philosophy homework HELP PLEASE?

Question

ok so in my philosphy class we are studying epistimology (who do you know that whas you think is real actually is.. etc) but we have tihis assignment and we ahve to bring in an object that has to do with it and wright a 250 word page about it and why we chose it, does anyone have any ideas for what object or thing i should choose??

ok im only 16 and this is my first time in philosophy so please make your answers some what simple, im trying to find clearification not confusion lol

Answer 1

Well absolutely anything can be used to discuss epistemology! I've read about grapes, pens, books etc. I'm using the example of a pint of Real Ale in something I am writing.

You could bring in a box with a coin in it. Is it still in the box when you close the lid and remove all ability to detect it? How can you prove that the coin continues to exist with absolutely no data (ie seeing the thing)? Is it at all meaningful to talk about the coin if you can't see it?

(If you do this and read on Wikipedia about "Berkley" and "Logical Positivism", just enough to get the "gist" and make sure you understand the "verification principle" you will, or ought, to get A++++!)


[edit] I've just looked at the Wikipedia entry on "verification principle" and to be honest its a bit much at sixteen!

In brief: You know people who say they want "solid facts" before believing anything? Well how do you prove the existence of the coin in the closed box? It could just pop out of existence when you close the lid and pop back into existence when you open the lid. How do you prove that it doesn't?

Answer 2

The nice thing about philosophy is that it doesn't matter what you choose, especially about epistemology, because whatever you choose can have essentially the same paper written. It is abot the paper and the thought process, not about what you decide to write it on.

You could choose something like a watch and discuss the inherent issues regarding time (if it is space/time then isn't time already out there which works into a segue about free will/fate) or maybe take in a "monad" and discuss how things are made of the infiniteness that are monads.

For epistemology you can really go with Locke or with Descartes, both have very clear ideas on how it is that we know what we know. Regardles, philosophy should be fun, so enjoy the paper, and write about something interesting.

Answer 3

That reminds me of an argument I had with my sister once.

It seems that I had an old pair of leather steel-toed boots which I no longer used outside the house but were rather comfortable to wear, so I took to wearing them in the mornings when I wanted warmer feet. I never tied them, and I started calling them my 'morning slippers'; by virtue of how I used them that was what they were to me.

My sister, on the other hand, argued that they couldn't possibly be slippers, because slippers were small and light and usually fuzzy and definitely wouldn't protect your feet if a car tried to run over them. She would rail against me every time I referred to them as slippers (and I have to admit I found it more than a bit amusing).

The point is this - my sister and I were arguing in a sense about the epistemological nature of those boots. People percieve objects around them all the time, and more often than not they develop a false body of ideas that swarm around each one based on what they BELIEVE about these things rather than what they KNOW about them.

Whether those things I wore on my feet were slippers or boots, in REALITY they were the same object and the labels we applied were ultimately meaningless to the actual underlying reality. But because, to my sister, boots could not be slippers, she was unable to percieve aspects of those boots that made them rather nice as slippers indeed. Her illusion of knowledge interfered with actual knowledge.

As an epistemological example, my boots were hardly unique. Look around you and there are probably a hundred things that ARE much more than people PERCIEVE them to be. Find one and write a paper about the difference between the reality and the perception. Then get an A. Yay!

Answer 4

Choose a baseball bat or a 2 foot piece of 2x4. It has epistemolgical significance as an existential-doubt corrector. One good whack on the side of the head disables one's capacity to doubt the existence of the world.
The existence of the world is immune to rational proof, and is affirmed for us only unconsciously, because to rationalize (or objectify) existence is to manipulate it, and manipulating it puts the manipulator in a cognitively empowering role in relation to existence (or anything else). But the certain affirmation of the world's transcendence requires that the mind be in a passive role relative to the world.