1. http://happyblogger7.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1learning-summary.html?showComment=1442583929222
2. https://tmmkappa.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/theme-1-post-reflection/comment-page-1/#comment-3
3. http://platotheplatypus.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-post-reflection.html?showComment=1442587094210
4. http://vadfinnsegentligen.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-reflection.html?showComment=1442587821327
5. http://u1ifqcuc.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and-theory.html?showComment=1442592375932
6. http://aris-totall-loss.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-in-retrospect.html?showComment=1442593449699
7. http://thetheoryandmethodofeverything.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-reflections.html?showComment=1442594174786
8. http://thewind-egg.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-reflection-to-be-honest.html?showComment=1442594733125
9. http://suchapriori.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-1-reflection.html?showComment=1442595448466
10. http://capitalmyboy.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-post-theme-post.html?showComment=1442737135544
Showing posts with label Theme 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theme 1. Show all posts
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Theme 1 - Reflection
I’ll have to be honest, when I first read the text by Immanuel Kant, I understood nothing. It was all so abstract and even though I grasped the basics, the very meaning was lost on me. However, after the Monday lecture, things started to fall in place. Then after the seminar, (and after having skimmed through the text once again), I think I’m starting to understand what it was all about.
Basically, the entire discussion is about the world and our knowledge of it. The argumentation goes that we see with our mind, and not objectively with our eyes. Thus we all perceive things differently, and therefore cannot understand the world as it is without tainting it with our own opinions. One could say that there are as many worlds as there are people, since each and every one of us is the main character of our own story and perceive things from a first person view.
Kant argues exactly this, that we can’t be truly objective about things, so if we truly want to gain knowledge we have to “climb down from God’s point of view” and investigate objects as we see them. This is also what is meant by a priori, that objects can be assigned attributes based on what we know about them without having actually investigated them in person.
So while Kant says that we cannot ignore our senses, Plato argues that we can and should ignore them in order to see the world as it is. I myself have always kind of thought that you can be objective if you just distance yourself far enough, but am now having second thoughts. Perhaps it is impossible, since people do have opinions about everything, even though we don’t want to admit it (they could be subconscious of course). If one wants to be objective, one would have to distance him or herself entirely from life, which sounds like a tedious task if you ask me. But what I've understood from this weeks discussions is that there is no real answer when it comes to philosophy. Just perceptions.
Another conclusion of this week’s theme could be that we have to keep in mind that all people are different, and thus perceive the world differently. If one would relate this to our field within media technology, it would be that systems and products we develop and/or work with have to take this into consideration. The same goes for all kinds of research and investigation really. But that’s just how I perceive it.
Basically, the entire discussion is about the world and our knowledge of it. The argumentation goes that we see with our mind, and not objectively with our eyes. Thus we all perceive things differently, and therefore cannot understand the world as it is without tainting it with our own opinions. One could say that there are as many worlds as there are people, since each and every one of us is the main character of our own story and perceive things from a first person view.
Kant argues exactly this, that we can’t be truly objective about things, so if we truly want to gain knowledge we have to “climb down from God’s point of view” and investigate objects as we see them. This is also what is meant by a priori, that objects can be assigned attributes based on what we know about them without having actually investigated them in person.
So while Kant says that we cannot ignore our senses, Plato argues that we can and should ignore them in order to see the world as it is. I myself have always kind of thought that you can be objective if you just distance yourself far enough, but am now having second thoughts. Perhaps it is impossible, since people do have opinions about everything, even though we don’t want to admit it (they could be subconscious of course). If one wants to be objective, one would have to distance him or herself entirely from life, which sounds like a tedious task if you ask me. But what I've understood from this weeks discussions is that there is no real answer when it comes to philosophy. Just perceptions.
Another conclusion of this week’s theme could be that we have to keep in mind that all people are different, and thus perceive the world differently. If one would relate this to our field within media technology, it would be that systems and products we develop and/or work with have to take this into consideration. The same goes for all kinds of research and investigation really. But that’s just how I perceive it.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science
1. In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?
In “Critique of Pure Reason” by the philosopher Immanuel Kant, knowledge is discussed in terms of a priori cognition, which is a rational theory independent of experience, and its counterpart; a posteriori, which is based on empiricism and dependent of experience.
Scientific subjects such as mathematics and physics are a priori, which according to Kant was a revolutionary discovery revealed by studying the iscoceles triangle. Greek mathematicians first looked at the figure and tried to understand it based on appearance, but later found it much more enlightening when producing the properties by thinking themselves about what it represented (p.108).
However, as mathematics and physics “traveled the secure part of science” (p.107), the same could not be said about metaphysics, which faced problems even though considered a priori (p.109). To solve these problems, Kant proposed that objects should conform to our cognition instead of vice versa, and therefore change the way of previous thinking.
An example that Kant brings up is Copernicus theorem, where Copernicus could not explain the then common belief that celestial bodies traveled around our Earth, but had greater luck when assuming the contrary - that we were in fact moving around the sun. Without any real experience of how the galaxy behaved, Copernicus discovered the science by assuming that the galaxy conformed to his cognition and did not limit himself to what was earlier assumed (p.110). A “think outside the box” sort of thing so to speak.
In “Critique of Pure Reason” by the philosopher Immanuel Kant, knowledge is discussed in terms of a priori cognition, which is a rational theory independent of experience, and its counterpart; a posteriori, which is based on empiricism and dependent of experience.
Scientific subjects such as mathematics and physics are a priori, which according to Kant was a revolutionary discovery revealed by studying the iscoceles triangle. Greek mathematicians first looked at the figure and tried to understand it based on appearance, but later found it much more enlightening when producing the properties by thinking themselves about what it represented (p.108).
However, as mathematics and physics “traveled the secure part of science” (p.107), the same could not be said about metaphysics, which faced problems even though considered a priori (p.109). To solve these problems, Kant proposed that objects should conform to our cognition instead of vice versa, and therefore change the way of previous thinking.
An example that Kant brings up is Copernicus theorem, where Copernicus could not explain the then common belief that celestial bodies traveled around our Earth, but had greater luck when assuming the contrary - that we were in fact moving around the sun. Without any real experience of how the galaxy behaved, Copernicus discovered the science by assuming that the galaxy conformed to his cognition and did not limit himself to what was earlier assumed (p.110). A “think outside the box” sort of thing so to speak.
2. At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?
In the text “Thaetetus”, Plato discusses the definition of knowledge and questions the very core of the concept. At first the word gets a simple and factual explanation by one of the characters, as he counts up fields in which to have knowledge in. As the story continues, it is revealed that the concept is a little more complex than that, since “Things appear to each one such as he perceives them” (Plato p.140). Thus knowledge is a matter of perception, and therefore is not something to just behold, but something to understand. This, I think, is probably what is meant by seeing and hearing “through” the eyes and the ears instead of “with”. That is, to perceive things with the mind, much like the case with iscoceles triangle as explained earlier. I believe that this can be linked to why it is also important to be critical to information, and to remember that studies and research should be done while keeping in mind that all subjects are different.
After having googled “empiricism”, I learned that it is a theory in which “knowledge comes only and primarily from sensory experience” which very much sounds like what Plato was discussing, but differs a bit from Kants theory that knowledge comes from many factors. I think I agree more with Kant in this case, as there is also rationalism which is described as more intellectual and deducting, and even scepticism which states that it’s basically impossible to have enough justification of knowledge. Perhaps this is also an individual thing, how knowledge is aquired that is.
In the text “Thaetetus”, Plato discusses the definition of knowledge and questions the very core of the concept. At first the word gets a simple and factual explanation by one of the characters, as he counts up fields in which to have knowledge in. As the story continues, it is revealed that the concept is a little more complex than that, since “Things appear to each one such as he perceives them” (Plato p.140). Thus knowledge is a matter of perception, and therefore is not something to just behold, but something to understand. This, I think, is probably what is meant by seeing and hearing “through” the eyes and the ears instead of “with”. That is, to perceive things with the mind, much like the case with iscoceles triangle as explained earlier. I believe that this can be linked to why it is also important to be critical to information, and to remember that studies and research should be done while keeping in mind that all subjects are different.
After having googled “empiricism”, I learned that it is a theory in which “knowledge comes only and primarily from sensory experience” which very much sounds like what Plato was discussing, but differs a bit from Kants theory that knowledge comes from many factors. I think I agree more with Kant in this case, as there is also rationalism which is described as more intellectual and deducting, and even scepticism which states that it’s basically impossible to have enough justification of knowledge. Perhaps this is also an individual thing, how knowledge is aquired that is.
Sources
Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press
Plato, Theaetetus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press
Plato, Theaetetus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
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