Epistemology Midterm A question that epistemologist ask is what sort of factors make beliefs justified. That is to say, could there possibly be a set of basic justified beliefs that rationally define all of your other beliefs? Or perhaps there are no foundational beliefs, but rather an infinite amount of beliefs that explain the ones that came before it. Are these beliefs based on evidence or perhaps something more? Epistemology attempts to answer these such questions. Beliefs are developed from the numerous propositions that we are exposed be the world each day. These beliefs are held by you to be true. When you are confronted with a proposed statement you are presented with a variety of different alternatives. These alternatives can make you believe the proposed claim or convince you to disbelieve them. When this occurs, you construct a justified belief. These beliefs do not necessarily have to be true for other people, are not absolute (they can range from having an absolute conviction, suspension of judgment, or rejecting a proposition), and can be altered at anytime. What makes justified beliefs justified? According to the evidentialists, it is the possession of evidence for a belief. One theory, the infinite regress argument, proposes that other beliefs or reasons are such evidence. The infinite regress is one argument that philosophers employ when explaining justifications and knowledge in an evidential manner. Suppose you consider the justified belief, P, you might begin to wonder as to where P's justification originally stems from. If P is not a basic justified belief , but rather a nonbasic justified belief (meaning that these belief do not need support of other beliefs in order to be deemed true), it would have... ... middle of paper ... ...ss is “made-up” to achieve the desired results. How is one supposed to know which process to use in assessing a belief for reliability and justification if there might be an infinite amount of different processes to choose from? This is a major issue for reliabilists and there is no solution to this problem. Reliabilism appears to be a logical reasoning to why your beliefs might be justified, but without a proper, clear-cut, general theory, how is one supposed to know what processes to employ? And if you have beliefs that fit well with each other and make you to believe you beliefs are justified, then they are in fact justified? This is clearly not the case with Brain, who believes that he is experiencing, when in fact he is merely a brain in a vat. This theory seems to have some fundamental flaws to it, that need to be addressed before I can fully accept it.
The term justified belief refers to belief that is formed by the existence of proper evidence and logic. William K Clifford tells us of a story of a ship owner and deaths caused by his unjustified beliefs.
In “The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement”, Thomas Kelly gives two responses to the question “How should awareness of disagreement, with those that you take to be your epistemic equal, effect the rational confidence you have in your beliefs?”. Kelly discusses two possible responses to the question. The first is Richard Foley's first person perspective argument. Adam Elga calls the second the right reasons view (Elga, 2007 pg. 485). Kelly pursues the latter, and does not go further than agreeing with Foley that we should only view these disputes with a first person perspective.
Human beings’ belief systems don’t always work according to evidence. Belief is made up of
Moreover, simply having a justification is not enough for a belief to be considered justified. Consider a scenario in which Diane believes that her sister recently moved to the Bay area. Diane was specifically told by their sister that she was moving there, but she didn’t trust their sister’s word. Instead, she only believed that her sister had moved when their mother posted images of the sister’s apartment on Facebook. In this event, Diane had two available justifications: the sister’s claim and the mother’s photos, but her belief that the sister had moved was only grounded on the latter. Consequently, the belief was not justified by her sister’s claim even though that justification was available. Similarly, the relationship between justification and truth value is essential because the if the justification has no correlation to the truth, then it cannot genuinely be regarded as legitimate justification, as we will see
According to Entwistle (2015) epistemology falls under the science of philosophy which main concerns are theory and explanation of knowledge. (Entwistle, 2015) Main epistemic methods are logical reasoning and empiricism. Some other concerns are doubts if our knowledge claims present just an opinion or justified belief. The basic epistemologic foundation is a search for a causation and proofs. For instance, if the God exists is there any empirical data to support that statement? I certanly believe that epistemology and Christianty stand in front of each other. In other words, they are on oposite sides and fundamentally incompatible with each other.
Beliefs are imprinted in our consciousness that alters our perceptions, attitudes and how we react towards situations and moments of decisions, they perceive our realities. Everyone has a different imprints and perceive their beliefs from their personal experiences. Beliefs dictate how we react to life. Our beliefs can be altered and changed throughout the course of our lifetime
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It is mainly concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It attempts to answer the basic question of what distinguishes true or adequate knowledge from otherwise false or inadequate knowledge (Heylighen). The major branches of epistemological theory are rationalism, empiricism and mysticism. Rationalism implies that knowledge is obtained through reason and introspection. Ones ideas are justified by sense experience, but if the senses and intuition are in conflict, the sensory evidence must be discarded. In empiricism, knowledge is obtained through observation and experiment. Models and theories may be used to organize this sensory experience, but if theories contradict experience they are wrong. In mysticism, knowledge is obtained through faith, emotions or revelation but if observation or intuition contradict, the knowledge is thus deemed wrong (“Rationalism”). Doubt, as a Persian Proverb once said, is the key to knowledge. It is one of the influencing factors in the expansion of knowledge. A fact that is conside...
In the beginning of his paper Goldman makes it clear that he would be moving away from the classical approach to understanding the relation between knowledge and justification. In “What is Justified Belief?” he argues that justification is necessary, but not sufficient, for knowledge. In doing so, he rejects certain assumptions
Upon reading Will to Believe, there is no doubt we will all begin to question how we’ve gotten to our beliefs and why we believe what we do. William James argues against forced beliefs and expresses the importance of choice. The idea of choice is one I strongly agree with. Although we are easily influenced by others, when it comes to beliefs free will must come into play. As far as the science method, which I have discussed, a belief is just as valid whether there is evidence or not because most scientific methods will never be one hundred percent proven and they will change over
Belief is something that everyone has, whether it is regarding religion, opinions, or judgements. People believe in something. The main question is why do people believe? There has been constant debates on beliefs and if they should have sufficient evidence before they start believing in them. Many people, like Philosopher Blaise Pascal, who believe that beliefs do not need evidence. Pascal reasons that people should blinding believe, even if they do not have the evidence to prove it. However, there are people like William K. Clifford who propose the opposite. Clifford states that there are certain beliefs that require adequate evidence. Evidence is extremely important and definitely required for beliefs to be accepted. Adequate evidence
“If we are to have knowledge then we must be justified in what we believe (Pritchard, 39).” Knowledge consists of three necessary and sufficient conditions: Knowledge is a justified, true, belief. Anything that has all three qualities holds knowledge and anything lacking justification, truth or belief cannot hold knowledge. Knowledge is a state of mind that asserts that x and y is the case. “For example, when we believe that P, we are in a mental state that takes P to be true. We cannot believe that P, and also believe P to be false (FULKERSON, PHIL 15: WEEK 4).” I will now explain what reason we hold for our beliefs.
In this situation, there is no “logical universe” that helps to justify a belief, but rather shows perspectives that are common in everyday life. This basically explains the set of rules that individuals go by to have a more practical and normal life. An individual would learn that the situation they may go through is not based on correspondence between a belief and a fact in society, but coherence between a belief and other beliefs in a single individual. In other words, the exposed truth is a property of other consecutive congruent beliefs one has thought in their minds before experiencing something in the present. This is the coherence theory of justification; when something is signified as true with this justification, then this strongly has the official truth even if the opposing individual argues. In most circumstances, this theory leaves no room for fitting another justification into what has already been justified to be
Epistemology helped me investigate the procedure I went through for crafting the essays. I referred to books, online articles, journal and other publications to understand and justify the concepts and information. It helped me distinguish between what is false, what is true across diverse contexts, and to decide the boundaries of knowledge based on how that knowledge is acquired. I also evaluated the truthfulness of my beliefs and personal opinion. I am actuated by understanding the sources of knowledge and also the quality of the resulting knowledge – knowing its dimensions and limitations.
In conclusion, the extent to which we need evidence to support our beliefs depends on which area of knowledge being discussed, as those known for their objectivity and fact-based theories such as science and math require evidence to support the beliefs of individuals to a large extent, while those such as religion and art require little evidence as they are based upon our individual sense perception and faith, and therefore because it is not based upon reason but emotion does not need evidence to be justified, or to be justified at all. In these areas of knowledge, it is only to see how valid a belief is that that evidence is necessary.
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion (Wordweb).