The first question that needs to be is asked to complete this analysis is: How are knowledge claims created? A knowledge claim is a judgment of something we believe to be true with or without sufficient evidence. Knowledge claims are what we create as a means to justify and/or rationalize our beliefs and thoughts. Knowledge claims are created in an attempt to define and categorize those thoughts. One way knowledge claims are created is through the personal convictions reinforced by others. We live in a culture where we are dependent upon others to reassure us in our beliefs, and in doing so this allows us to form our own idea of what the truth is. For example, I have created knowledge claims based on the influence of others. When I once visited the zoo at the age of 8, I was convinced that elephants and hippos were the same type of animal. When I spoke of my belief to one of my fellow classmates, she assured me that what I was believing was true. Therefore, I created a knowledge claim that elephants and hippos were the same animal based on the reassurance provided to me by someone else. Despite knowing that this knowledge claim is now false, I created that knowledge claim based on the similar belief of others. I felt confident in my “belief” due to the fact that someone else had a similar belief that I did, thus allowing me to feel confident in what I thought to be true, therefore leading to the creation of my knowledge claim. In the scientific community, if a hypothesis has been proven and is widely recognized and is supported by the other logic of scientists without actually doing their own research of experiment, then what has been proven true, they believe to be true. When I also claim to know something, I am able to reach ...
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... a hole of doubt, therefore decreasing the reliability held within whichever knowledge claim I am trying to prove to be correct. Within our society, there have been occasional instances where doubt has been heightened during the journey to prove a knowledge claim correct. The process of a skeptic works only to illuminate the weaknesses in our knowledge claims and in doing this will prove or disprove the claim itself. There have been many examples of skepticism within the fields of science that have led to doubt such as the ability for other planets to sustain life and skepticism within history can be seen in the simple idea of whether or not certain events even took place in the past. The further we dig, the more we discover that contradicts and weakens what we believe. Overall, skepticism is a pathway that leads to a more accurate knowledge claim and a better truth.
...ools and skills for skeptical thinking that are essential to survive in society today, many of which rely on critical thinking and common sense. In order for someone to be able to discern between true and false, right and wrong, they must be able to discuss the hypothesis, ignore any position of power, cast aside personal attachment to the subject or hypothesis, create a sound argument, have an understanding of Occam’s Razor, and have the ability to test the subject or hypothesis for falsities. These skills all prove necessary and important when comparing and contrasting anything, whether it’s from a scientific perspective or something that affects one’s daily life.
The idea of skepticism contains many different opinions, viewpoints, and details all within one big topic. Skepticism, in shorter terms, is defined as “the theory that we do not have any knowledge. We cannot be completely certain that any of our beliefs are true.” The two main types of skepticism are known as academic skepticism, arguing that the only thing we can know is that we know nothing, and Pyrrhonian skepticism, which rejects the ideas of academic skepticism entirely. Two philosophers that had very strong attitudes towards skepticism, were René Descartes who was a global skeptic, and David Hume who entertained both global and local skepticism. Due to their theories about skepticism as a whole, we can now understand it and put our own
hat for a belief to be true knowledge, it must be supported by evidence. Evidentialism also claims
Epistemology is purposed with discovering and studying what knowledge is and how we can classify what we know, how we know it, and provide some type of framework for how we arrived at this conclusion. In the journey to identify what knowledge is the certainty principle was one of the first concepts that I learned that explained how we, as humans, consider ourselves to know something. The certainty concept suggests that knowledge requires evidence that is sufficient to rule out the possibility of error. This concept is exemplified in cases like The Gettier problem in the instance that we suppose (S) someone to know (P) a particular proposition. As Gettier established the Justified True Belief as a conceptual formula for knowledge, certainty can be understood with the proper perspective and background. The certainty principle explains that knowledge requires evidence to be “sufficient” to rule out the possibility of error. This means that what we determine to be acknowledged as “knowledge” must present justification in order to be accepted believed as knowledge. This is important because Skepticism doubts the validation of knowledge and how we come to any such conclusion of justifying what we “know” indubitably as knowledge. This is the overarching problem with skepticism. Instead of having a solid stance on how to define knowledge, skeptics simply doubt that a reason or proposition offered is correct and suppose it to be false or flawed in some manner. See the examples below as identifiers of the skeptic way of life.
Beliefs unlike our knowledge of things have the quality of either being true or false. Like with all information of things, persons, places or objects we either know of their existence or we do not. There does not exist a state of mind where there exists truth or falsehood associated with something that is known by the existence of that thing. We could be wrong about the knowledge we have of things but that knowledge could not be deceptive in nature, you either know of the existence of a thing or you do not. This means that while belief can be true or false knowledge of things does not have this property. Conversely we know that beliefs can both be true or false as many people can have widely varying opinions on the same subject that contradict
Throughout history, people struggled to understand the world and obtain knowledge through questioning, and experiments. And, there were many cases when people reviewed the same facts, and did not come up with the same opinions and hence derived different conclusions. Therefore, conflicts occurred and some facts were not accepted by all people. For example, there are multiple debates on whether ‘the first Moon landing event’ actually took place or not. Though this event had a lot of support, the arguments by the skeptics could not be ignored. Some people questioned the video footage a...
To believe something is to know it so in order to know something, it is not enough to believe it- you have to learn it or have a good reason to believe it. Skepticism talks about two types of position: knowledge and justification. The skeptic argues that we do not know what we think we do it is only a thought. Skepticism of knowledge says there is no such thing as knowledge, and justification denies the belief of justified belief existing. These two are closely related which depends on the relationship between the factors of knowledge and justification: if knowledge entails justified belief, as theorists say, then justification skepticism entails knowledge skepticism. Gettier and Nozick broke down the subject and explain their point of views of it. To defend these views, skeptics lay out many requirements for knowledge or justified belief, and try to show that these requirements are not met. It still stand that’s why if I know something and I believe it that which I claim knowledge then why do I need a reason to believe it? Is black white?
Cartesian Skepticism, created by René Descartes, is the process of doubting ones’ beliefs of what they happen to consider as true in the hopes of uncovering the absolute truths in life. This methodology is used to distinguish between what is the truth and what is false, with anything that cannot be considered an absolute truth being considered a reasonable doubt. Anything which then becomes categorized as a reasonable doubt is perceived as false. As Descartes goes through this process, he then realizes that the one thing that can be considered an absolutely truth is his and every other individual’s existence. Along with the ideology of Cartesian skepticism, through the thinking process, we are capable of the ability to doubt that which is surrounding them. This ability to think logically and doubt is what leads us to the confirmation of our existence.
What we assume is knowledge in society is only what we have been told or been persuaded to believe by other high powers and dominant economical, intellectual or even political positions. For example, what proof do we have that the earth is round? We might not have actually seen it for ourselves or figured it out on our own, but it is what we have been taught to believe. “This idea simplifies what the earth actually is, and that such statements trick us into thinking that we truly understand that Earth’s shape, when really, there are many place...
Skepticism increases the self-esteem and confidence in students by allowing them to feel more relief if they disobey some of the social behaviors or standards. Many people, especially at a young age, tend to feel guilty if they violated some of the typical behaviors that are usual in our society, but skepticism will allow them to be unique and individual and have their own habits and not to feel ashamed if they are different in the way they behave or think. With skepticism, students will understand that they should only do what makes them happy and their life. For example, it is typical for our society to get a specific education, get married before a certain age, and have a certain career status. Many people however, do not understand that it is their choice how to live their life and if they want to have an unusual career, or get married after a certain age they can definitely do it because it is their life.
...ssurance and the rejection of shifting ground and sand in order to find rock or clay ”(50). He use doubt for finding truth which has no doubt in it and not for doubting itself.
In many aspects of our lives, the use of faith as a basis for knowledge can be found. Whether it is faith in the advice of your teacher, faith in a God or faith in a scientific theory, it is present. But what is faith? A definition of faith in a theory of knowledge context is the confident belief or trust in a knowledge claim by a knower, without the knower having conclusive evidence. This is because if a knowledge claim is backed up by evidence, then we would use reason rather than faith as a basis for knowledge . If we define knowledge as ‘justified true belief’, it can be seen that faith, being without justification, can never fulfill this definition, and so cannot be used as a reliable basis for knowledge. However, the question arises, what if a certain knowledge claim lies outside of the realm of reason? What if a knowledge claim cannot be justified by empirical evidence and reasoning alone, such as a religious knowledge claim? It is then that faith allows the knower to decide what is knowledge and what is not, when something cannot be definitively proved through the use of evidence. When assessing faith as a basis for knowledge in the natural sciences, the fact arises that without faith in the research done before us, it is impossible to develop further knowledge on top of it. Yet at the same time, if we have unwavering faith in existing theories, they would never be challenged, and so our progress of knowledge in the natural sciences would come to a standstill. Although I intend to approach this essay in a balanced manner, this essay may be subject to a small degree of bias, due to my own non-religious viewpoint.
The definition of truth is 'that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality' or 'a fact or belief'. Truth is both objective and subjective and I seek to derive to what extent are personal and shared knowledge questions valid. Shared knowledge is objective, highly structured, systematic in its nature and the product of more then one individual. An example of shared knowledge is, Physics for example. A construct of knowledge that is shared. Many have access to it and can contribute to it. In this case shared knowledge is shown as an objective and agreed upon entity. Physics, a science in this case is a tangible process backed up with evidence. Where as personal knowledge is subjective, an individual's interpretative belief and is shaped
In my Theory of Knowledge class, I learned that belief and truth can be very contrasting ideas. In my opinion, I can believe something that may not necessarily be true. However, there can also be truth that is impossible for me to believe. Belief is a mental state in which someone is confident in the existence of something, but may not necessarily have objective proof to support their claim. Truth is objective and public; it is eternal and unchanging without biast. People can believe in something different and can also all believe in the same idea. The overlap between truth and belief creates knowledge; therefore, an acquisition of knowledge will bring us further to what we believe to be a ‘truth’. Knowledge can be acquired in several ways, such as using emotion, reason and sense perception. These ways of knowing affect how we perceive reality, and help us create our beliefs.
To consider a theory as truthful, it must be convincing which means the theory must stand the challenges that may occur such as persuading people for it being true, without any questioning about its value. Every individual will be convinced in a different type of way on different levels. For example, when one considers the large influence of media on our society today, some may think the news is as accurate as possible, and think every thing that is said must definitely be true. Only very basic descriptions and explanations may be required to convince someone that something is true or not. For others, detailed explanations with supporting facts may have to be provided, for them to believe what they hear, even if the theory is completely accurate. Another factor that is relevant is whether the individual is influenced by their subconscious tend or their intuition, this means whether they want to believe in the theory or not. Emotional bases and using reasoning are another two factors that may influence our beliefs. When looking at natural science, emotion does not play a large role, but rather reasoning because natural science is based on facts rather than individual interpretatio...