Naturalized Epistemology Essays

William K. Clifford sets out to show in “The Ethics of Belief” that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence…” In this assignment, I aim to show deficiencies in his argument, and lack of key definitions needed in order to find his assumption and that it begs the question as to what qualifies as insufficient evidence. Moreover, I will show that the primary issue is not the belief but the results of the belief that is important and that all judgment and interpretation should be based upon said results.

These “anomalies” are what Kuhn talks about in chapter six and they result in crises, which is discussed in chapter seven, in which scientists reevaluate the fundamental understandings inherent in the accepted paradigm to either fit these anomalies into the paradigm or creatively produce an entirely new theory that can explain the anomalies. In response to such a monumental anomaly, an austere and concrete paradigm loses its solidified perspective and becomes more flexible and malleable creating an urgent need for a response. It is either solved and the paradigm survives, deferred until it becomes too daunting, or an alternate paradigm is considered. If there is a transition or shift to a new scientific theory it is called a “scientific revolution”. In chapter nine, Kuhn addresses the incompatibility of the original and new paradigms and how the new paradigm replaces the old by often making it irreconcilable for the two theories to coexist. The new destroys the old with a new fundamental set of beliefs that are instilled onto the new paradigm. Chapter ten displays how the entire world-view of the scientist is changed. Kuhn offers the example of Wittgenstein's rabbit-duck illusion to illustrate how scientists perceptions change dramatically from the acceptance of a new theory. Chapter eleven, discusses the effects of textbooks and higher academia and how they contribute to the invisibility of scientific revolution through the rigorous study that students must bear in order to achieve academic success in the sciences. These textbooks pedagogically bolster knowledge by the accretion of empirical data and therefore the principles presented by Kuhn go largely unnoticed. Chapters twelve addresses a revolution’s resolution by showing how scientist watch the support of a paradigm wither away through Popperian

Epistemological Foundationalism essentially claims that some empirical beliefs carry justification that does not require, or depend, on the justification of other empirical beliefs. In this essay, I intend to introduce the reading, “Can Empirical knowledge Have A foundation?” Written by Laurence Bonjour, to give a detailed summary of his arguments - as well as those who object to his - and ultimately to assert my belief that there is currently no example of an empirical belief that of which can be justified in an epistemic sense without avoiding reference to other empirical beliefs, which would then have to be justified themselves, not solving the regress problem.

     Epistemology is the nature of knowledge. Knowledge is important when considering what is reality and what is deception. The movie “The Matrix” displays a social deception in which Neo, the main character, is caught between what he thought was once reality and a whole new world that controls everything he thought was real. If I were Neo, I would not truly be able to know that I was in the matrix. However, it is rational to believe that I am in the matrix and will eventually enter back into my reality later. The proof that that I can know that I am in the matrix and that I will return to reality comes from the responses of foundationalism, idealism, and pallibalism.

The pursuit of truth: Epistemology provides understanding for the reader to gain insight to the way that humans process and react to truth. Epistemology is the pursuit of intellectual virtue. It wants to provide an evidentiary basis for belief, rather than one of just opinion. Entwistle then brings up another important topic which is Metaphysics. Metaphysics can be defined as the philosophical investigation of the nature, constitution and stature of reality. Philosophical anthropology attempts to validate assumptions made by theologians and psychologists about human nature and behavior (Entwistle, pp119).

In this paper, I hope to effectively summarize W.K Clifford’s (1879) argument on the ethics of belief, followed by a summary of William James’ (1897) argument on the right to believe, and finally, provide an argument for why W.K Clifford’s (1879) argument is stronger by highlighting its strengths while simultaneously arguing against William James’ (1897) argument.

Imagine in 40 years, human beings and aliens live in the same planet, a huge scientific and cultural revolution must occur to interchange the knowledge and ways of pursuing and interpreting knowledge between the two living things. In order to peacefully live on the same planet, there must be some consensus towards methods of interpretation for the community to accept new theories and reject old ones. In the essay by Dr. Minos Talgia in The New Yorker, the author describes a community where the old theories like general relatively and quantum physics are rejected, methods like the Hypothetical-deductive method is also reject. Instead, the community comes to a consensus to accept all theories by the aliens in the empirical science, which is

As this research is exploratory in nature that is, it sought to explore and examine decision-making, morality and ‘sense-making’ amongst human participants I was naturally orientated towards an interpretivist epistemological position. The central thesis of interpretivism is that knowledge, its origin and interpretation is founded on human subjectivities and as such complemented my own world view that knowledge is indeed

Epistemology is the nature of knowledge. Knowledge is important when considering what is reality and what is deception. The movie "The Matrix" displays a social deception in which Neo, the main character, is caught between what he thought was once reality and a whole new world that controls everything he thought was real. If I were Neo, I would not truly be able to know that I was in the matrix. However, it is rational to believe that I am in the matrix and will eventually enter back into my reality later. The proof that that I can know that I am in the matrix and that I will return to reality comes from the responses of foundationalism, idealism, and pallibalism.

Their efforts were both shaped and complemented by the enormous upsurge in epistemological thinking that was a part of what is commonly called the "scientific revolution." Thus the judges confronted twin sources of epistemological guidance. One was the English religious tradition, particularly the casuistical tradition, which sought a rational method of decision making in everyday life. The other was the scientific movement of Bacon, Boyle, and especially Locke and the empirical philosophers, who sought to establish scientific truth from the evidence they gathered. This paper is about how judges created the beyond reasonable doubt standard for the jury, and so it is also about the religious and philosophical thinking from which that standard was derived.

It has been many years, the foundation of all genuine knowledge, whether they are found on experience (empiricism) or they could simply gain from pure reasoning (rationalism) has been the subject of academic debate among scholars. However, we will only focus on the limitation of pure reasoning, compare both David Hume and Rene Descartes’ views of knowledge, and decide whose belief works better to attain genuine knowledge in this paper. In the book “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, David Hume specifically clarifies on how moral reasoning (induction) works in the knowledge of cause and effect and he shares on its limitation. Accordingly, he writes “[i]n reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity, which we discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such objects” (p. 23). Based upon his writing, Hume explains people tend to reason a particular instance and expect the future outcome depending on their past experiences; they make conclusions with inductive reasoning. However, the induction has the limitation because it doesn 't guarantee future instances will resemble previously observed ones.

Born in 1845, William Clifford was a mathematician and philosopher famed for his philosophy of science and quest for answering ethical questions through scientific evidence (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). Clifford recognized several difficulties in Emmanuel Kant’s argument related to philosophy, which inspired him to begin a search for answers related to innate belief, personal responsibility of guilt, and overall creation. In the Ethics of Belief, Clifford asserts that it is always wrong to believe based on insufficient evidence, a theme that would follow his opinion on every issue he chose to tackle.

Authoritative epistemology occurs when an analyst relies on another person’s authority to make a judgement. Their “basis of knowledge resides in a reference to something more

He proposes that Epistemology conceived as a philosophical field independent of the natural sciences has proved unable to reach its aims and should be replaced by a conception of epistemology which views it as a branch of empirical psychology. He bases his argument on the failure of other types of epistemology, focusing on two dominant forms of Epistemology that are foundational in nature: Cartesian and Carnapian. Quine bases his replacement on the argument that the Cartesian and Carnapian fail to achieve their respective goals.

Epistemology presents two approaches to a research problem. The first is the positivism approach which as explained by Easterby –Smith, Thorpe& Jackson (2012) carries the assumption that there is a reality which exists independently of the