Epistemology Introduction: Understanding Truth, Knowledge, Belief
Monday November 2, 2009
Epistemology involves questions about the nature and definition of truth. Epistemology is the study of human knowledge - the grounds and conditions under which we can know anything. Knowledge, in turn, is normally defined in terms of truth - only true things can be known so no false ideas qualify as knowledge. Therefore, any discussion about knowledge must implicitly also be a discussion about the nature of truth - but what do we mean by 'true'? And what does it mean to say something isn’t true?
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Sometimes I am amazed and amused by the seriousness with which very intelligent persons argue the “ways of” or even the “possiblity of” knowing. Talk to an epileptic. We have it figured out. Nothing is real, you can’t know anything for sure, and the truth is that we’re all transient enough that hardly any of this is important. I’m neither joking nor making fun. When one understands that one has absolutely no control over the functioning of one’s brain, all of these heady (pun indended) questions seem to evaporate into the air as quickly as one’s sense of reality.
How? Do you know that for sure?
Do you know that for sure?
Do you know that for sure?
>Nothing is real, you can’t know anything for sure, and the truth is that we’re all transient enough that hardly any of this is important.
After I see you jump from a tall building, to demonstrate the veracity with which you hold to this claim you just made, I will accept you’re actually being serious.
Nothing is real, you can’t know anything for sure
Then if one day your kid gets hit by a car, by all means, do nothing! Do not go to the hospital because, you know, we don’t know anything for sure… The doctors might think they know how to save your kid, but maybe they’re wrong.
Funny how people who believe like you do always seem to “know” that materialistic science is the way to go when their lives or the lives of their loved ones are at stake…
I have yet to see a god believer having a heart attack going like, “No… not the hospital… Church…”