The Bundle Theory by David Hume

1369 Words3 Pages

The mystery of consciousness has puzzled humans for thousands of years. We feel pain, hunger, and countless other perceived emotions that we know to be true. We are all aware that we are conscious; however, nobody has discovered whether or not the human body is organized in a specific way that leads to consciousness. The fact is that the existence of consciousness, the very essence of knowledge, is undeniable, regardless of the lack of a concrete systematic organization of facts to explain it. This can be explained by Aristotle’s idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In order to consider the statement, “Knowledge is nothing more than the systematic organization of facts”, we must consider different ways of knowing, such as reason, perception, and emotion. By exploring two areas of knowledge, the natural sciences and ethics, I will illustrate that knowledge, which can be defined as “justified true belief” , is ultimately greater than the systematic organization of facts. The natural sciences and ethics both implement the systematic organization of facts (through the organization of models and the organization of morals, respectively), which leads to a holistic reasoning process in order to obtain knowledge in natural sciences and a categorical reasoning process to determine what is right and wrong in ethics.
The natural sciences attempt to explain the physical world through the interaction of organized models. Hypotheses, theories, and laws are related to each other in order to create a web of ideas that explain the connections between natural phenomena. These hypotheses, theories, and laws are made by observing objective truths about the physical world and then using that empirical evidence to reason why cer...

... middle of paper ...

... subjective and therefore it would not qualify as justified true belief. To conclude, knowledge is more than the systematic organization of facts, but relationships between observable truths and objective morals are essential in ascertaining the justified true beliefs in these areas of knowledge.

Works Cited

Fieser, James (2008). Chapter 6: Knowledge. Great Issues in Philosophy. Retrieved on February 1, 2014 from https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/120/6-knowledge.htm. Web.
N.A. Synergy [Def 1]. In Oxford English Dictionary, Retrieved February 1, 2014 from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/synergy. Web.
Robinson, H. (2004). Substance. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 30, 2014 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/. Web.
Velasquez, M. (2011). Philosophy: A Text with Readings. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Print.

Open Document