needed. I suggest we look toward the rational sciences, and towards a form of experimental epistemology.
Based on the article of Epistemology for Dummies by Cary Cook on 2008, there is several complicated theory in epistemology that I have understand in such a simplest theory of understanding them. Then, based on this article I manage to relate it with the theory that I have learned in class.