His argument goes something like this: To reason from induction, one must have “found certain observed cases true that will also be true in unobserved cases.” According to Stace, this also fails because there are no observed cases of an unobserved object. Though this is true, this does not give Stace enough to rule out the method of induction altogether. Induction, simply put, is anything that is not deduction. Stace only addresses enumerative induction and ignores other types of induction—more specifically, inference to the best conclusion. If we were to use this form of induction, we would end up ... ... middle of paper ... ...ess my critique of sense data.
This brings up the question of how one can even know truth. For Descartes, the certain truth is “I think, therefore I am,” which is his first principle. However, even if this is a certain truth, how can we know anything else to be true? More importantly, however, the first rule states that nothing should be accepted that can be called into doubt, or to accept only that which is indubitable. Yet how can anything be indubitable, save perhaps Descartes’ first principle, and even there some may be able to find flaws?
David Hume makes a strong affirmation in section IV of an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hume states, "I shall venture to affirm as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance attained by reasonings a priori; but entirely from experience." In this statement, when discussing "knowledge of this relation," Hume is referring to the relation between cause and effect. This argument can easily be dismissed as skeptical, for it puts all knowledge of this sort in doubt. However, Hume does not hastily doubt that this knowledge is not a priori, as a skeptic would.
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.
He believes that there are no objective and independent values in the world, but he believes that statements about moral (and aesthetic) judgments are quite literal in claiming objective facts. Basically, Mackie is an error theorist, so he believes that judgments have a truth value even though there are no possible objective values that could ever make them true. The crux of his position is an ontological view about the absence of objective values. Mackie?s second step in defining his position is to set its boundaries. When he speaks of values, he means not only moral values but any sort of values that may be believed objective, such as aesthetic ones, though his focus is on the moral ones.
Such problem, according to David Papineau, holds no grounds given the doctrines of reliabilism. Reliabilism is an externalist account of knowledge, which defines knowledge as true belief caused by a reliable process. Papineau maintains that reliabilism offers a viable solution to the problem of induction, but concedes... ... middle of paper ... ...regard certainty in the actual world. Subsequently all statements and claims, inductively inferred, are approximate, as opposed to being explicitly true. Reliabilism puts forward a viable solution to the traditional problem of induction proposed by Hume, showing that despite enumerative induction being logically invalid, it can convincingly yield knowledge.
Circularity and Stability William Alston argues that there is no way to show that any of our basic sources of belief is reliable without falling into epistemic circularity, i.e. relying at some point on premises that are themselves derived from the very same source. His appeal to practical rationality is an attempt to evaluate our sources of belief without relying on beliefs that are based on the sources under scrutiny and thus without just presupposing their reliability. I argue that this attempt fails and that Ernest Sosa’s appeal to the coherence theory of justification fails, too, if it is understood as an attempt to find a similar external evaluation of our sources of belief that does not just assume their reliability. I concluded that there is no alternative to taking an internal view to our own reliability and embracing epistemic circularity.
Also, it does not follow from Ross’s theory that self-evident propositions are infallibly true; rather, some self-evident propositions (prima facie duties) are fallible and can be false. In this way, I use two terms for greater elaboration of this idea; i.e. self-evidently justified and self-evidently true. After that, I shall investigate Ross’s idea about the self-evident and his theory of justification. In order to do so, the idea of modest-foundationalism will be discussed.
However, Kant does not speak of perfect and imperfect moral duties, those duties that respectively do or do not involve qualifications as to the particulars of the situation at hand, thus complicating the issue. Several objections can be raised to the theory Kant sets forth, but each ... ... middle of paper ... ...be universally applied, acting on those maxims would not be permissible. An example would be allowing anyone with a star shaped birthmark on their back to steal. Universalizing this seems to be possible, at least at first glance. However, universalization implies that a maxim be applicable throughout time.
Descartes confirms his existence however, by stating, "let him who can deceive me; so long as I think that I am something, he will never bring it about that I am nothing." (48). He claims that as long as he’s capable of thinking, no other being can deny his existence. The existence of cogito is accepted as true since it’s clear that it cannot be doubted. So concluding that ‘I am,’ ‘I exist,’ is true whenever it is conceived in mind, attests the fact that since thinking is taking place, regardless of whether or not what is being thought of is true or not, implies that there must be something else involved in the notion, precisely the “I.” Consequently, “I exist” is a certain belief from which other certain truths can be inferred.