Philosophers and Epistemological Skepticism

Kathryn Schulz argues in “Evidence”, a chapter of her book called Being Wrong, that we need to “learn to actively combat our inductive biases: to deliberately seek out evidence that challenges our beliefs, and to take seriously such evidence when we come across it” (Schulz, 377”). By attending to counterevidence we can avoid making errors in our conclusions.

Vogel answers The Problem of Skepticism, through use of Inference to the Best Explanation. However, by using inference to the best argument to rule out the skeptical argument he overlooks that the skeptical argument is within itself an objection to inference to the best explanation.

Critics propose that just because something cannot be confirmed, does not mean that it is not acknowledged or that there is no reason in trusting it. Rene Descartes wanted certain knowledge to be absolute, although this is not the only option, and others would claim that justified knowledge is adequate. Other philosophers claim skepticism is imperious because a skeptic cannot know that skepticism is absolute.

Learning from each other - Everyone has their own individual approach to changes and by working together and learning from each other, they are able to view the situation from a fresh perspective and it gives them the chance to be flexible and innovative with their approach.

‘The end goal of the Pyrrhonian skeptic is to promote suspense of judgment because they claim that it is in our opinion and personal truths that we develop desires, painful efforts, good and bad, fear, and disappointment. To accept everything as is, will bring bliss and peace of mind.’ The Pyrrhonian skeptic views skepticism as a good thing for they have the skill of finding for every argument and equal and opposing argument, this will bring suspension of judgment on any issue considered by the

During the first few weeks of class we’ve gone through various texts in order to better our understanding of human knowledge. We have talked about Christianity St. Matthew “The Sermon on the Mount”, Plato and “The Allegory of the Cave”, “The Four Idols” of Sir Francis Bacon, Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, and even Carl Jung and “The Structure of the Psyche”. All these texts may have been written in different eras and different places, but they have one thing in common, and that is their understandings of human nature and knowledge, and how they demonstrate to us epistemology (how we know) and metaphysics (what human beings know).

Accommodating is another way a manager might attempt to resolve conflict. Accommodating is one technique used by a manager who cooperates to a high degree. This may be at the managers own expense and actually work against the managers own goals, objectives and desired outcomes. This approach is effective when the other person is expert or has a better solution.

The unity of knowledge (moral) and action refers to the way the philosopher perceives the self and the world (Kim, n.d). In Wang’s view knowledge and action work simultaneously and can’t be experienced independently. It is not possible to acquire knowledge without action or act and not have knowledge. The unity of knowledge and action is the lingzhi or the innate knowledge, the knowledge that people already possess (Kim, n.d). What is more, Wang believes that knowledge cannot be acquired because humans are already “self-sufficient

Even if a critique is meaningless, Mill argues that we did our best at attempting to ensure the validity of a claim. We should therefore study all modes and perspectives in which something can be looked at, since our knowledge base depends on subjecting ourselves to alternative viewpoints to know the truth about something. The disagreement and contestation that potentially occurs is what leads to the truth.

Critical thinking can be described as making well thought, clear, and reasoned judgments. Analyzing and evaluating conditions also fall into this category. More times than others, this involves us out ruling components of our problem. Peter Elbow discusses two individual processes of seeking truth in his essay and labels them as the “doubting game” and the “believing game”. In his essay, he explores the two ideas by clearly labeling the “doubting game” as a strategy seeking error, whereas the “believing game” involves believing all of the assertions.

In the world today, knowledge is a very valuable thing. The world can be a scary place, and without knowing how to be happy and live in harmony with others, it can be hard to survive. Luckily, there are those who have given us advice and instruction on how to live, and who have told us the secrets to earthly happiness. One would probably suspect they are politicians or millionaires or movie stars, but they aren’t. In fact, they lived around fifteen hundred years ago, in China. Their names were Lao Tzu and Confucius, and they were Chinese philosophers.

Having a surplus amount of knowledge is often seen as something that is desired. But, sometimes having knowledge that

How many times have you said, “No way, I do not believe it!” It is our natural tendency not to believe in something that we have not seen with our own eyes or experienced it personally. There is a saying, “seeing is believing” which has led us to a world full of skeptics. We want proof so we are not gullible fools. Skepticism, or scepticism, as it was spelled back in the ancient times, was pondered by philosophers who tried unsuccessfully to figure out the thought process and how we gain knowledge. Philosophers gave deep thought to determine how we arrive at such true beliefs and knowledge of the external world. Three such philosophers were Rene Descartes, David Hume and Christopher Grau. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher in the early 1600’s; David Hume was a Scottish Philosopher in the 1700’s, and Grau an American philosopher Professor born in 1970. The timeline s important because philosophical views have evolved over time. All three men were from different eras, but they each explored, argued, and addressed the topic of skepticism from their philosophical view. This proves that they take the subject of skepticism seriously, just as we should too. There is good reason to believe that a human’s knowledge of the external world results from both a posteriori knowledge acquired through sensory experience and a priori knowledge which is innate. Descartes, Hume, and Grau through their personal views and skeptical

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

As the great Socrates ones said, that by admiting that you dont know anything, so you can learn something that is how I discover the things that I want to know. The only way of knowing things is the way of becoming conscious of our unknowing, so we can learn. Awareness of the unknowing is the beginning of knowledge. Thus, we can always look for the truth, but the best is if never said that we found it. We may just think of the truth. We may think of what is the truth different in mathematics, the arts and ethics, but let’s never be sure. That is the only way how we are going to become bigger and better people.