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...
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... 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.
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Life without knowledge would be worthless. Talking about knowledge what i mean is knowledge about something. The description of the state of some object is knowledge. The object may be either abstract or physical. Some examples of abstract things include memory, feelings and time. But how we obtain knowledge? Many philosophers tried to find an adequate answer to this question. They came up with so many theories summarizing the process of knowledge. But none of them all was able to state a clear definition of pure knowledge. One of those philosophers is Plato. In this essay I am going to discuss the concept of knowledge according to Plato’s philosophic conception of knowledge. I will clarify what knowledge is not perception. And from this I will move to explain the justified true belief theory. Then I will show the lack in this theory by referring to counterexamples: the Gettier cases. To end up with a conclusion that states what is my understanding of the process of knowledge.
The philosopher, Linda Zagzebski, offers a virtue based definition of knowledge. She arrives at this definition by presenting numerous accounts of knowledge definitions that fail, explore why they fail, then shows how her theory satisfies knowledge criteria.
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Hume distinguishes two categories into which “all the objects of human reason or enquiry” may be placed into: Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact (15). In regards to matters of fact, cause and effect seems to be the main principle involved. It is clear that when we have a fact, it must have been inferred...
In this paper, I examine the connection between judgments of fact and moral judgments in an attempt to discern whether moral judgments are simply a subset of judgments of fact. I will look mostly at an argument posed by many moral realists that takes moral facts to be “supervenient natural facts which are independent of our theorizing about them”1 and in which moral judgments are determined by objective facts which relate to human flourishing or pleasure and pain. I will also, though, take a look at the fact/value gap and determine the effect on the connection between moral judgments and judgments of fact of an attempt to close this gap.
The Natural Sciences explore the knowledge we gain through the physical world such as ch...
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In The Metaphysics, Aristotle states, “All men by nature desire to know.” Although, this is a generalization, of this insightful statement about the nature of humans and human understanding this statement truly captures what Aristotle was trying to figure out about humans and their thinking. Everyone has a desire to know or to understand. As rational beings we tend to contemplate very simple ideas to the most complicated, like our existence, or parts of the universe, or the universe as a whole. Aristotle is known as the father of modern day psychology and biology, even though many of his ideas of these two sciences was proven incorrect. The most important concepts of Aristotle’s theory of human understanding are the notion of cause, the infinite, and the soul.
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This paper with address the different positions of the mind/body problem. It will discuss what substance dualism is and how Descartes’ understood it. As well it will look at materialism, more specifically reductive and eliminative materialism. With looking at criticism from both, it will be apparent which of the two is more plausible. Substance dualism is consisted of two foundations, the mind and body.
The Deductive-Nomological (D-N) Model gives an account of explanation through its basic form, the Covering Law Model. The D-N Model asks the basic question “What is a scientific explanation?” The aim of this paper is to answer that question and further develop the definition of an explanation by problematizing the D-N Model’s account of explanation, providing a solution to one of those problems, and then further problematizing that solution. By examining the details of an example that the D-N Model explains well, we can see why this model was popular in the first place before describing two of its major problems. Then, by looking at Wesley Salmon’s account of scientific explanation, we can see just how problematic the flaws in the D-N Model
Consciousness is not a term which could be well defined by science but a property of mind which can only be felt individually but sometimes observed by a third person. It is a state of mind. The existence of consciousness can be debated through questions such as (a)What is consciousness? (b)How does consciousness exist (in what form)? (c) Why does consciousness exist? What is the purpose of existence of consciousness if it exists? Our aim is not to definitively answer these questions but find ways to debate the existence of consciousness
Production of knowledge is generally seen in a positive light. However, when ethics and morality become involved in the process of production, judgements will undoubtedly be made that may seem to limit the availability of that knowledge. Ethical judgements are made by the combination of a knower, his or her standard of value, and the situation itself. In the field of the arts and natural sciences, ethics plays a crucial role in the extent one may possibly be allowed to go when discovering new knowledge. Reason and emotion are important ways of knowing that help guide knowers in making certain moral decisions.