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Reality of our knowledge


Every morning we wake up and see the sun rise in the morning, and when we go to sleep
we see it set behind the horizon. We don't doubt that tomorrow or the day after it will come up
again. How and why are we so sure of that? In this essay I will be explaining that due to inductive
reasoning and our senses people believe in something that happens every day, but also how we
can't rely on that reasoning or our senses fully because nobody knows what will happen in the
future and if there will even be a sun in the sky.
Inductive reasoning is the reasoning from detailed facts to general principles. People see
the sun rise and set everyday so they believe that it will do the same in the future. In the book
Exploring Philosophy, it says that David Hume's philosophy is that "Our knowledge of the world
depends entirely on the evidence provided by our senses". He says that everything we know
should be based from our senses. people believe that there will be a sun in the sky tomorrow
because they see it there every day.
Most humans can't tell us the future, they can't say if the sun will actually rise tomorrow or
if it will actually set in the evening. People rely on Inductive reasoning so much that they have

no room for uncertainty. In the book Exploring Philosophy a philosopher by the name of Rene
Descartes tries to find a starting point that can withstand all doubt, he says "the evidence of our
senses sometimes misleads us, it does not provide a secure basis for knowledge." Rene states that
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we can't rely on our senses because we might be wrong. We can't have our senses and inductive
reasoning influence or beliefs.
In philosophy a person can't have a full yes or no answer, they can't be certain of what will
happen and/or how it happens because there is always a way to contradict the theories and
philosophies. David Hume relies on inductive reasoning and his senses to believe that there will be
a sunrise and sunset the next day, but Rene Descartes says he is wrong because we can't be sure
that our senses aren't mistaken and because nobody knows what will happen in the future.
In this essay I wrote about inductive reasoning and our senses, about how we can rely on
them but at the same time cant. I have also gave examples of a philosopher stating that knowledge
comes from our senses and another philosopher contradicting his theory and saying that our
senses can be mistaken.


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Work Cited
Cahn Steven M. "Exploring Philosophy, An Introduction Anthology" 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP,
2009. Print.

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