What is Knowledge? Philosophy Essay

What is Knowledge? Philosophy Essay What is truth? What is knowledge? These seemingly simple questions lie at the heart of philosophys oldest debates. They have generated numerous theories, revealed issues of perception, cognition and certainty and they occupy philosophers today just as they did thousands of years ago: While our records on the topic go back as far as half a millennium B.C., important works on truth have been published as recently as 2009 (by Michael Lynch, on pluralism see David [2009]). The first part of this essay covers the topics of beliefs and truth and puts an emphasis on a defense of a correspondentist conception of truth, while the second part moves on to a discussion of knowledge based the thesis that knowledge is objective, and can be defined as justified true belief based on sufficient evidence. This paper is thus an argumentative paper, striving to defend the opinion of the author by engaging in a philosophical discussion. I. Truth Truth is a concept that, as established above, has numerous theories that established their own definitions and criteria to determine whether a truthbearer a statement, claim, belief etc. that can be true or false is indeed true. I will here focus on neo-classical theories of truth, as they attempt to address the question of what truth is most directly, and since they still serve as a foundation of much of the more recent debates on truth. I will thus leave aside theories such as Pluralism, Deflationism, and numerous other theories, while my focus lies on Correspondent, Pragmatic and Coherence theories of truth. The Correspondent Theory of Truth sees the nature of truth in its correspondence to reality. A statement is considered true if it describes the way things actually are (Russell, 1956). [EXAMPLE]. It is usually considered to presume some sort of realist framework that holds that there is such a thing as a reality outside of our minds, and that we are able to find some sort of relationship to that reality so that we can verify whether a claim is true or not. However, Kirkham (1992) holds that it would also be possible for correspondent theories to break with realism, for example by referring to facts of a world that exists rather in the mind of some superior entity rather than reality. For the sake of simplicity I will here assume correspondentist theories to adhere to ontological realism. The correspondent theory of truth has two prominent competitors and epistemic theories of truth, which I shall now illuminate. First; the coherence theory of truth defines the nature of truth as coherence of a belief to a set or system of established beliefs. This includes the possibility for a truth to become apparent if it is merely entailed by an established belief in the system. Thus, the system of established beliefs is not only a tool to verify the truth of a belief it is the source of the truth. (Glanzberg, 2006). Coherentism rejects the idea that we can access reality to verify our beliefs it is hence related to idealism. Idealists maintain that experience essentially originates in mental activity. Thus, the notion that a set of beliefs describes the world as it is comes naturally to idealists (Glanzberg). [EXAMPLE] Second; the pragmatist theory of truth proposes that whether a belief is true or not depends on the outcome of actions guided by that belief. Truth is thus determined by its practical value (Glanzberg, 2006). Even though the pragmatist theory of truth deserves a richer account, I will not engage with it much further for the sake of conciseness and because it falls prey to two important accusations. On the one hand, a false belief can also turn out to be true based on luck or different causational relationships than assumed. On the other hand, pragmatism does not allow us to make predictions of the future, since it reduces the definition of truth to beliefs of the past that have been confirmed by their outcome. The usefulness of a pragmatist account of truth is thus limited, both for philosophical study as well as the general scientific enquiry to generate truth. II. Belief and Knowledge The word belief in everyday language refers to a claim that we are certain of in varying degrees, that we have evidence for in varying degrees and that may or may not be true. We speak of belief when a young child strongly believes in Sinterklaas, just as we speak of belief when a person vaguely believes that she will receive a fine when parking her car in central Maastricht without a parking ticket. While both cases have varying certainty and varying likeliness to be true, we do not explicitly distinguish to what extent the belief is certain, backed by evidence or whether it is actually true. In philosophy it is specified what kind of belief is referred to. Further, a claim is only called a belief when its holder is certain of it; this means that hope and faith can be excluded from this definition of belief (Creel, 2001). Hereinafter I shall elaborate on three different kinds of belief and how they relate to knowledge in the realist framework. First, a belief based on evidence is closer to being knowledge than a belief without evidence. However, there are many beliefs that are false, despite being backed by some evidence. Surely the child believing in Sinterklaas has some evidence, such as having seen an actor dressed in the Sinterklaas costume, yet her belief is false. Second, let us assume the belief is true and backed by evidence. It can constitute knowledge, but the evidence on which it is based could too weak to conclude that true, evidence based beliefs are knowledge (Creel). Third, the evidence criterion is specified to exclude the possibility of weak evidence the evidence needs to be so strong, that the belief is justified. Is then a belief knowledge, when it can be said to be justified and true? This is where opinions diverge. Creel states that according to the justification theory of knowledge, the justification of a claim needs to be conclusive to be called knowledge. Steup (2006) claims that for a long time a justified true belief (JTB) has been the standard account of knowledge. Both are closely related, and both have been challenged 1963 by Edmund Gettier.

“Poem” and “About this person” by Simon Armitage Essay

Two of Simon Armitage’s poems, ‘Poem’ and ‘About His Person’ are written about someone who has, for unspecified reasons, passed away or gone. One is in the style of a eulogy and looks back on the life of its persona, presenting contrasting views of it, while the other examines the articles found on a man after his death. Both give the readers some impression of the personas, but are somewhat ambiguous, inviting us to form our own mental pictures of the people and judge them for ourselves. The man in ‘Poem’ seems to have a split personality. Each of the first three stanzas is made up of four lines – the first three dealing with good things he did and the fourth mentioning a drawback, something bad. For example the third and fourth lines of the first stanza read, ‘And he always tucked his daughter up at night And slippered her the one time that she lied.’ Although there are more good than bad things mentioned, the bad is cleverly positioned at the end of the line and this seems to make it overshadow and even cancel out all of the positive actions mentioned. In the context of a eulogy the three positive lines could be what is being said with the last line representing the thoughts of those present at the funeral. Simon Armitage does not conclude on the life of this man, but finishes the poem with: ‘Here’s how they rated him when they lookef back; Sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.’ This lack of conclusion and the continual juxtaposition of contrasting views of the man’s life do not form a judgement of him, but ask us, the readers, how it is possible to judge someone when he or she is gone. We form an impression of a man who seems dutiful (from his actions such as ‘for his mum he hired a private nurse), yet hot-tempered and domineering (such as ‘And once, for laughing, he punched her [his wife] in the face’), Armitage ends it with such ambiguity that we are forced to reconsider our judgements and  are left with only a vague impression of him. ‘About His Person’ presents its persona via his personal possessions only, which also makes it difficult to draw up an impression of him. However there are hints given about his life, such as ‘crowning one finger / a ring of white unweathered skin’ which suggests he may once have been married but died separated and lonely. It is also suggested by Armitage, however indirectly, that Armitage committed suicide, such as from ‘A final demand / in his own hand’. The poem contains metaphors for death – the library card ‘on its date of expiry’ and the watch, ‘stopped’. These suggest the pre planning of his death. Everything has a double meaning about the man’s life, which is an unusual but effective way of conveying information. From these pointers towards aspects of the persona’s life it is automatic for the readers to create an image of him. However so little information is given that the picture I see in my mind of an elderly widower with no next-of-kin deciding that he is tired of life is undoubtedly quite different to the picture drawn up by another reader. This is a difference between this poem and ‘Poem’ as we have even less of an idea about the dead man’s personality and even less basis on which to judge him. Yet the fact that we do is exactly what Simon Armitage is trying to illustrate – that human nature is to draw up impressions of people from almost no basis. Both of these poems are written from a detached, impersonal view which adds to their effect. This shows that the impressions created are from an uninvolved unbiased individual and that the people described could be anyone – even relatives of the reader. In conclusion, neither poem presents a detailed impression of the man who has departed this life. However through the ambiguous double-meanings, impersonal approach and cleverly thought-out structure they invite the readers to do the impression creation and so ask how we have done this and how we have managed to judge someone who is known to us only through a few lines of poetry.

Mrs. Megan Mayer And Her Kindergarten Class At Roosevelt...

On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 I observed Mrs. Megan Mayer and her kindergarten class at Roosevelt Elementary School. When I got to her class, they were preparing themselves to go to the school garden and learn about fruits, and planting. For this activity they partnered up with another kindergarten class right next door. With the two classes we all walked outside to the back of the playground where Roosevelt has a miniature garden. Between both of the classes there were three groups, A, B, and C as well as three sections of the garden activity. One group would sit down with the other kindergarten teacher Mrs. Peterson and they would draw what they had learned in class previously, another group would go with a different teacher who worked at the†¦show more content†¦She told me about her classroom rules which are mutual respect, attentive listening and appreciations no put downs. She spent the first three weeks of school going over these three rules and afterwards she had each stu dent write their name on colored paper which is their contract, their signature on that paper means they will follow those rules throughout the year. She has another rule in her classroom called â€Å"Kelso’s Choices†. Kelso’s Choices are nine different choices they can make on how to solve their problems in class. When the students come to an issue they have to choose two of the choices on the poster before going to the teacher. Some of the choices on there include, walking away, talking it out, apologizing, telling them to stop, etc. I really liked the idea of Kelso’s Choices because it teaches them problem solving as well as social skills. Instead of being unfair or going to the teacher they have the opportunity to solve the issues and be fair towards each other. After recess it was the children’s â€Å"Planned review time† which is where they all spread throughout the classroom and explore in the classroom and play with toys they like and play with their friends. This is where the kids learn and practice their social skills, practice being kind to one another,

Evaluation Of A Interview, A Friend From Sinus Infection,...

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