PHILOSOPHY PAPER ON KNOWLEDGE

Philosophy paper on knowledge

Philosophy paper on knowledge

Introduction

Debates about knowledge have continued unabated since at least the time of Socrates. For example: (a) Is truth universal or relative? (b) What is the foundation of knowledge? (c) Is truth obtainable or is inductive probability the best we can obtain in the human sciences? The famous Greek dialogues concerning truth and knowledge are still highly relevant today. As constructed here, the Platonic position sees knowledge as necessary, absolute, and unchanging, and this includes knowledge of axiological concepts such as justice and virtue. For Platonists, knowledge is desired and distinct from “mere belief.” Statements are true or false.

Thesis Statement

The knowledge debate between absolutism and relativism is at the core of the quantitative versus qualitative paradigm wars, with advocates of quantitative research, and advocates of qualitative research.

Arguments

David Hume's problem of induction is closely related to this issue of proof in human scientific research; according to this problem, all we can ever obtain is knowledge of what we experience, but all we experience are particulars. Relatedly, the future might not resemble the past (perhaps the sun will not appear tomorrow), and what we have not observed might be different from what we have observed, eliminating the possibility of certainty in theoretical generalizations and statements about unobservables. Many theories, generalizations, and laws in science, however, make claims to universal knowledge (e.g., the law of universal gravitation in physics, the law of effect in behavioral psychology). The law of universal gravitation in physics might be true, but we cannot ever know if it is, and the law of effect in the psychology of learning clearly is not true in a strict sense.

According to Hume, knowledge should be fully grounded in experience, that is, we should not take as knowledge what has not been perceived or cannot be perceptible by senses. In such a way positivism pretends to express the true spirit of science. It represents an attempt at exact methodology of science and true scientific philosophy. Science, especially natural science, is regarded as the paradigm model of a true knowledge and a model for philosophy as well. Even philosophy itself must become a “positive philosophy,” (that is, a philosophical science based on experience and “positive” science). Comte's monumental six-volume Cours de philosophie positive (Course in Positive Philosophy) was an encyclopedic project comparable to that of the Enlightenment Encyclopedists, in which he developed a complete system of philosophy to provide the foundations for the social order he envisaged

Rationalism

To be a rationalist is to take up at smallest one of three claims. The Intuition/Deduction thesis anxieties how we become warranted in believing propositions in a specific subject area.

The Intuition/Deduction Thesis: Some propositions in a specific subject locality, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still other ones are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions (Kennnedy 2001).

Intuition is a pattern of reasonable insight. Intellectually grabbing a proposition, we just "see" it to be factual in such a way as to pattern a factual, warranted conviction ...