Constructivist epistemology

1. Why according to Davis, do people serve? Do you agree with these explanations? What else might motivate service ? According to Adam Davis there are five main reasons as to why we do community service. The first reason is for devout purposes. Many people serve because of the love that they have for their God or gods. They feel that they are serving people by the grace of god. Myself being religious on occasion I serve for this reason. For me I was always told that if god gave you a gift it…

The argument against cognitivism is dubbed non-cognitivism, which is a form of expressivisim, that comes in many forms including emotivism, prescriptivism, norm expressivism, quasi-realism, and assertoric descriptivism. Cognitivism is the idea that an ethical question has a right or wrong answer simply in being, so thus in non-cognitivism one is going against this idea of black and white, or that moral absolutes does not exist. Each of the types of expressivism is unique in its approach. For…

Plato’s The Republic is one of the first books of philosophy. It utilizes the socratic method of discussion and debate to convey ideas relating to justice, politics, and finding the ultimate truth. The text is continually referenced and argued back to in almost all further philosophical conversations. In book seven of The Republic, Plato introduces an allegory which compares the experiences of prisoners in a cave to the levels of knowledge people can obtain. The allegory details a prisoner who…

What is a Theory from Carnap and Popper Rudolf Carnap and Karl Popper both are philosophers whom tried to question what is a theory. Both of these men look at the same question from different perspectives. How can one decide if a theory is scientific or not. Carnap and Popper both came up with different ways to choose which theories are more important when compared to others. It is definitely possible to agree with both Carnap and Popper’s ways of demarcation as a theory can be both verifiable…

David Hume's argument on miracles is flawed both in what he defines as a miracle and his arguments about the assessment on the evidence of miracles. There are many weaknesses in his theory which will be outlined and one of his strengths will be refuted. Hume defines a miracle as a break in the laws of nature as in his book he states "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature". He also tells us it is not rational to believe in miracles as it is more logical to believe that the natural laws…

Allegory of the Cave” is a philosophical parable or analogy from Plato’s The Republic, written around 380 BC. Exploring themes of knowledge, perception, and the importance of education, it takes the form of a discussion between Plato’s brother, Glaucon, and his teacher and mentor, Socrates. Although this dialogue was almost certainly scripted by Plato, it is not clear whether the idea itself is Plato’s own or his record of Socrates’s thoughts. The allegory begins with Plato’s Socrates…

In Maddy, What do Philosophers do, lecture 3; section 2 first examines the question that why is it if we fail at meeting the ‘from scratch’ challenge, that it weakens all our ordinary evidence. Maddy goes on to ask why is the ‘from scratch’ challenge to be so dangerous that we should just rule it out. Moore thinks it is because the philosopher doesn’t think of common sense as important while Wittgenstein thinks that skepticism and anti- skepticism are two different languages with their own rules…

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant purportedly sets out to bridge the gap between rationalism and empiricism arguing that knowledge exists both a priori and a posteriori; that is through experience (sensible intuition) and independent of experience. In doing so, Kant hopes to get closer to a formal system and/or science of philosophy. Insofar as establishing philosophy as a science is possible, Kant believed that this system could stem from a small set of mutually dependent principles. After…

“Plato and Immortality: An examination of the argument in the Republic, Book X,” an article by R. R. Hartford, argues that the tenth book of the Republic is noteworthy because of its historical influence on thought and because of Plato’s striking claims throughout. It emphasizes the Phaedrus argument, that reasoned the endless position of the spirit from which everything else lacks and shows that the Republic argument comes to the same conclusion because the soul lacks a characteristic which…

The question of whether the self can exist separately from the body is hotly debated. One argument that attempts to answer this question is called the conceivability argument. However, the conceivability argument is insufficient to prove the possibility of a non-physical self because our ability to conceive of something is flawed. The conceivability argument is in favor of dualism, suggesting the existence of a non-physical mind. It points out how if one thing can exist without another, then…