A Universal Perspective on Belief
(*note to reader:I hope this gives all of you struggling with some concepts in Intro to Philosophy a clearer view on how to approach your own paper, please do not plagerise)
The approaches given by Pierce and Nagel to the epistemological questions of doubt and belief, though diverse in that they are strictly pragmatist and Cartesian, contain a similar underlying principle. They both serve to show that belief cannot come from any source that appeals to one’s feelings or purposes, experiences or impressions. Beliefs must arise from a non-personal means. Although this is a commonality between the two approaches in epistemology, they are greatly different arguments in their focuses. Pierce’s pragmatist approach surfaces along the lines of techniques people use to found their beliefs of reality, here assuming reality from the start, and using that as a foundation to delve into questions of the unknown. Nagel’s look at the Cartesian approach primarily doubts reality, and uses that as the grounds for the rest of his argument, asking how we can know anything beyond ourselves. These approaches lead to very different views on epistemology.
Pragmatism: Pierce’s Approach to Epistemology
Pierce’s approach to his “epistemological questions” of doubt and belief is solely pragmatic in nature, in that he states beliefs are established in habits, which reoccur in our determining of our actions; doubt, on the other hand, is an uneasy state we want to release ourselves from, to come to a belief (46). We then gather from this, that doubt and belief have “positive effects” on us, both causing us to act. Pierce begins his approach with a discussion of the “irritation of doubt”(46). This he d...
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...eviews the Cartesian approach to epistemology, showing us the unreliability in assuming a reality apart from ourselves. How we can come to any sort of belief on anything is questioned in both works, yet in taking completely different approaches, they delve into the complete realm of knowledge. The cohesion between the two approaches is purely that they refute a personal or exclusive method in determining one’s beliefs. Beliefs must be universal, transcendent of the individual.
Bibliography:
Bibliography
Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Charles Sanders Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief”; Popular Science Monthly 12 (November 1877), 46-53.
John Cottingham, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Descartes. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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(1) Kelly, Thomas (2005). “The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement.” Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Eds. Tamar Szabo Gendler and John Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pg.1 – 36.
The thesis of the Epilogue comes from an unorthodox definition of faith and belief. Belief in the Cartesian World refers to something that has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The key term in this definition
Philosophers are inclined to evaluate arguments carefully. This page is aimed to help students analyze the complex elements of Descartes' proof into simpler parts and to provide some explanation of how those work, so that the student may grasp the nat ure of the proof and thus be in a much better position to give a reasoned evaluation of it. Such an exercise is both interesting and useful in itself, and also helps the student understand philosophical machinery which Descartes puts...
Descartes, R., & Cottingham, J. (1986). Meditation on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Donald A. Cress. 4th ed. N.p.: Hackett, 1998. Print.
Nagel is a profound philosopher, who defends a customary view of science a way to gain knowledge of the world. In the argument, Nagel makes it clear that there is good reason to believe that God doesn’t exist, however, he does make it clear that his views make fall along the lines of Buddhism. Nagel claims that he his questioning the theological proposition to believe in God. Nagel has given two points in proving that God does not exist. The first point goes along the lines that of that God exist, however, they don’t have a good reason to believe in God but they also have no good reason to not believe in God. Or we cannot truly understand the concept of God exist because according to Nagel its nonsense- although, we understand it as an expression
4. Descartes, Rene, and Roger Ariew. Meditations, objections, and replies. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 2006. Print.
John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), was first criticized by the philosopher and theologian, John Norris of Bemerton, in his "Cursory Reflections upon a Book Call'd, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," and appended to his Christian Blessedness or Discourses upon the Beatitudes (1690). Norris's criticisms of Locke prompted three replies, which were only posthumously published. Locke has been viewed, historically, as the winner of this debate; however, new evidence has emerged which suggests that Norris's argument against the foundation of knowledge in sense-perception that the Essay advocated was a valid and worthy critique, which Locke did, in fact, take rather seriously. Charlotte Johnston's "Locke's Examination of Malebranche and John Norris" (1958), has been widely accepted as conclusively showing that Locke's replies were not philosophical, but rather personal in origin; her essay, however, overlooks critical facts that undermine her subjective analysis of Locke's stance in relation to Norris's criticisms of the Essay. This paper provides those facts, revealing the philosophical—not personal—impetus for Locke's replies.
This paper will dispute that scientific beliefs are not the right way to accept a belief and it will question if we should let one accept their rights to their own beliefs. In Williams James article Will to Believe, we accept his perspective on how we set and fix our beliefs. This paper will first outline his overview on the argument that someone does not choose their belief but rather one just has them. Following, it will outline my perspective on how we set our beliefs and agreement with purse. Then it will explain how other methodologies such as science cannot conclude to one’s true beliefs. Science has been seen as a way to perceive life and taken to consideration as the truth. This paper should conclude that humans define ourselves by
Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings, tr. John Cottingham and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Interpretive epistemology, which stems from idealist ontology, asserts that the world is made up of ideas: about oneself, others, society, or nature (Giacomini, ...
Ed. Michael Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 36.2 (2013): 181-82. Print. The.
The argument that is used in the idea of skepticism has comparable and incompatible views given from Augustine and Al-Ghazali. Both monologues cover and explain the doubts one should have, due to the
ABSTRACT: The notions of representationalism and antirepresentationalism are introduced and used in contemporary philosophical discussions by Richard Rorty to describe his and the neopragmatists' attitude toward traditional problems of epistemology. Rorty means that the history of philosophy shows that there are no final answers to the traditional questions about knowledge, truth, and representation; consequently, they should be rejected. Rorty thinks such questions should be eliminated from philosophy since there is no possibility to get outside of our mind and language. We cannot say anything about a mind-transcendent or language-transcendent, nonlocal or eternal reality. Hilary Putnam agrees with Rorty on this, but not with the conclusion that we should reject traditional philosophical questions. For Putnam, the epistemological questions are worthwhile asking and, although we cannot find the final correct answers, we should continue our investigations as if there were final answers. Our struggles with those problems can lead to refinements of the formulations and to cognitive developments. Putnam proposes a quasi-realism which is often called "internal realism." Rorty rejects every refinement of realism as still realism and believes that the questions of knowledge, truth, and representation lead to regresses ad infinitum or to circular reasoning.