Theory of Knowledge

Knowledge Issues.

KNOWLEDGE ISSUES
Knowledge Issues are questions that directly refer to understanding of the world. With the need to understand and accept knowledge we open the doors to inquiry and explore not only the problem but also the strength of knowledge. Knowledge Issues can revel that knowledge can be a benefit, a pleasure and most important a basis for further thought and action.

The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe, This is not a pipe (Ceci n'est pas une pipe), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe.

During the summer of 1928 Magritte painted a number of figures with the face and head covered by some kind of cloth. In this painted version of The Lovers, the couple stand cheek to cheek. He also made a large version where the lovers are kissing while covered in the same way.

Magrittes mother was unhappy during his childhood and attempted suicide a number of times. In 1912, when Magritte was 14 his mother left the house and drowned herself in the river. When her body was pulled from the river many days later her face was covered by her night dress. Young Magritte saw the corpse bare with the face wrapped and this image, disturbing and erotic was left in his memory. Magritte made many paintings about death by drowning and tragedy in water, as well as disturbing images of faces draped with a cloth.

Rene Magritte was a Surrealist

What Is Surrealism? Surrealism is an artistic, cultural and intellectual movement oriented toward the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind" and the attainment of a dream-like state different from, "more than", and ultimately "truer" than everyday reality: the "surreal", or "more than real".

Assignment
Research on Surrealism, speak about various artist who were involved in this movement. Assignment should be handed over by 30th July 2009

We as people and individuals know many things, such as we know we are hungry, we know we are sick, when we are happy or sad, when lonely or love. This we say is looked upon as Common Sense . The problem with Common Sense is our picture of the World. To solve this problem ; We must abandon our daily understanding of things and limit ourselves to only what we are Certain about.

Consider the 6 statements below that you & me are certain about:
I know planet Mars is red in colour and has no atmosphere. I know that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969. I know that Isaac Newton discovered Gravity. I know that a watermelon in green and red in colour. I know that if x is bigger than y, and y is bigger than z, then x is bigger than z. I know that MURDER is wrong.

Rene Descartes in 1641 related :

It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was all I had constructed on this basis; ... All that at the present time I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived. ... At the same time I must remember that I am ... in the habit of sleeping, and in my dreams representing to myself the same things or sometimes even less probable things, than do those who are insane in their waking moments.

This is where we come the part of Doubt called RADICAL DOUBT:

One Night my watch broke at 11:51, But I didn't realize. I was a sleep at the time, and when I woke up I just put the watch without looking at it. The next time I looked at it, by chance it was 11:51. I believed it was 11:51, and it was, in fact, 11:51. So did I Know it? If not, why not?

Rene Descartes also perhaps made one statement that one can be absolutely certain I Existtherefore I am.
Many Philosophers even think that the whole world is a dream.and any moment you might wake up with the weirdest dream in which you were a human being on the planet Earth.

This may be a Radical Supposition ..its not to prove that you do not exist bit it does suggest that your life might be completely DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU THOUGHT ..

DO you think that some areas of Knowledge are more Certain that Other?

The gods did not reveal, from the beginning, All things to us, but in the course of time Through seeking we may learn and know things better But as for certain truth, no man has known it, Nor shall he know it, neither of the gods Nor yet of all the things of which I speak. For even if by chance he were to utter The final truth, he would himself not know it: For all is but a woven web of guesses.
Greek philosopher-poet, Xenophanes (570-475 BCE):

The Above saying says a lot about our knowledge of truth .do you agree that we can never know what truth is or does the poem mean to say something beyond just the words

RELATIVISM

Sometimes when people lack the sense of Certainty they embrace to the opposite extreme position called Relativism. Stare at the grid below for a few seconds. Can you notice anything strange happening?

Are the monks walking up or down ?

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Old or young woman? Can you see more than one face here?

relativism
Most people react to the Lack of Certainty by swinging to the opposite extreme and embracing a position called RELATIVISM. Relativism expresses the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Relativists claim that humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of, for example, their historical or cultural context.

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What is relativism according to you?

You are, of course, entitled to believe what you like, but the mere fact that you believe that something is true doesn't mean that it actually is true. A young child might believe that Santa Claus exists, but it only confuses the issue to say that it is 'true. The fact that we take seriously the idea that someone might be wrong in their beliefs suggests that relativism is false. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------It is raining. Can it be both raining and not raining? No. If it is not raining then it is not the case that it is raining, so it cannot also be raining. This would be a contradiction There is validity to some aspects of relativism. For example, what one society considers right (driving on the left side of the road) another considers wrong. These are customs to which a "right and wrong" are attached, They are relative and rightly so. But, their relativism is properly asserted as such. but they are purely relativistic and not universal because they are culturally based.It doesn't matter what side of the road we drive in as long as we all do it the same way.

Relativism says that there is no such thing and absolute truth that exists in any object alone by itself. Infact truth is relative and may differ from person to person as individuals or culture. The Dialogue of RELATIVISM:
All Truth is Relative REALLY ?IS THAT TRUE? Yes! ABSOLUTELY TRUE? I guess not because I said That ALL truth is Relative SO THE STATEMENT ALL TRUTH IS RELATIVE,IS ONLY RELATIVELY TRUE, RIGHT! Yes! SO IT COULD BE TRUE FOR YOU AND NOT TRUE FOR ME Hang on I need to think about this

In the gospel of John in the New Testament (18:28-40), Jesus is brought up before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the region. Pilate, a practical and worldly man, is bemused as to why Jesus has been brought before him: what has he done? During a brief exchange between Pilate and Jesus, we see two distinct concepts of truth at work. On the one hand, Jesus has a very firm idea (18:37): "You are right in saying I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. To which Pilate merely replies: "What is truth?" - as if to say, "You think truth exists independently of everyone as a standard by which we can judge our beliefs?" This sort of debate has been central to philosophy for centuries. We will now look at different theories of knowledge, truth and belief.

What Should we Believe

Shall I Teach You what knowledge is ? When You Know a Thing , To recognize That you Know it; And when you do not know a thing, To recognize that you do not know it. THIS IS KNOWLEDGE. Confucius

There is no simple answer to the question and it is more important how you believe than what you believe. I t is also important that whatever you believe you support your belief with evidence and also be ready to respond to criticisms on your views. This is where we divide Knowledge into facts and opinions; Facts are disputable ; We can argue about the numbers of cars sold in 2000. While Opinions can never be wrong because everybody is entitled to their own opinion. The notion of freedom is sometimes interpreted as meaning that anyone opinion is as good as anyone else's..I frankly think thats pure nonsense; lets see Suppose you are a Keen runner but you break your leg in an car accident. Your is out in a plaster for a month, and when the plaster is removed you are keen to start training straightaway. In my opinion, you should start training immediately, and push yourself really hard, ignoring any pain, until you are as fit as you were before the accident. In your doctors opinion, you must rest and take things slowly, and train but stop as soon as you should feel any pain and return to the doctor for further checkups. Which opinion is better and why?

As we live in a world of few black and white certainties, we have to depend on our personal judgement . The aspect of our good judgement is the ability to balance scepticism with open mindedness.

Lets take the claim that Aliens visited us in the past even do so in the present. Opinions polls suggest that 1/3rd of Americans believe the above statement to be true. Whats your stand? Do you believe that there is an technologically advanced civilization that is sending envoys to our planet for information.

We live a great market place in knowledge that we call the information age .mainly that we get through the Internet; surfing around we find so many websitessome give information about academic subjects and useful details. But at the same time there are dizzying array paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories and urban legends.

Danger of Gullibility & Scepticism

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Though we may believe in many paranormal phenomenon, we would call ourselves too gullible to believe in every thing thats put up on the internet: Lets see if you take the following headlines seriously: ( from Weekly World ; Americas supermarket tabloid) Amazing New Proof of life after death ( 11th Jan 99). US Scientists bring Mummy back to life (13th Aug 99) First Marriage between Human & Alien still going strong (1st Oct 99). Dog Reincarnation;5 ways to tell if your dog was a human in past life.(12th Nov 99). Top Psychic Warns; Hitler is coming Back (21st Jan 2000). Top Scientist says Sicko Aliens are stealing our women and turning them into Prostitutes (6th April 2000)

Despite the above comments, which are obliviously too weird ; there is also a danger in being too Sceptical (Marked by or given to doubt) for then you may close your mind to new ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom. There are many ideas that were ridiculed when they first appeared but later were shown to be true; like in the early 19th C scientists dismissed the idea that stones could fall from the sky as a stupid superstition; but now we take the meteorites for granted So was Alfred Wegeners theory of Continental Drift, rejected but it resurrected in 1960s as a part of the theory of the plate tectonics.

So then tell me how true do you think this statement is that we have to keep a balance between being open to new idea that challenge our current way of thinking , and also keeping in mind that human beings are credulous animals who are sometimes willing to believe strange things on the basis of slender evidence.

Comment on the following quotation and explain why you either agree or disagree with it . ( 200 words)
My view is that there is such a thing as being too open minded. I am not open minded about the earth being flat, about whether Hitler is alive today, about claims by people to have squared the circle, or to have proven special relativity wrong. I am also not open minded with respect to the paranormal. And I think it is wrong to be open minded with respect to these things, Just as I think it is wrong to be open minded about whether or not the Nazis killed six million Jews in the world war DOUGLAS HOFSTADTER.

RESONABLE KNOWLEDGE
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We have to claim our knowledge to be reasonable two primary criteria must to fulfilled: Evidence: For any believe to be reasonable there should be positive evidence, e.g. if you claim there are green men living on mars; and if people challenge your theory; and u were to say Well, you cant prove that there aren't. This is a bad argument because you have given no positive evidence to support your belief. The fact that you cant prove that something isnt true does nothing to show that it is true too; the fallacy of thinking that it does is called argument ad ignorantiam Which of the following is an example of argument ad ignorantiam? Since many people claim to have seen ghosts, it is likely that they exist.

Many members of the Society or the paranormal believe in ghosts. 2. Ghosts must exists because no one has proved that they do not. 3. It is true for me that ghosts exists. We have what is called a Confirmation bias, i.e. to notice only evidence that supports our belief. To counter this tendency, you should keep a record not only of how often the horoscope is right but also of how often it is wrong. 2. The second criteria is Coherence which deals with finding if our believe is reasonable or not, what this criteria implies is that, although we should be open to new ideas, the more unlikely something is relative to the current state of knowledge, the stronger the evidence in its favors should be before we take it seriously.
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According to the astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-96) extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Explain what he meant by this? Do you agree? Explain with reasons, which of the following statements you think is less likely to be true: The Loch ness monster exists. Some mystics are able to levitate.

Key Points of the chapter

The world is a confusing place in which we find a bewildering variety of different opinions. Our common sense picture of reality probably contains inaccuracies & biases that we are not aware of. We acquire knowledge about the world through language, perception, reason & emotion, but none of these ways of knowing can give us certainty. According to relativism, truth is relative to the individual; but the fact that we take seriously the idea that someone may be wrong in their beliefs suggests that relativism is false. Since there are few black & white certainties in the world, we have to rely more judgment.

An important aspect of good judgment is finding the right balance between scepticism & open mindedness. Two preliminary criteria for deciding whether a knowledge claim is plausible are evidence & coherence. Since we are what we believe and our beliefs affect our actions, if we want to be authentic & responsible we should occasionally subject our beliefs to critical scrutiny.

Assignment
Give me your thoughts on the following: Truth, can we ever be certain of the truth? Where does belief end and knowledge begin? What is the difference between knowledge and information? What is the relation between theory and practice Does knowledge always depend on context?

This has to be a handwritten assignment and must be submitted by the 18th of September.