Chasing Truth
What are some of the BIG questions that might surface while pondering the nature of knowing & truth?
What is Epistemology?
Rationalism vs. Empiricism
Viewing Truth
Infographic: The FNG Problem
Memes: Epistemology
NTP: Epistemology
Politics, truth and self-reference
Did Thomas Kuhn Kill Truth?
The hardest question ever asked: What is truth?
Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge
Take My Word for It: On Testimony
The Gettier Problem & the Definition of Knowledge
Conspiracy Theories
External World Skepticism
VIDS: Epistemology
"Epistemology: 1. Introduction to Theory of Knowledge" by Jennifer Nagel from the Wi-Phi series"Epistemology: 2. The Problem of Skepticism" by Jennifer Nagel from the Wi-Phi series
"The Nature of Truth" by Joshua Rasmussen from the Wi-Phi Series
"The Meaning of Knowledge" from the Crash Course series
"Locke, Berkeley, & Empiricism" from the Crash Course series
"Esse est Percipi - ('To be is to be perceived')" by Nigel Warburton from the BBC's A History of Ideas series
"Karl Popper's Falsification" by Nigel Warburton from the BBC's A History of Ideas series
"Wittgenstein’s Beetle in the Box Analogy" by Nigel Warburton from the BBC' A Hisotry of Ideas series
PODS: Epistemology
"Simon Blackburn on Plato's Cave" from the series philosophy bites"Adrian Moore on Kant's Metaphysics" from the series philosophy bites
"Colin McGinn on Descartes on Innate Knowledge" from the series philosophy bites
"John Locke pt. 2 - The Blank Slate" by Stephen West from Philosophize This!
"Peter Millican on Hume's Significance" from the series philosophy bites
"William James on Truth" by Stephen West from Philosophize This!
"Sartre and Camus on the Quest for Certainty" by Stephen West from Philosophize This!
IEP: Epistemology
EpistemologyInternalism and Externalism in Epistemology
Epistemic Justification
Naturalistic Epistemology
The Epistemology of Perception
Epistemology of Testimony
Understanding in Epistemology
SEP: Epistemology
The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
The Value of Knowledge
Rationalism vs. Empiricism
Lit
Enter the Cave
Read and watch a treatment of Plato's allegory of the cave:
Questions:
- Is there a "higher" truth? Can we ever take on the role of the escaped prisoner?
- How do we make sense of different beliefs and opinions? Is this the best we can do as knowers?
- Does questioning truth matter? Should we ask questions such as "what is truth?"
Ride Quixote!
Open the reader and access a copy of Quixote. Please read through the First Sally. Use the resources within the reader to help you on your way.Here are some possible topics of conversatio:
- I,1 Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? Which is "real?" and which is the "copy?" How do you know?
- I,4 Do we know through verification (as reflected through the queries of the merchants) or by means of belief(as reflected in the actions of Quixote?
- I,4 If we wanted to establish that Dulcinea was the "fairest in all the land" should we rely on reason or on the senses to prove the claim?
- I,5 Quixote's profession of self-knowledge seems, by any reasonable account, wrong. He is not a knight, and, the age of chivalry had long passed prior to his birth. If you have completed the reading you may have found yourself becoming frustrated with the old man! By what right does he place himself as the knower at the center of how he makes sense of reality? But is truth subjective? Should we frame the Don as a #fakeknight and more #fakenews?
Thoreau Dawning
Relate the phenomenon of being lost to the phenomenon of being in the world:
- In a different section of Walden, Thoreau mentioned that he formed ruts or tracks from his cabin to the pond within two weeks of moving to Walden Pond. What does the forming of ruts and our preference for well-known beacons have to do with "truth?"
- What did Thoreau mean when alluding to rediscovering his relation to the world through the sensation of feeling lost - would that not imply that he was not so much lost as found?