Epistemology: Logic and Knowledge Essay

What is friendship? How do we contend what we issue? Do we real know eitherthing at exclusively? These chiefs, as well as duplex others that draw near when hunting for the answers ar what epistemology is all close. Various philosophers present their suffer positions in which they try to provide answers to these questions. From impertinentism to internalism, empiricism to rationalism, and even skepticism, we ar exposed to a wide variety of sorts that these signifyers implement to visit the report to truly objective thinking. It erect be said with little to no agate line that intimacy implies truth.You cant know or sothing if its fictional it just isnt so. You can start by verbaliseing knowledge is true belief, unless you need something more to prove your true belief. Philosophers bitch this something a warrant. in that respectfore we come to the conclusion that knowledge is warranted true belief. Now, this begs the question what is warrant? This question leads us to a major division epistemic thinking externalism and internalism. Internalists consider that a belief is warranted if it stands in the right distinguish of relation to other beliefs.They aver that knowledge is warrant true belief. Externalists believe that a belief is warranted if it stands in the right sort of relation to the world. They say that knowledge is true belief arising from a reli equal process external to ourselves that connects us with the known (309). E very philosophers views fall into whiz of these both schools of thought. The externalist approach is very dominant in Indian philosophy. The Nyaya philosophers practiced Externalist Realism. fit to Nyaya philosophy, knowledge is true belief produced by a source of knowledge, or pramana.There argon four sources of knowledge that the Nyaya Sutra, the earliest form of Nyaya work, characterizes. These are cognition, inference, analogy, and affirmation (310). There are guidelines to determine that our sou rce of knowledge we use to justify a belief is genuine. A lore must be veridical, must not be mediated by language, and must arise from a direct sensory relationship with the object known (310-311).There are three types of inference inferring the effect from the cause, inferring the cause fromthe effect, and inferring a popular rule from its instances (311). For example, you see some single light a scented candle, so you infer the room will smell good. If the room smells good, you infer that a scented candle was illumine. From this, you infer that in general, when scented candles are lighted it makes the room smell good. We make inferences from things that we perceive, however, inference does not reduce to perception since it produces knowledge almost things we do not immediately perceive (311). coincidence is restricted to the acquisition of vocabulary only because presumably one would watch of new objects through direct perception, reliable inference, or trustworthy testimony (notes class 4 9/4/13). We learn most of what we know from the testimony of others (what they say and write). Their telling us is the cause of us well-read it we are made to know things by what other people say (311). A source of knowledge justifies both its result and itself it is self-revealing like a self-illumining lamp. This is how they make a induction for other knowledge to be justified by.Nagarjuna, a skeptic, rejects projects of epistemology. He believes in the Buddhist message of interdependent origination, which states that everything is interconnected, and emptiness, which states that everything is without a reality of its own (314). He rejects the idea of knowledge sources, because there is no source for the identification of those sources. If you look for one, thusly what is the source for that source? Nagarjuna calls this fadeless search for sources an infinite regress. In response to the argument of the sources being self-proving he designates that something to be proved cannot be a prover.(316-317) For example, if a couple with a daughter has another child, a boy, then that daughter becomes a babe. At the same time, the boy becomes a brother. The young woman is becoming a sister because the boy is born, but the boy is becoming a brother because the girl exists, so who produces whom? Gangesha, founder of the New Logic, states that a skeptics argument is self-defeating because it employs the very logical patterns that it denounces (317). If it is impossible to know anything as skeptics argue it is, then how can the skeptic know what they are talking about?Skeptics use inference to guide action, so why is not hunky-dory for philosophers to use it to support their theories (317)? Gangesha claims that skeptics are hypocrites because they doubt in the seminar room what they aim outside of it (318). They doubt a philosophers tenablenessing for believe that cars on the streets are real, but wouldnt stand in front of one driving towards them . In Gangeshas head, a true skeptic is one who wouldnt move out of the way of oncoming traffic, wondering whether its all a dream.Nargarjunas arguments are smart and make sense, but the realists argument of the four pramanas is strong enough to not be debunked by him. You have to be able to have a layover where you can stop questioning and just trust your senses. If you see something that looks likes orangeness juice, smells like orange juice, feels like orange juice, and tastes like orange juice, your perception is enough to prove that is indeed orange juice. Gangesha similarly makes a very good point about the hypocrisy of skepticism because if skeptics truly believed that you could not know anything, how would they even know to believe that?It seems that a true skeptic would not be able to live sanely. On the other hand, there are the internalists. There are three traditions of internalism in Western philosophy rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism. Plato begins the ration alist tradition which sustains that we can are able to attain knowledge independent of experience (604). He argues that our knowledge of the solid world exists because of our prior acquaintance with forms (334). Forms are abstract populars that exist independent of us.They make things what they are, and enable us to think about things as they are (599). Knowledge is the subjective possession of an objective truth (notes class 7 9/11/13). Plato states that when we know something, we can reflect on our reasons for believing it and be able to provide an account that proves why we know what we know is true (334). According to the Meno, an account of X must meet at least three conditions. First, it must be applicable to all instances of X (not in addition narrow). Second, it must not be applicable to things that are not X (not too broad).And third, it must not be circular (not entertain in the account itself any mention of that which is to be defined or explained) (335). An example of an account being circular would be defining a friendship as a relationship between two friends. In the Theaetetus, Plato rejects the definition of knowledge as perception as too narrow. He argues that knowledge is justified true belief and there are sanctioned items, like letters, that we cant justify by anything else, but shut up know more clearly and directly than anything else.These items are a foundation of knowledge that justify everything else. Platos idea of forms seems a little too out there to be legitimate. There is nothing tangible about them which makes them exhausting to believe in. Its weird to use something so hard to prove the existences of as a basis of knowledge. Another rationalist is Rene Descartes. Descartes also uses a new strong skeptical argument to show that there is a foundation of certain beliefs on which all other knowledge rests (373). His goal is to stop the infinite regress by finding foundational truths that cannot be doubted.His method was to d oubt literally everything possible to see if he could find an unquestionable foundation for knowledge. He believes that illusions and dreaming give us reason to doubt everything we have ever learned from our senses (374). Descartes finally found a secure foundation for knowledge in that you cannot doubt that you exist. There can be no strong skeptical arguments made against I think or I am. If you doubt that you exist, who is doing the doubting (374)? Descartes theory is very interesting.The way he doubts everything to prevent doubt makes it seem almost foolproof. The third rationalist is G. W. Leibniz. Leibniz believes that no matter how many instances there are that confirm a general truth, there are not enough to establish the universal necessity of the same truth (385). Leibniz believes in a foundation of knowledge that justifies everything else. The items in the foundation are known, they are necessary truths and in fact, some are innate to our minds (386). He states that obje cts of our intellectual ideas are immediate and invariably present in our understanding (386).The first philosopher of empiricism is Aristotle. Aristotle deals with the separation of the mind and corpse. He distinguishes sensation which happens through sense organs from thought which seems to be a function of mind, and argues that the mind is separable from the body (notes class 7 9/11/13). He that since everything is a possible object of thought, then that in the soul which is called mind is before it thinks, is not actually any real thing, and this is why it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body (344).Empiricism claims that sense experience is the ultimate starting point for all knowledge. Aristotle states that forms are not constituents of reality like Plato believes, but rather products are the mind and the mind takes on form from experiences (notes class 7 9/11/13). While none of these philosophers ideas can ever be vitamin C% proven, thats exactly what is i nteresting about epistemology. It could be studied endlessly. The search for what constitutes knowledge and true belief is a difficult one and these unused ideas are still fascinating to minds of every generation.