Sellar's Myth of the Given

With this lesson, we begin a new unit on epistemology, which is the philosophical study of knowledge claims. In this first lesson on epistemology, we begin by examining the question “What do we mean when we say we know something?” What exactly is knowledge? We will begin with a presentation that introduces the traditional definition of knowledge. Wood then discusses some of the basic issues raised in the study of epistemology and then presents an approach to epistemology that focuses on obtaining the intellectual virtues, a point we will elaborate on in the next lesson.

The book that I read for this summer was called “The Giver”. It is about a young, eleven year old boy named Jonas who lives a life of not being told the whole truth. As he turns a year older Jonas receives the responsibility of The Giver. When he goes through his training he learns about the past, and with learning about the past comes the truth. Through his whole life, Jonas and the people from the town which he lives, have been sheltered from the truth. No one truly knows the full story, except for The Giver. In this essay I am going to analyze the concept of truth to get a full understanding of the book.

Many philosophers have considered the mystery of consciousness to be a “hard problem.” In “The Hornswoggle Problem,” Patricia Churchland rejects the characterization of consciousness as a uniquely hard problem, and asserts her belief that arguing the unknown nature of consciousness, absent any scientific evidence is an argument from ignorance. A proponent of the “hard problem” would instead argue that consciousness possesses a subjective aspect that makes it uniquely different from all other problems. In this paper, it is my contention that Churchland is correct to reject the ‘hard’ problem argument; and without any objective inquiry or research, this “hard problem” argument lacks needed intellectual vigor, and tends to further

| The study of knowledge: What constitutes knowledge, the nature of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible

Daniel Bor, a psychological researcher, and author, wrote an article titled “When Do We Become Truly Conscious” published on September 4, 2012 and in this article he discusses the idea of consciousness. Through use of deductive reasoning Bor refers to early opinions viewing consciousness as magic and discusses the science behind demystifying consciousness. Bor also discusses the ethical arguments behind learning for about consciousness. Bor also lists some of the emotional arguments centered on human awareness. Bor’s use of rhetorical strategies is designed to state his opinion in a simple and easily read way.

During the first few weeks of class we’ve gone through various texts in order to better our understanding of human knowledge. We have talked about Christianity St. Matthew “The Sermon on the Mount”, Plato and “The Allegory of the Cave”, “The Four Idols” of Sir Francis Bacon, Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, and even Carl Jung and “The Structure of the Psyche”. All these texts may have been written in different eras and different places, but they have one thing in common, and that is their understandings of human nature and knowledge, and how they demonstrate to us epistemology (how we know) and metaphysics (what human beings know).

* We leave the world of belief and accept conceptual perceptions in a move toward understanding the “intelligible realm”.

As our scientific paradigm has shifted towards a materialist account of the world, many thinkers believe that appeals to the supernatural cannot provide truth. Consequently, beliefs that had once been considered adequate must now be reworked if not torn down entirely to fit this new world view. Daniel Dennett’s book Consciousness Explained attempts to provide an account of our internal experience (i.e. Consciousness) that is rooted in the materialist world view. Though he is not the first to undertake this project, he takes issue with what he perceives to be the popular materialist account of consciousness, and seeks promote his own theory. With this essay I aim to offer an informative summary of the book followed by an evaluative dialogue of its central claims.

For many years the question of whether or not the unconscious mind really exists, and if it does then what does it consist of has baffled many theorist’s minds and has made many philosophers question themselves. There have been debates on whether the conscious mind is influenced by other parts of the mind. These parts are indented within the unconscious, which has processes such as personal habits, intuition and being oblivious to certain things in life. While we are completely aware of what is happening I the conscious mind, we have absolutely no idea of what information is stored in the unconscious mind. It is believed that the unconscious mind comprises various significant and disturbing material, which is required to be kept out of awareness as they may be too menacing to completely acknowledge and be mindful of. There are been some critics that have completely disbelieved the existence of the unconscious mind. Many psychological scientists today believe that the unconscious mind is the shadow of a “real” conscious mind. However, through extensive research, evidence has been found that the unconscious is not visibly complex, controlling, or action-orientated.

To have a belief in something is not to be mistaken as having knowledge of something, for these terms (belief and knowledge) are not to be seen as synonymous. This is further explored within the written philosophical work titled On Certainty by Ludwig Wittgenstien. This piece stands as a response to G.E. Moore’s written work “A Proof of The External World”. As way to justify that there is a world external of our sense, Moore uses his hand as a (sufficient) tool. This because he believes that what can be known through immediate sense experience is how one can acquire “commonsense” knowledge. To Moore, commonsense knowledge is knowledge that denies the possibility of doubt, which in turn lays down a foundation for all knowledge.

Individuals rely on the human experience to define not only their self-concept but their conviction. According to the theory of mind, humans can only intuit the existence of their

In a world full of false news and information, it is often difficult to distinguish truth from fiction. Many individuals assume these ideas to be true without considering the merit behind these claims. However, considering the facts, we also need to ponder this idea: Can we really know anything for certain? While Hume argues, true knowledge is impossible to obtain by using experience alone, I argue that experience is the foundation of learning and that by establishing foundational ideas, we can ultimately reach true knowledge.

In the stages leading up to self-consciousness, consciousness placed the locus of truth into that which it took to be other than itself. The particular and immediate being of the

A perpetual conflict emanating throughout all mankind questions the significance of knowledge to human nature, regarding knowledge’s definition, acquisition, branches, and value. Major role models in the foundation of philosophy - specifically, in this essay, Plato and Aristotle - obsess over the significance of knowledge and its importance to and relationship with the development of human beings and their mindsets. Although Plato’s view on knowledge describes the internal predisposed essence of all Forms and the need for a superior being to extract them from the student, Aristotle’s outlook resides as more reliable and realistic due to his beliefs in the premise of knowledge in the sensation and perception, with continuing development in memory, experience, art and science, and, ultimately, true wisdom.

Knowledge can be defined as information gained through sense perception, emotion, language and reason, while it is defined by Plato as “justified true belief.” The claim that knowledge takes the form of a combination of stories and facts is however not accurate in history and biology. First, it brings up the questions of what are stories and what are facts. Stories are accounts of past events from somebody’s perspective, while a fact is the truth. When looking at the two areas of knowledge, they each favour one side of the combination over the other. For example, knowledge from history mostly takes the form of stories, while knowledge from biology mostly takes the form of facts. This distinction between the different types of knowledge leads to the knowledge questions of “How do we obtain knowledge in the different areas of knowing?” and “To what extend is knowledge in certain areas of knowledge subjective or objective?”