Empiricism...

What do you make of empiricism's claim that all of our knowledge is based on the use of our senses? What areas of knowledge do you think support this theory? Are there any types of knowledge (mathematical knowledge, for example?) that you think are a problem for this theory?

The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.

Empiricism, an oppsoing theory to rationalism. Senses can't support our knowledge, awareness in the kind of forms is a sturcture of a true knowledge. Commonsense on the other hand, can view senses to provide us knowledge, this however is adopted in some sort of empiricist view.

This theory would be claimed that our source of knowledge is based on experience. One reason might be that every proposition that we know is either a direct report on experience or a report whose truth is inferred from experience. A second reason for maintaining that all knowledge is dependent on experience would be that we can have no ideas or concepts which are not derived from experience. Mathematics for example, the truth in their area of knowledge are independently from experience. I have read it somewhere that in an unarguable statement that, mathematics ability is to yield important knowledge  about the world. I know math is frustrating sometimes but the for someone to have the knowledge of doing such problems, hands down.

Their are areas or types of knowledge, priori which is obtained without the need of observing the world. And posteriori or what they called the empirical knowledge which is obtained after observing the world or interacting with it in some way.

sites: Empiricism

Descartes...

What do you think about methodological skepticism? Do we ever follow this procedure in our daily lives, or do we do the opposite. In other words, do we tend to believe things until it becomes impossible to believe them, rather than doubting everything we can? If so, does this suggest that methodological skepticism is not a good strategy? 


Descartes was regarded as a thinker during his lifetime in able to provide for his philosophical thoughts/works he had acquired this method of methodological skepticism. It is to discard any ideas that can be doubted, and then to restitute them in order to acquire a true knowledge. I think this idea might work to some people who are overly stressed. Think about it, there's a word called "assume" where i think everybody uses it before they even have the understanding of what the event/story is. And this is when we cause an impulsive thought of doubt. In some cases we are allowed to gather facts to be able to state the truth about something. 


Do we follow this procedure? Not necessarily, but for a better acquisition in our daily lives i think we need to practice this method. With our economy, whats happening with our climate, and some other events i think we have to stop doubting the impossible outcome or of whats going to happen next. Human brain is full of skepticism. That is why sometimes we get anxiety attacks because we put doubt on everything. Negativity is what we always think first. 


I won't say that this method is not a good strategy, but i think it would be helpful for us.

Plato's cave...

In the Allegory of the Cave, Socrates suggests that, without philosophical education, we are all like the prisoners in the cave. What are your thoughts on this? How is philosophy supposed to be liberating? Do you think Socrates is right to be so pessimistic about life without philosophy?


The prisoners in the cave are the people that are chained down to see nothing but dark, blinded by the darkness and have no knowledge of what is going on in the outside world. The fire represents their only light which may not even be enough to see walls, only shadows that casts by it. In reality, we are like prisoners of our own thoughts, beliefs and perspective. We can apply what we learn from our parents and teachers, priests, or community leaders but we literally dont have to chain ourselves with only that. A person's mind is like a crops field that keeps growing, plant a seed and it'll grow. We can't just stick to what one person will say, in realization its just an opinion.


I believe philosophy is liberating because we are our own philosophers. We learn, and we apply. We teach and people apply. But whats liberating to it is that we can add soemthing to it, we can put a design to make it our own. Humor it a little bit.

What can we learn from philosophy...

Philosophy... critical thinking. Maybe with this course i can learn and have the understanding of what really goes in the mind of my two year old, but then again he's still growing so i can still play tricks on him *evil smile*

what makes philosophy interesting is that there are a lot of ways to think. our mind is a field of knowledge, at times when we read we can think of how the story goes, but then to others it comes out very different. and sometimes its just about the same. on the higher ground of arguements people always have misunderstanding because one could be thinking of a subject but the other person is thinking of a completely different topic. 

balance. thats what i want to learn in philosophy. how to balance a critical mind. thoughts can be pursuasive, it can lure you to something else that's really out of the main course. and its hard because sometimes you want to believe on whats out in the open but then your mind wants you to think of something else. i know its confusing, thats why im always confuse. 

have a good weekend...