Epistemology: Logic and Knowledge Sample Essay

What is knowledge? How do we cognize what we know? Do we truly cognize anything at all? These inquiries. every bit good as multiple others that arise when seeking for the replies are what epistemology is all about. Assorted philosophers present their ain places in which they try to supply replies to these inquiries. From externalism to internalism. empiricist philosophy to rationalism. and even incredulity. we are exposed to a broad assortment of ways that these minds use to happen the key to truly nonsubjective thought.

It can be said with small to no statement that cognition implies truth. You can’t cognize something if it’s false ; it merely isn’t so. You can get down by stating cognition is true belief. but you need something more to turn out your true belief. Philosophers call this something a warrant. Therefore we come to the decision that cognition is warranted true belief. Now. this begs the inquiry: what is warrant? This inquiry leads us to a major division epistemic thought ; externalism and internalism. Internalists believe that a belief is warranted if it stands in the right kind of relation to other beliefs. They say that cognition is justified true belief. Externalists believe that a belief is warranted if it stands in the right kind of relation to the universe. They say that cognition is true belief originating from a dependable procedure external to ourselves that connects us with the known ( 309 ) . Every philosopher’s views autumn into one of these two schools of idea.

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The externalist attack is really dominant in Indian doctrine. The Nyaya philosophers practiced Externalist Realism. Harmonizing to Nyaya doctrine. cognition is true belief produced by a beginning of cognition. or pramana. There are four beginnings of cognition that the Nyaya Sutra. the earliest signifier of Nyaya work. characterizes. These are perceptual experience. illation. analogy. and testimony ( 310 ) . There are guidelines to find that our beginning of cognition we use to warrant a belief is echt. A perceptual experience must be real. must non be mediated by linguistic communication. and must originate from a direct sensory relationship with the object known ( 310-311 ) . There are three types of illation ; deducing the consequence from the cause. deducing the cause from the consequence. and deducing a general regulation from its cases ( 311 ) . For illustration. you see person light a scented taper. so you infer the room will smell good.

If the room smells good. you infer that a scented taper was lighted. From this. you infer that in general. when scented tapers are lighted it makes the room odor good. We make illations from things that we perceive. nevertheless. illation does non cut down to perceptual experience since it produces cognition about things we do non instantly perceive ( 311 ) . Analogy is restricted to the acquisition of vocabulary merely because presumptively one would larn of new objects through direct perceptual experience. dependable illation. or trusty testimony ( notes category # 4 9/4/13 ) . We learn most of what we know from the testimony of others ( what they say and write ) . Their revealing us is the cause of us cognizing it ; we are made to cognize things by what other people say ( 311 ) . A beginning of cognition justifies both its consequence and itself ; it is self-revealing like a self-illumining lamp. This is how they make a foundation for other cognition to be justified by.

Nagarjuna. a skeptic. rejects undertakings of epistemology. He believes in the Buddhist message of mutualist inception. which states that everything is interconnected. and emptiness. which states that everything is “without a world of its ain ( 314 ) . ” He rejects the thought of “knowledge beginnings. ” because there is no beginning for the designation of those beginnings. If you look for one. so what is the beginning for that beginning? Nagarjuna calls this eternal hunt for beginnings an infinite reasoning backward. In response to the statement of the beginnings being self-proving ; he argues that something to be proved can non be a prover. ( 316-317 ) For illustration. if a twosome with a girl has another kid. a male child. so that girl becomes a sister. At the same clip. the male child becomes a brother. The miss is going a sister because the male child is born. but the male child is going a brother because the miss exists. so who produces whom?

Gangesha. laminitis of the New Logic. provinces that a skeptic’s statement is self-defeating because it employs the really logical forms that it denounces ( 317 ) . If it is impossible to cognize anything as sceptics argue it is. so how can the skeptic know what they are speaking about? Skeptics use illation to steer action. so why is non all right for philosophers to utilize it to back up their theories ( 317 ) ? Gangesha claims that sceptics are dissemblers because they doubt in the seminar room what they accept outside of it ( 318 ) . They doubt a philosopher’s concluding for believing that autos on the streets are existent. but wouldn’t base in forepart of one drive towards them. In Gangesha’s head. a true sceptic is one who wouldn’t move out of the manner of oncoming traffic. inquiring whether it’s all a dream.

Nargarjuna’s statements are smart and do sense. but the realist’s statement of the four pramanas is strong plenty to non be debunked by him. You have to be able to hold a point where you can halt inquiring and merely swear your senses. If you see something that looks likes orange juice. odors like orange juice. feels like orange juice. and gustatory sensations like orange juice. your perceptual experience is adequate to turn out that is so orangish juice. Gangesha besides makes a really good point about the lip service of incredulity because if skeptic’s genuinely believed that you could non cognize anything. how would they even know to believe that? It seems that a true sceptic would non be able to populate sensibly.

On the other manus. there are the internalists. There are three traditions of internalism in Western doctrine: rationalism. empiricist philosophy. and incredulity. Plato begins the positivist tradition which sustains that we can are able to achieve knowledge independent of experience ( 604 ) . He argues that our cognition of the material universe exists because of our anterior familiarity with signifiers ( 334 ) . Forms are abstract universals that exist independent of us. They make things what they are. and enable us to believe approximately things as they are ( 599 ) . Knowledge is the subjective ownership of an nonsubjective truth ( notes category # 7 9/11/13 ) . Plato provinces that when we know something. we can reflect on our grounds for believing it and be able to supply an history that proves why we know what we know is true ( 334 ) . Harmonizing to the Meno. an history of X must run into at least three conditions.

First. it must be applicable to all cases of X ( non excessively narrow ) . Second. it must non be applicable to things that are non X ( non excessively wide ) . And 3rd. it must non be round ( non incorporate in the history itself any reference of that which is to be defined or explained ) ( 335 ) . An illustration of an history being round would be specifying a friendly relationship as a relationship between two friends. In the Theaetetus. Plato rejects the definition of cognition as perceptual experience as excessively narrow. He argues that cognition is justified true belief and there are basic points. like letters. that we can’t justify by anything else. but still cognize more clearly and straight than anything else. These points are a foundation of cognition that justify everything else.

Plato’s thought of signifiers seems a little excessively out at that place to be legitimate. There is nil touchable about them which makes them difficult to believe in. It’s Wyrd to utilize something so difficult to turn out the beings of as a footing of cognition.

Another positivist is Rene Descartes. Descartes besides uses a new strong disbelieving statement to demo that there is a foundation of certain beliefs on which all other cognition remainders ( 373 ) . His end is to halt the infinite reasoning backward by happening foundational truths that can non be doubted. His method was to doubt literally everything possible to see if he could happen an unquestionable foundation for cognition. He believes that semblances and woolgathering give us ground to doubt everything we have of all time learned from our senses ( 374 ) . Descartes eventually found a secure foundation for cognition in that you can non doubt that you exist. There can be no strong disbelieving statements made against “I think” or “I am. ” If you doubt that you exist. who is making the doubting ( 374 ) ? Descartes theory is really interesting. The manner he doubts everything to forestall uncertainty makes it seem about unfailing.

The 3rd positivist is G. W. Leibniz. Leibniz believes that no affair how many cases there are that confirm a general truth. there are non plenty to set up the cosmopolitan necessity of the same truth ( 385 ) . Leibniz believes in a foundation of cognition that justifies everything else. The points in the foundation are known. they are necessary truths and in fact. some are unconditioned to our heads ( 386 ) . He states that objects of our rational thoughts are immediate and ever show in our apprehension ( 386 ) .

The first philosopher of empiricist philosophy is Aristotle. Aristotle trades with the separation of the head and organic structure. He distinguishes esthesis which happens through sense variety meats from idea which seems to be a map of head. and argues that the head is dissociable from the organic structure ( notes category # 7 9/11/13 ) . He that since everything is a possible object of idea. so that in the psyche which is called head is before it thinks. is non really any existent thing. and this is why it can non moderately be regarded as blended with the organic structure ( 344 ) . Empiricism claims that sense experience is the ultimate starting point for all cognition. Aristotle states that signifiers are non components of world like Plato believes. but instead merchandises are the head and the head takes on signifier from experiences ( notes category # 7 9/11/13 ) .

While none of these philosophers thoughts can of all time be 100 % proven. that’s precisely what is interesting about epistemology. It could be studied infinitely. The hunt for what constitutes cognition and true belief is a hard one and these fresh thoughts are still intriguing to heads of every coevals.

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