Questions (2009-2010)
There are many questions. Here is a familiar set. We'll look at them in greater detail soon.
- To what extent is truth different in mathematics, the arts and ethics?
- Examine the ways empirical evidence should be used to make progress in different areas of knowledge.
- Discuss the strengths and limitations of quantitative and qualitative data in supporting knowledge claims in the human sciences and at least one other area of knowledge.
- How can the different ways of knowing help us to distinguish between something that is true and something that is believed to be true?
- 'What separates science from all other human activities is its belief in the provisional nature of all conclusions.' (Michael Shermer, www.edge.com). Critically evaluate this way of distinguishing the sciences from other areas of knowledge.
- 'All knowledge claims should be open to rational criticism.' On what grounds and to what extent would you agree with this assertion?
- 'We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.' Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.
- 'People need to believe that order can be glimpsed in the chaos of events' (adapted from John Gray, Heresies, 2004). In what ways and to what extent would you say this claim is relevant in at least two areas of knowledge.
- Discuss the claim that some areas of knowledge are discovered and others are invented.
- What similarities and differences are there between historical and scientific explanations?
Labels: Epistemology, Odd Questions
etched with acid at 7:50:00 am
2 Comments:
Hahaha, my first parliamentary debate meeting consisted of a debate of whether the House should be resolved to take the red pill or the blue pill.
Strict empiricim's nemesis is ultimately the brain in the vat argument, because empiricism forbids itself to prove from its own premises that its own premises are valid. This I believe is the heart of its shortfall.
Is having innate faith in our experiences "blind", or perhaps it's because in some non-empirical way, we know our experiences prove themselves?
I think it is practical to have faith in experience. We have sensory apparatus (or believe we do); the act of perception and the capacity for percipience are one and indistinguishable to most organisms (except in a philosophical sense).
Post a Comment
<< Home